Eat the Whistle

Title           Eat the Whistle
Game Type	Sport
Publisher       Epic Marketing
Players         1 or 2
Compatibility   AGA
HD Installable  Unknown
Submission      Nikos Andreou

Review
DISAPPOINTMENT. That was the  feeling I had when I first played the
game. I was surprised by the highly rated reviews on the press. I really
regret for giving £14.99 to buy it. Why? Read the review and you will
understand....

ETW is a typical soccer game with a pseudo-3D perspective similar to
some old soccer games like John Barnes Football. The concept behind the
game is to make a new Sensible Soccer. From the intoduction you can
understand that it's a badly designed game. The graphics are poor and
everything looks jerky. A nice bit though is that you see a different
intro every time you load the game.

There are a lot of options in the game. You can play the World Cup,
there is an Arcade Mode which reminds me of Speedball 2, and the usual
Friendly Game option. You can specify the resolution that you wish to
play (320x200 or 640x480), if you want speech or crowd fx, duration etc.

So what's wrong with the game? At first the graphics are quite nice but
there is no scrolling (!) but a fast flick-screen...And please don't try
the hi-res mode. It's SLOWWWWW. If you can live with that, how about the
fact that you don't control the players in most of the game? Players
seem to avoid going on the ball and sometimes they prefer to go for tea
with the crowd!!! The sound is terrible as well. The speech is an option
that is poorly executed (the speaker repeats words, doesn't finish the
sentences etc). And forget about the authentic names of the players. The
Arcade Mode is slightly better just for the idea to play with bonuses
(increase players' speed etc.) but suffers from the same drawbacks
mentioned above.

The game has endless bugs and makes me wonder if it was playtested. It
is possible to be taking penalty kicks and suddenly, in the middle of the
procedure, see the players take the ball and start playing a third half!!!
So is there anything good? Just a good idea that is poorly executed. The
game needs a lot of work. As it is it doesn't deserve anything higher
that 35%.

Alphabetical list.