A Gaming Diary
Posts tagged football
Deadball Specialist (iPhone)
Jul 5th
Hitting that target won't be easy - and this is one of the simplest levels.
Similar to Flick Kick Football on the surface, Deadball Specialist is more exacting and has a completely different structure. If Flick Kick is the Ridge Racer of free kick games, Deadball Specialist is the Gran Turismo. Tough and rewarding, it makes an excellent companion to Flick Kick Football, but if you’re only going to buy one, this probably isn’t the one to get, good as it is.
Flick Kick Football (iPhone)
Jul 5th
In a recent article Touch Arcade talked about three games about kicking stationary balls into the back of nets.
They were 59p each, so I bought them all. (Not all at once, mind, but over three days.)
irst up, Flick Kick Football, an insanely brilliant game from the makers of Flick Kick Field Goal. (Which used to be excellent, but which has been kicked out of the door and into the street with nothing but the clothes on its back now Flick Kick Football has appeared.)
Ignore my high score in the corner there, it's much better now.
There’s a ball, probably some cardboard-cutout defenders and a goal. You flick your finger to kick the ball, adding curve to get round the obstacles and into the goal. It feels just right and the quest for higher and higher scores left my battery panting and gasping for breath. (I bought it on Friday evening. By Saturday afternoon I’d played for three hours.)
The illusion is broken if you try to kick the ball slowly, so don’t do that, but otherwise I don’t have a single complaint to make. Brilliantly presented, tuned to perfection and 59p – it’s what iPhone gaming’s all about.
World Soccer Champs 2010 (iPhone)
Jul 5th
So, yeah, I got into the second round of the World Cup at the weekend. A feat I’ve not managed before or since. Okay, so I then got knocked out by Australia, of all people, but I was still proud of my performance.
It may not look like much in that screen shot, but it's a fantastically rewarding footie game.
It’s a tough game – though I seem to find it tougher than a lot of other people – but it’s very satisfyng. It always feels like the game rewards understanding and skillful play. It’s not an instant smash hit, but it’s definitely a grower.
It doesn’t seem to be selling very well, which is a crying shame, as it deserves an awful lot of love.
I just wish it didn’t keep locking up my phone and forcing a hard reset when it decides I haven’t got enough free memory. Bit of a bugger, that – especially as I seem to be the only person with the problem.
World Soccer Champs (iPhone)
Jul 1st
Lovely penalty there.
Tried out the Tournament (i.e. World Cup) mode last night. Despite winning a game, my England team failed to get past the group stages. Oh well.
World Soccer Champs 2010 (iPhone)
Jun 30th
Wasn’t sure what to expect with this one. Top-down footie games normally try to be Sensible Soccer, but fail.
So it was with some trepidation that I paid my £1.19 and started up the game.
I made the mistake of starting to play without reading the instructions. Don’t do that. You see, the game’s got a lovely passing mechanic that you simply won’t discover until you read the instructions telling you how to do it. (Or maybe you will, if you’re not as stupid as me. I don’t know. Maybe you’re some sort of robot-headed football game genius. I’m not making any assumptions.)
So, I thought I liked the game, but wasn’t sure.
It's better than Striker on the Super Nintendo, at least.
After reading the instructions, I knew I liked the game. Oh, it’s a bit of a mess when I’m defending, but that’s always the case with me and footie games. Attacking is absolutely lovely, though – and I’ve even managed to score some goals. Hooray!
I think I’ve nearly played as many matches of this game as I have of the official FIFA World Cup game already, which is quite impressive.
It may or may not be to your taste, I really don’t know, but I’m throughly enjoying and think it’s well worth trying.
FIFA World Cup (iPhone)
Jun 29th
I was playing as Brazil.
Once again, my iPhone predict-o-tron fails me, but at least it got the winners right for once.
That was my first game on Semi-Pro difficulty. I’m not sure if that’s why I conceded a goal or whether it was because Robinho got sent off about five minutes in. Putting the difficultly up hasn’t stopped the AI running around like a blind, suicidal chicken, which is a pity. I’d been assuming the idiotic runs my opponents sometimes made were due to the difficulty level of the game, rather than just poor AI. Mind you, I’m still only playing one level up from the bottom, so things might improve yet.
FIFA World Cup (iPhone)
Jun 28th
So, I ran through yesterday’s games to get the results I wanted.
I made it all better!
Yay Mexico! Hooray!
You know, the more I play FIFA, the more I like it. It’s a great little footie game. For quick games where I can play current World Cup matches, it’s just about perfect. Very enjoyable stuff. I might put the difficulty level up at some point, but right now being able to play games I know I’ll win is just what I want.
FIFA World Cup (iPhone)
Jun 21st
What was that match on Friday night? Who were England? Not a team, just eleven men who looked like they’d never met before. Except, no, not eleven men – nine men, whatever the hell Rooney is and the unquiet ghost of Emile Heskey.
And a bird on a goal making a mockery of the whole thing.
At least I had FIFA here so I could play the match myself and get a better result.
Aaaaaah, much better.
In my version we won comfortably and Rooney scored with a gorgeous chip over the keeper that, had it been, you know, real, would have gone down as one of the best goals of the tournament.
Sigh.
FIFA World Cup (iPhone)
May 19th
This is actually a decent little football game. The arrows showing where your passes will go are a very nice touch, the buttons being labelled with actual words are good, the analogue stick appearing where you put your thumb help the controls… it just feels like someone sat down and actually thought about the game and didn’t just shove a World Cup skin on a standard football game template.
The replay viewer has more features than you might expect in a mobile game.
There are issues, of course. Player switching can be painful and there’s a distinct lack of teams compared to FIFA 10, obviously enough. I’m not even sure how well it would stand up to huge amounts of play. But for me, wanting just to play a quick game of footie now and again, this is just about right.
Of course, there’s X2 Football 2010 out now, which everyone’s raving about. I’ve not tried that (yet) and it might be a better game than FIFA, but unless I’m missing some horrendous bugs or exploits (perfectly possible given my limited time with the game) I can’t see anyone feeling too ripped off if they buy this.
FIFA 10 (iPhone)
Apr 30th
The new World Cup edition of the game came out last night, so I played some of FIFA 10 to see if it was actually any good. And, yes, it is. I don’t think I managed to score a goal, but it felt good under my thumbs. It’s got a bit of a reputation online, but I’m not too sure why. On the field, where it counts, it’s a very decent game.
I never touched him!
So, yes, in the early hours of the morning, still mostly asleep, I opened up the App Store and bought the World Cup game. Impressions next week.
