Actua Sports was a sports

Sports game

A sports game is a computer or video game that simulates the practice of traditional sports. Most sports have been recreated with a game, including team sports, athletics and extreme sports. Some games emphasize actually playing the sport , whilst others emphasize strategy and organization...

 video game series published by Gremlin Interactive

Gremlin Interactive

Gremlin Interactive was a British software house based in Sheffield and working mostly in the home computer market.- History :...

 which competed with Electronic Arts

Electronic Arts

Electronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...

 EA Sports

EA Sports

EA Sports is a brand of Electronic Arts that creates and develops sports video games. Formerly a marketing gimmick of Electronic Arts, in which they tried to mimic real-life sports networks by calling themselves "EA Sports Network" with pictures or endorsements of real commentators such as John...

 label during the second half of the 1990s, until Gremlin was acquired by Infogrames

Infogrames

Infogrames Entertainment SA was an international French holding company headquartered in Paris, France. It was the owner of Atari, Inc., headquartered in New York City, U.S. and Atari Europe. It was founded in 1983 by Bruno Bonnell and Christophe Sapet using the proceeds from an introductory...

. The term "Actua" is a (seemingly marketing-related) play on Sega

Sega

, usually styled as SEGA, is a multinational video game software developer and an arcade software and hardware development company headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan, with various offices around the world...

's line of "Virtua" titled games, which included Virtua Fighter, Virtua Racing

Virtua Racing

Virtua Racing or V.R. for short, is a Formula One racing arcade game, developed by Sega-AM2 and released in October 1992. Virtua Racing was initially a proof-of-concept application for exercising a new 3D-graphics platform under development, the "Model 1". The results were so encouraging, that...

and Virtua Striker

Virtua Striker

The Virtua Striker video games are arcade-style soccer games by Sega. Originally developed by Sega AM2, the series moved to Amusement Vision with Virtua Striker 3...

.

The first game in the series was the 1995 milestone title, Actua Soccer

Actua Soccer

Actua Soccer is a football video game series that was developed by Gremlin Interactive as part of their Actua Sports series, and was the first football game to use full 3D graphics...

, which quickly became one of the most important titles of the company. One year later, it was joined by the rebirth of the Premier Manager franchise and the club version of Actua Soccer. In 1997, the first non-football game was released, Actua Golf

Actua Golf

Actua Golf is a 1996 golf video game of the Actua Sports series developed by Gremlin Interactive for the PlayStation and Sega Saturn. The success of the game resulted in sequels including Actua Golf 2 in 1997 and Actua Golf 3 in 1998....

, followed by the sequels Actua Soccer 2, now endorsed by English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 international

England national football team

The England national football team represents England in association football and is controlled by the Football Association, the governing body for football in England. England is the joint oldest national football team in the world, alongside Scotland, whom they played in the world's first...

 Alan Shearer

Alan Shearer

Alan Shearer OBE, DL is a retired English footballer. He played as a striker in the top level of English league football for Southampton, Blackburn Rovers, Newcastle United and for the England national team...

 and Premier Manager 98. The third installement in the Actua Soccer series and the Ninety-Nine edition of Premier Manager followed in 1998, the year a new title debuted in the series: Actua Ice Hockey

Actua Ice Hockey

Actua Ice Hockey is an ice hockey video game series composed by two games released in 1998 and 1999, part of Gremlin's Actua Sports series, released for Windows PCs and the PlayStation....

, the official video game of the Nagano Olympic Games ice hockey tournament, followed by Actua Tennis

Actua Tennis

Actua Tennis is a sports video game for PlayStation and Microsoft Windows, developed and published by Gremlin Interactive....

in 1999 and the last titles in the series in 2000: Actua Golf 2 and Actua Ice Hockey 2.

While the series died shortly after Gremlin was acquired by Infogrames, some of the games had further titles developed: UEFA Challenge

UEFA Challenge

UEFA Challenge is a sports video game for PlayStation, PlayStation 2 and Microsoft Windows developed and published by Infogrames Entertainment.-Gameplay:...

, developed by the now Sheffield House, was published in 2002 and the rights of the Premier Manager franchise were acquired by Zoo Digital.

Titles

Title	Also known as	Year	Platform
Actua Soccer Actua Soccer Actua Soccer is a football video game series that was developed by Gremlin Interactive as part of their Actua Sports series, and was the first football game to use full 3D graphics...	RAN Soccer (Germany)	1995	Windows Microsoft Windows Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal... , Macintosh Macintosh The Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a... , PlayStation PlayStation The is a 32-bit fifth-generation video game console first released by Sony Computer Entertainment in Japan on December 3, .The PlayStation was the first of the PlayStation series of consoles and handheld game devices. The PlayStation 2 was the console's successor in 2000... , Sega Saturn Sega Saturn The is a 32-bit fifth-generation video game console that was first released by Sega on November 22, 1994 in Japan, May 11, 1995 in North America, and July 8, 1995 in Europe... , DOS DOS DOS, short for "Disk Operating System", is an acronym for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 if one includes the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions 95, 98, and Millennium Edition.Related...
Actua Golf Actua Golf Actua Golf is a 1996 golf video game of the Actua Sports series developed by Gremlin Interactive for the PlayStation and Sega Saturn. The success of the game resulted in sequels including Actua Golf 2 in 1997 and Actua Golf 3 in 1998....		1996	PlayStation, Sega Saturn
Actua Soccer Club Edition		1996	Windows, PlayStation, Sega Saturn
Actua Golf 2 Actua Golf 2 Actua Golf 2, known as Fox Sports Golf '99 in the US, is a 1997 golf video game of the Actua Sports series developed by Gremlin Interactive for the PlayStation and Microsoft Windows...		1997	PlayStation
Actua Soccer 2		1997	Windows, PlayStation
Actua Ice Hockey Actua Ice Hockey Actua Ice Hockey is an ice hockey video game series composed by two games released in 1998 and 1999, part of Gremlin's Actua Sports series, released for Windows PCs and the PlayStation....		1998	Windows, PlayStation
Actua Soccer 3		1998	Windows, PlayStation
Actua Golf 3		1999	PlayStation
Actua Ice Hockey 2		1999	PlayStation, Windows
Actua Pool Actua Pool Actua Pool is a sports simulation video game developed by British company Gremlin Interactive as part of their highly successful Actua Sports series of sport simulators of the mid-to-late 1990s...	Pool Shark	1999	PlayStation, Windows
Actua Tennis Actua Tennis Actua Tennis is a sports video game for PlayStation and Microsoft Windows, developed and published by Gremlin Interactive....		1999	Windows, PlayStation
Actua Pool Actua Pool Actua Pool is a sports simulation video game developed by British company Gremlin Interactive as part of their highly successful Actua Sports series of sport simulators of the mid-to-late 1990s...	Underground Pool (North America)	2007	Nintendo DS Nintendo DS The is a portable game console produced by Nintendo, first released on November 21, 2004. A distinctive feature of the system is the presence of two separate LCD screens, the lower of which is a touchscreen, encompassed within a clamshell design, similar to the Game Boy Advance SP...

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