Virtua Striker 2

"Not so good, as football games go."

Today the market is saturated with football games (soccer for the Americans). We have leading brands in the form of FIFA and ISS. However, there are many contenders to the high prestige in which these two sit. One such game is Virtua Striker. However, can this game get the golden goal?

Story:

Short of writing out the entire rules of football, there is no story for which I can write about. Basically, you play as one team, and you have to score more goals than the other team to win the match.

Gameplay:

There are quite a few of the options that you see in almost every football game today: Arcade, League, Cup, Penalty
Shoot-Outs etc. Arcade is the normal one match, where you can pick any team for any match. League and Cup are just like their real life counterparts, Penalty Shoot-Out is taking penalties.

It is quite strange that Sega of all people have managed to suck most of the fun out of this footy game. With only three buttons used, it works great as an arcade game (which it was, on Naomi), but for a console game, it isn't good enough. Also, the controls are too unresponsive. It takes a noticeable pause before the game responds to whatever button you've pressed, and by that time, the ball has usually been taken off you.

Also, there are no substitutions, the players have no names, and you pick from a set number of tactics. In ISS 98, on the N64, you could pick your team, set tactics, and even modify them to your individual needs. All the players had names (even though they were wrong), and you could even create your own player. However, Virtua Stiker 2 has none of this. All in all, very disappointing.

Graphics:

Despite the games obvious flaws in Gameplay, this game has some super-silky graphics. The pitch looks smooth, the players look great, and the ball looks like it fly out of your screen and you could start kicking it around.

It's a shame that a Sega game relies more on Graphics than on Gameplay, because to tell you the truth, the Graphics are far superior to a game of this quality. If only they'd had such good graphics on some games which weren't necessarily great graphics, but a good game, because the gameplay does these graphics a great injustice.

Sounds:

There's no commentary, which always annoys me if its not there, as it should be. Even if you hire two bums from the street to do it, you should, in my opinion, always have some commentary (same for all sports games). Aside from that, the sounds for this game are, in truth, pretty average.

Replayability:

Really this game was meant as an arcade game, and that's what it does well. However, Arcade games you don't keep on playing, as you run out of coins sooner or later. However, with this, you don't have that restriction, and so there isn't lots to keep you going.

To Buy/To Rent:

If you must play this game, then either rent it, or go to your local arcade and play it there, because if you buy it, you'll soon get sick of it.

Instead, try and get UEFA 2001, which is a lot better as a football game.

5/10

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 11/29/02, Updated 05/09/03