Virtua Striker 2

"An annoying game, saved by a great 2 player experience"

In pretty much every arcade the world over, Virtua Striker 2 can be found. With such widespread popularity, you'd expect the Dreamcast conversion to be an unequivocal success. But sadly it isn't. Harsh but true. However there are numerous points which stop it from being a complete failiure. Let's have a look, shall we?

Firstly it must be said that Virtua Striker 2 looks like everything you'd expect from a Sega arcade conversion - brilliant, in a word. The players are chunky and well defined, the stadiums look very convincing and the whole thing moves at an incredible speed. Sadly this seems to be one of the main problems - it just plays too damn fast. Whilst football games which slow the action down tend to get panned for doing so, the whole thing plays so frenetically that it becomes quite a chore to play.

For the single player there are a few modes. Firstly is Arcade which bears pretty much no resemblance to real football. There's no half time and you basically play through some kind of tournament to the end. There are also the cup and league modes in which you do actually have two halves in a match (just to prove the programmers do actually know something about the sport!), which are decided improvement over the Arcade mode. Sadly the whole thing is marred by the OTT difficulty level. I played the game solidly for hours and managed to score about 2 goals and lost pretty much every match. Even now, 6 months after I bought the game, I still haven't got past the qualifying rounds of the world cup. Having an Arcade Stick does improve matters somewhat, but it's still too tough, which ultimately leaves a solo experience which isn't at all enjoyable.

Whilst the graphics make a good representation of the sport, other things don't - for a start there's no commentary, which has existed in all soccer games now for years. Also there's only a handful of teams you can play as, all of which are international teams. Considering the blurb on the box which claims it's the most realistic representation of football ever, this is a real con. There's also no player names at all. Whilst games which don't have an official license get away with giving dodgy spellings of players names (David Beckum, Michael Owin, etc.), the players are completely identity free. Perhaps the most irritating point of the game I found though, was the fact that there is absolutely no way to defend from crosses. Basically if your opposition gets a cross into the penalty area, then they're going to score. No matter what.

In spite of all these problems though, there are a few points which save it from complete damnation. Firstly is the inclusion of a Goal Ranking. Whenver you score a goal, it is given a rank. So 3 yard tap-ins will get a meagre score, whereas a spectacular 30 yard volley will get you much kudos. You can even save the replay onto your memory card to gloat over in the future, should you so wish. It's only a small feature, but it's a good one. However the main saving grace is the multi-player experience. Whilst for some reason you can only have 2 players (WHY?!!), the hectic nature of the gameplay is perfectly suited to this type of game. Basically it's a complete laugh and is the main selling point of this game. Since so little skill is involved in playing the game, no one has an unfair advantage and you'll spend hours at it.

Sadly though, this is the only real recommendation I can make. As a multi-player game it's damn good fun, but the solo experience is a complete travesty. Sure it looks nice, but it just doesn't feel like a football game. Not without merit, but still certainly one to be approached with caution.

GRAPHICS - 8/10 - Some slowdown at times, but a perfect arcade conversion. Big, bold and chunky and very high resolution.

SOUND - 6/10 - The crowd chants are actually quite good (I could've sworn I heard them shouting ''w*nker!'' at one point), but no commentary and poor music.

GAMEPLAY - 5/10 - The solo game would get 2/10 for being utterly awful, but the score is bolstered by a ludicrously entertaining 2 player mode.

LIFESPAN - 5/10 - Again it depends on whether you'll be playing it alone or not. If so, then you'll get frustrated in minutes, but the 2 player mode will bring you back quite a lot.

OVERALL - 5/10 - Flawed but occassionally quite entertaining. Even so, there's nothing to recommened it over the far superior UEFA Dream Soccer, aside from the pretty graphics.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 01/05/03, Updated 01/05/03