Brutal Sports Football Review
Randy BORL
Okay:
Well, my local store got 6 copies yesterday and I had one reserved. I
have now played many games and feel qualified to make a review.
The basics: Ever play (with apologies to the politically correct) smear
the queer? This is the video game version of that Its actually a blend
of that, soccer and football. Your guys run around the field, picking up
objects with which ti do in your opponents, or tackle them to get the
ball, pass from one player to another, kick the ball, or what have
you...whatever it takes to get it down field and into scoring position.
There is a opening at each end of the field where you can either run the
ball into or throw it in. There is a guy back there acting like a goalie,
and he makes lots of diving and sliding grabs of the ball. Your guys,
aside from pummelling and getting pummelled, have finishing moves of sorts
(stomping, fire breathing) as the stomping button provides for. You can
also behead people with swords, axes, etc you find lying on the field.
When a guy is beheaded he can't play any more for that game. I had a 3-0
lead (goals like soccer, not 7 point touchdowns), and lost it because
quite frankly I didn't have enough live bodies on the field to make
tackles! On the other hand, the winner is also determined by either the
highest number of goals or if you should kill 6 or the 7 opposing players.
I was down 7-1, chopped off a guy's head, and was immediately announced
the winner (before I even knew about that rule!) You get money for
winning, which you can spend in the locker room re-capitating your guys,
pumping up their lifeline (EKG style), or just applying first aid to get
them back into shape. The more money you have, the healthier you can get
the team for the next match. You can pick any team in a league (most of
them look like bearded vikings), play head to head against someone else,
etc. You can also determine how you want the game to play. There are 4
levels of difficulty, including the ability to autoswitch from one player
to another as the field scrolls, lock certain players etc.
There appears to be no battery backup, but you get long Madden-style
passwords to resume your league play where you left off later.
Here are the power ups you can get: Sword, Magic potion (renders your
player invisible for awhile), shield, grenades, bomb, rabbit (speed), ice
cub (ices opponents), running ball (ball sprouts legs and follows you),
repel icon, axe, lightning.
In two player mode you have a direction reverse powerup which reverses
your opponents controls nad a teams swap, during which teams swap
controls.
You can position your team using buttons 1, 2 and 3 for defense, normal
and aggressive (no overlay included), and you have a radar to tell you
where all the players are. Oh one more thing. If you end in a tie, the
ball is thrown out and sudden death means butchery. 1st one to kill 6 of
the other guys wins.
Strategies:
Still figuring these out...but basically violence is the best strategy.
Nail your opponent early and often, especially when he's near a goal. I
found one thing I could do is kick it up in the air and when the opponent
jumped up to grab it I'd come in and axe him. This is a fun game for 2
players! Also, the locker room strategy is important too, since you can
bestow both health *and* speed to your players, so you could try to pump
up everyone evenly or have a few superstars.
Critique to follow in next message:
Graphics: 7
These graphics are colorful and crisp, but the animations are less than
awe inspiring. Maybe its because the hulks running around the field are,
shall we say, less than supple? The animations are neat sometimes. There
are splats of blood flying, swords a swinging, diving tackles, kicking
objects (included the beheaded craniums of players), kicks anywhere on the
field, passes, diving interceptions, and stomping (the BSF equivalent of a
MK fatality). The graphics are cute and should be worth a few grins. The
area of the field you can see is somewhat narrow. Telegames puts up a
"radar screen" at the top so you can see where everyone is, but I don't
want to play dots...I want to play ball! I never use it. Maybe later
when I don't feel like I'm going to get creamed the instant I take my eyes
of the action... The "normal" rating for these graphics would be 7, but
for those waiting for 64-bit graphics, these aint them...Also the turf is
affected by play. As people pow into the turf, explode bombs, the turf
gets more and more ripped up, making the screen more cluttered. In
addition, when a head is lying around on the field it looks like its still
floating in the air. The view is a little too tight in for my taste and
its hard to know where people are, even with the radar screen. The
graphics overall are cartoony and resemble a lot of SNES game graphics,
though there are more colors and the picture looks more crisp.
