Saturday 28 July 2012

The Great Playthrough: Game 17 - Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe

I have resolved my RF issues! Well, by resolved, I mean I've had to move a VHS player into the lounge to run the RF through, but anyway, I can play the consoles again! So here it is, the long promised...


Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe
Released on: Acorn Archimedes (yes, that's right), Atari ST, Amiga, CD32, PC, C64 (Yes, really!), NES, Sega Megadrive, Sega Master System, Game Boy and Game Boy Advance.
Played on: Sega Megadrive
Released in: 1990

So, I can now fire up the Megadrive again - and as a result, I can review Speedball 2, a game that a lot of retro gamers rave about, and believe is one of the greatest sports games from the 8/16 bit eras.

My problem with it? It's still a sports game. And there's not many of those I like to play. But I approached it with an open mind - mostly, it has to be said, because I'm always a fan of sci-fi and futuristic settings, and I hoped that it would turn out to be a fun and entertaining time.

Sadly, it was about as entertaining as watching Ann Widdicombe perform a striptease to a Jedward song (and I apologise for the image, but you'll appreciate now how I feel about Speedball 2). The game drops you right in with nothing in the way of an introduction (a common situation in 16-bit games) which is fine, but instead of dropping you into a game, it lets you choose whether you want to play 1 player or 2, and play a single match, or a league, or a cup game.... and then you get into a horrendously confusing stats screen where you can enhance your team. Except I didn't really understand what I was doing, because none of the abbreviations seemed to make any sense.

Once you've finally made it out of the statistical hellhole, (by clicking on the ESC button no less.... Surely common sense would mean that the ESC button cancels what you've done? Or is that just me), then you end up playing your game. And this is where the game really lost me.

I don't know if this applies to any of you who read this blog, as you might all LOVE sports games, but I felt that this game suffered from the basic issues that tend to plague sports games, particularly of that era.

Now before we continue, let me explain what my problem is with sports games. It's not (surprisingly) that I don't enjoy sport in real life. (I don't enjoy sport in real life, but I don't enjoy fighting, or jumping on the heads of wierd shaped beings, or dropping strange shaped blocks down a well in real life either - however I do enjoy games that involve these other activities - just not sport.) It's that whenever you have a sport that is a team game, you end up having to control the whole team. And the computer just doesn't seem to understand that it would be a good idea that you can choose which player you control at any one time. I know more modern sports games have (mostly) fixed this issue - and that's why I can play the occasional game of FIFA [insert year here] without flinging the controller across the room in disgust - but sadly, Speedball 2 is from the era where you control whichever player you were controlling until the computer decides another player is closer to the ball, and swaps your control. This is OK if they are both on screen, but often, as the screen follows the ball, the player you are controlling can be left behind, and then there's none of your players on screen, and you don't know who you're controlling - and then, when your player finally appears on the screen, it turns out that you've been making them run in the wrong direction for several minutes....

I had other issues with the game too - although a lot of these may well be blamed on the fact that I'm not very good at it - but I found that the shots were hard to line up, the tackles hard to exact and it was not very clear what things award you points in order to win.

I've got not much else to say about Speedball 2 - I didn't make the full hour of play, and to be honest, I'm quite happy that I didn't. Although, it has put the worrying thought into my mind that all the other sports games in my collection are also going to be this unplayable for me... ("But Brawny, I hear you cry, why would you buy the sports games if you don't enjoy them?" - Answer: They usually came with the console....)

For now, however, I am done with sports, as the next game is Zelda: Four Swords on the Game Boy Advance (played on the 3DS). 

Rating: 1/10
Time Played: About 10-15 mins.
Will I play it again?: Nope.

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