Speedball 2 (Second Review)


Title           Speedball 2 (Second Review)
Game Type       Sport
Players         1-2
Submission      Isaac Abraham

Review
Following on from the success of its predecessor, SB2 set out to improve
upon it. This it did with quite aplomb, and it wasn`t long before the
magazines were falling over one another to give it higher mark, or a bigger
review.
Playing like sensi soccer (everything seems to boil down to that, doesn`t
it), but only with bigger sprites and a smaller pitch, this has one major
difference - you are encouraged to kick, punch, and generally play as dirty
as possible, even to the point of being awarded bonus points if an opponent
is stretchered off! The main objective is to throw the ball in the
opposition`s goal, but there are various bonuses littered around the pitch
designed to enhance the play, for instance teleporting the ball from one
side of the pitch to the other, or freezing your opponents for 5 seconds,
things like that.
In two player mode, you can choose a single match, best of three, or best of
five. In between matches, money collected during matches can be spent to
upgrade your players e.g. faster, stronger, or more intelligent. I suppose
there is some scope for tactical play here, you could for instance try to
get a really aggressive team to kill your opponents, or make them fast to
run rings around your opponents.
Single player mode is much the same except you can also play in a league as
the worst team in the league, Brutal Deluxe, the objective being to (sigh)
buy better players, enhance your squad, win the cup and leagues etc.. It`s
all been done before.
In one player mode you will tire of this game fairly quickly, but in two
player mode, it`s a bit of a laugh - at least here people can`t turn off the
machine when you start fouling all the time because you`re playing too dirty
as has happened to me during SWOS tournaments =). But SB2 is a bit of an
oddity. it`s nowhere near as serious as SWOS or Sensi for a football arcade
game, even Kick Off is better in that respect. And it`s not as violent as
Brutal Sports Football either. It`s a bit of a jack of all trades, and
whilst it`s not bad, it never really had me saying "Great - now I`ve got
some free time I can play SB2", it was more like "Oh, my IDE cable is
broken, I may as well play SB2, all my other games are HD only".
Give it a whirl, but don`t expect too much.



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