Sound effects: 4
These are tinny, with no apparent surround or stereo effects. Nothing
sounds particularly realistic except perhaps punting the ball. There
isn't much more to say here....I'm really disappointed in these. My
wife's words were "underwhelmed"
Music: 7
The music isn't terrible, but nor does it win any awards. Its crisp and
clean and somewhat barbaric in overtone. Its classic synthesized fare,
but doesn't seem to change any and is just a fairly upbeat rock piece that
neither annoys or particularly pleases....I can take it or leave it...wish
there had been better music....
Control: 9
Control is generally a hit or miss thing. It either works or it doesn't.
I found the control to be responsive and easy to play. To me, poor
control is control I have to think about during the game. After a few
seconds, my mind was engrossed in the game and I didn't have to think
about the controls much, if at all. That's solid control. The response
is there and no complaints there. However, the documentation of that
control is abysmal! See below
Documentation: 3
When you put into a manual "options explained on screen" you better MEAN
It. Sadly, Telegames didn't. You are told that the various options for
controlling are explained on the screen, but "Change on release" is pretty
vague. So do I switch control from the guy with the ball to ... whom?
And what about when I don't have the ball? How do I switch players?
Things like this are very poor. There are also other vague descriptions
in the manual which leave you a little confused when you play the game and
it doesn't seem to work as described....oh and there's no overlay.
Gameplay: 8
Solid, fast action gaming. If you like a soccer paced game albeit thats
very violent (heck why bother scoring, just kill everyone!) then you'll
like the gameplay here. You can learn all kinds of techniques for
playing. I'd have to say if I were mixing this game up like a recipe it
would be:
1 part football
2 parts soccer (more like soccer than football, as the ball is just all
over the place)
1 part hockey (field gets messed up during play)
2 parts Mortal Kombat (complete with fatalities e.g. stomping)
1 part Mario (picking up things and using them).
Many of the strategy parts of the above games are incorporated into BSF in
a violent cesspool of beheadings, stabbings, tackles, stompings,
leap-in-the-air catches, dives, lighting strikes, etc...Maybe I should add
another part of Mortal Kombat...well, maybe not...One thing this game
isn't is boring, at least in my opinion.
Fun Factor: 1 player ( 8 ), 2 players (9)
I give it a grudging 8 for one player, because the game wants me to play
more. I could easily do the "one more game" routine for awhile on this
one....trying to get better (I'm still in novice mode), but have now won 6
in a row. Like most sports and fighting games, this is a good one for two
players, and the more competitive/combative they are the more fun they
will have. This game can provide a good change of pace from the
stereotype sports game or fighting game, and provide enough different
techniques and strategies to keep you playing.
Value: 4
I put it this way because the game sells for $69.99. This is a ridiculous
price for this game. It is just not good enough in too many areas to
justify a price this high. At $49.99, I'd say its value was good, because
its better than a few of the early Jaguar games, but is no Tempest 2000 by
any means. Telegames is testing the waters here, and I think they're
going to find that they can't sell a game like this this high, unless they
just figure that too many people don't have games for the Jaguar so market
supply and demand indicate they can charge this price. It would be a
stretch to price this game at $59.99 too, but would be more acceptable
than the unacceptable $69.99.
64-bitness: 3
Why this category? Jaguar owners are still waiting for proof of the
superiority of the Jaguar -> this ain't it! It is neither a system
seller or a must-have title. The graphics, while crisp and colorful, may
technically be better than Genesis or SNES graphics, but is this the kind
of power we bought in for when we got the Jaguar? The characters look
very much like something you'd see on a good SNES title. The sound
samples are 16-bit quality, the music is clean and crisp, but again, no
Tempest killer here!, and the gameplay, while good and a lot of fun,
doesn't stand out from the 16-bit titles much. The game also is choppy
sometimes during the animation and I have to question just how much work
Telegames put into making this game really use the Jaguar's
capabilities...(where have we heard *this* before?)
I cannot in good conscience recommend that anyone pay $69.99 + tax for a
game that is just "okay". I'm sure that some people are going to say that
the game is bad or a piece of trash and it isn't. Its just okay. But for
many Jaguar owners, "Just okay" isn't good enough, so while this might be
a solid game to add to the collection and get some enjoyment out of, its
not $69.99 worth of fun...regardless of what Telegames thinks. This is an
enjoyable game that is snakebit by being just OKAY for a system that needs
FABULOUS, and is priced too high for many to settle for just GOOD.
Randy