Tony Meola's Sidekick Soccer

"Tony Meola?, who the hell is Tony Meola?"

Ok, I know who he was, Tony Meola was the American goalie in the 1994 USA World Cup, but what I am wondering is, was Tony Meola such a good player to use his name to try to sell a video game?, maybe it was because the World Cup was hosted by USA, but as in the USA no one gives a damn about soccer, Tony Meola was probably chosen because of his catchy name, or maybe not, who cares anyway?, into the game:

Gameplay:
At the beginning Side Kick Soccer is very nice, it is very similar to Super Soccer because it uses the Snes Mode 7 and exactly the same view, but only at the beginning, because the camera fully rotates when you get the ball and move around, it looks quite spectacular at a first glance but it can make you feel a little bit dizzy sometimes, and after some time you will realise that it is not all that good to play properly, because this adds difficulty, but you will, somehow, get used to it after some time.

However, fortunately Sidekick’s Soccer features the key option in any soccer game, the auto-pass, that little feature makes this game’s gameplay a lot better than basically any other soccer game out there for the Snes with the obvious exception of International Super Star Soccer and its sequel. Everything else in terms of controls is fine, nice speed and well, that is it.

The quantity of teams in this game is big but also very standard, the interesting thing here is that we have the possibility to play with teams from different parts of the United States, so we can play a match between Mexico City and Miami or Los Angeles versus Sacramento for example, something that I have never seen in a Snes soccer game before (and to be honest I don’t even know if those teams exist in the USA, or at least not with those names). This is why I think that together with the catchy name of the USA goalie for the title, this is a soccer game oriented more to the North American audiences, we can only choose North American teams (aside from the regular World Teams that is).

Something very annoying is the way the options are presented, they are full of weird symbols and it is hard to find out what in the world they mean, for example in order to change the game’s speed there are three icons: a turtle, a horse, and a jaguar, this one is kinda obvious, the turtle is the lowest and the jaguar the highest, but not all of them are that clear, because there isn’t any text explaining what they mean, this is just an annoyance anyway, until you find out their meaning, but it is undoubtedly annoying.

Graphics:
Graphically Sidekicks Soccer is pretty impressive at the beginning (because of the camera movements as I have mentioned above), but two minutes into it and you realise that it is not as nice as it seems, the players’ sprites are really cheap, ugly and with rough and choppy movements, and these cheap sprites over a field made with the Mode 7 are certainly not good too good looking. Anyway, while a bit crappy, the camera sure adds everything the graphics lack, so I would say that this is very mediocre game graphically but that looks neat at the same time.

Music:
There is music during the matchs, and it is pretty bad, the good thing is that you will hardly ever hear anything because you will be occupied thinking about the match and if you aren’t that can only be because the camera movements that are making you feel sick.

My conclusion:
Tony Meola Sidekick’s Soccer may look a little bit cheap, and maybe it is a cheap game visually, but it is a very good and fun soccer simulator, and that is the important thing, it is also quite an unusual soccer game but that ends up being nice. I liked it quite a lot, and if you are a fan of this sport then I guess you will also enjoy it.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/16/04