Sega Soccer Slam

"Great game. No buy."

I enjoyed this game. It brought some light to the slew of soccer oriented games that have come out on the Nintendo Gamecube. Overall the game wouldn’t last long enough to be worth your 50$. It is though, worthy of a trip to your local video rental store to rent.

Gameplay-8
This game played smoothly. The field was shorter than a regulation soccer field and you had only 3 players on your team. The good thing was each of your characters had his or her own personality. Each player played like you would expect them to. The tall characters were slower but could slide tackle well. The big characters hit hard and were extremely slow. The girls were usually fast and had good passing. The teams were each unique even though they could have had more. They way you bought items with money you earned from winning games was unique. Even more unique was how each character would wear the items you bought for them in the game. This showed that the developers actually spent some time working on this fine game. The turbo and powerup options were fun and interesting with the characters turning into what ever there name suggests. An example would be the Toxic turning into green flaming skeletons. All the kicks were usually acrobatic and powerful. The characters would do flips and hit the ball with their head or they might turn around backwards and boot it in with their heel. Even though most of the things the characters did in the game were not humanly possible, the game made you feel like you were right there playing with them. One downside to the game was the fact that the goalies were easy to get past and the defensive computer players wouldn’t attack you often. While I was playing I did not have to pass the ball to score on the goalie. Although it had it’s flaws this game The points system was quite often confusing with points being awarded for passing shooting and deking. You would use these points to powerup and sometimes do a killer kick. The killer kick was an added feature where your character passes the ball to a character by kicking it way up in the air and the corresponding character would almost stop time and kick it while in the air. It results in a kick that hits the goalie and causes him to fly back into the net. If you were lucky and had your character next to the goal after it bounced off the goalie you could tap it in. The last downside is how the single player works. If I wanted to play by myself during single player mode it would get boring. I disliked playing 10 games because I thought it was way too many. Not to mention the extra Gold vs. Platinum game and the two final games if you do well. Overall I have to admit this is the best soccer game I’ve ever played because it’s violent. It might sound cruel but it’s not. The character beats the crap out of another character simply by pressing b when you don’t have the ball. This is why, I think, this is the best soccer game I’ve ever played. That option is something Fifa and other soccer games don’t have. THEY HAVE RULES. Another thing is that irritating little celebration after they make a goal I really don’t want to see that.

Graphics-4
As far as I’m concerned graphics aren’t everything. Look at games like Earthbound and the original Super Mario Bros. They aren’t visually impressive, but none the less there classics. This game doesn’t utilize the Gamecube power. The characters are sometimes blocky and shaded. Really there’s not much to say about this except. I have seen better looking soccer games that played horrible. The stadiums looked pretty good in this game each looked different from the other. The good thing was you could unlock new ones. I really liked that feature. I guess this is a soccer game that plays really good except it doesn’t look good.

Audio-2
The Audio isn’t very good simply put. I couldn’t understand what the announcer or announcers were/was saying because the crowd was so loud. This is where Sega messed up. The Audio being even worse than the Graphics is the downfall of this game. It lacks the ingenuity in the game that other Sega games have. I do have to say that it doesn’t beat the Fifa games in this department. Since they had so little characters they could have had announcer say their names during the game not just when they scored a goal.

Replayability-6
It’s a good game for multiplayer. Heck it’s a great game for multiplayer, but the singleplayer could be better. With two players the replayability is 8 with one 6. The biggest and most common gripe is were are the extra teams? Why aren’t they there? Don’t ask me ask Sega.. Man, would this game be good if they had like maybe 10 or 12 teams. They just plain didn’t have enough. Those extra teams could have been a feature to unlock once you beat the game. That would have been real cool.

To Buy or to Rent
It’s tough to say. As far as I’m concerned it’s worth a rent not a buy. Mainly because if you have 50 bucks, I would wait and save it because in August the Nintendo Gamecube has some great games coming out and that’s the main reason I wouldn’t buy this game. The final reason is it just doesn’t last long enough. That’s the bottom line.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/01/02, Updated 07/01/02