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Ultimate Beach Soccer
by Jolex Del Pilar
Saturday, November 1 2003
ESPN's most obscurely shown sport finally gets its own game. Read our review inside.
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Title:
Ultimate Beach Soccer
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Platform:
Xbox
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Publisher:
Dreamcatcher Interactive |
Developer:
Power and Magic Development |
#
of Players: 1 - 4 |
Genre:
Sports
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Origin:
France
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Expected
Release:
October 2003 |
Grapevine:
Beach Soccer apparently has a following. France has over 1600 players alone in their amateur leagues. |
Ultimate Beach Soccer actually caught us a little by surprise when it landed on our desk. We didn't actually know it was a soccer game until we loaded up the disc and actually read the box title. If you're unfamiliar with the sport of "beach soccer", then you are in friendly company. Apparently, this is a popular sport in Europe with thousands of participants in amateur and professional leagues. I do remember seeing a second or two of it on ESPN before quickly changing the channel to Enterprise (I know, I know... but Jolene Blaylock is a babe).
The game is obviously not trying to compete with EA's FIFA series in anyway. For one thing, beach soccer only allows six players per side on the field at any one time. FIFA fans will also notice that Beach Soccer's ...err.. beach... is not quite as large as a regulation soccer field. This does make for faster paced gameplay in the end, and if you're not a soccer purist, this makes things a little more fun for you. Besides the funky music, and half-naked dancing groupie girls, the game also features a lot of off-the-wall gameplay manuevers such as spinning bicycle kicks, diving catches, and a few slides or tackles. The gameplay is exaggerated and simplistic, but that could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your views of how soccer should be played as a video game. The game is very fast paced compared to your traditional soccer game, and if that turns you off, then FIFA might be more your style.
Once you pick a gameplay mode (Arcade mode, season mode, etc), you get to pick a team from the international scene including teams from the U.S, Japan, and Europe. Each seems to have certain strengths and weaknesses that affect gameplay. Still if you happen to fall behind in a game, apparently the heavens above literally grant you super powers so that the gap between you and the other team can be closed. In fact, I found it better to let the computer steal the momentum of a game, and then when my powers were bestowed upon me, I would use them to quickly score goals in succession. While I do realize that the "powers" option was installed to help give players a chance to comeback from a deficit, I found that the option actually encouraged letting the other team get an early lead. Bad design, or game exploit? You decide.
From a visual standpoint, there's nothing bad about Ultimate Beach Soccer, in fact it looks pretty good, but it's not going to push the systems limits anytime soon. However, the visuals are about ten times better than the sound in this game. While the off-tune hip hop music isn't quite as annoying as you might think, the quippy announcers need to choke on a sharp, hopefully rusty, object. With nothing of intelligence to say, I found myself looking for an option to remove them all together.
Ultimate Beach Soccer is probably going to sell a lot better across the Atlantic than it will here state side. Put simply, the sport's popularity is almost non-exisitant here in the U.S. However, at it's core, the game is a fast paced version of FIFA, with less realism, slightly clunkier controls, and more arcade hijinks. That might not make it a classic, but it will be fun for some, especially fans of soccer (non-purist).
--- Jolex Del Pilar
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