More fun than a chocolate covered page 3 pin-up!
The release date was timed perfectly for the start of the world cup and all that football fever so I went to acquire a copy and to my excitement the game pleased me before I’d even got it home. Imagine my joy when I found the game priced not at a ridiculously high £37.99 like most new games, but actually at a quite reasonable £19.99! This was cause for a celebratory pint.
Right, so I’ve bought the game, had a pint (maybe two), and now rounding up 3 of my mates to come and have a bash on Sensible Soccer 2006!
As expected my friends give a similarly enthused and joyous reaction to the news of my latest game acquisition. Beer is purchased and pizza is ordered!!
There we have it, the football game of my childhood all new and revamped, beer, 3 mates, and pizza on the way. What more could anyone want?
So its time for my actual review; the first thing I noticed, which wasn’t good. The loading times felt like eternities, this would have been very irritating, however I realised something. These are intentional loading delays so that blokes like me have plenty of time to take a few mouthfuls of beer and waffle down a slice of pre-match pizza. A true spark of genius from Kuju Entertainment!
Once the loading was out of the way, and I was one stage closer to serious hear disease, the game kicked off. The graphics are almost perfect; they capture the whole fun ideals behind the game and the animation of the players is great. There’s not a lot that can be said for the visuals, nothings breathtaking and to some it might seem a lazily designed game, but this is the whole point. The game is simple; you pick it up, have a laugh, that’s it. It’s not supposed to be realistic, and I don’t want it to be, its fun with a big pair of red floppy clown shoes.
The tournament features are great; I just wish I had enough friends to have a massive league. Unfortunately I only have 3, so this just wasn’t possible. If anyone out there has 16 or so friends, I would suggest a sensible soccer league or cup night with masses of beer.
One of the features I really loved with the original game was the ability to customise the players. I changed an entire team to my school friend’s names, all with their correct hair colours, taking special care to spell everything correctly. I spent hours getting my team exactly right. The new game makes all these features available again which would be brilliant; if I could be bothered to actually make any changes (other than renaming Birmingham City to “Scum”) and renaming Aston Villa to be spelt correctly.
The last thing I would make comment on is that balance of the game is very good, with realistic score lines. No silly 10-0 victories took place in our matches.
In summary this isn’t a Pro Evo or Fifa competitor, It’s a different sort of game, aimed I believe at a different audience, time and place. It’s defiantly a party game to play with friends. I’d defiantly take this over Pro Evo or Fifa any day of the week.
A brilliant job well done by Codemasters and Kuju!