David Beckham Soccer

"Another David Beckham product"

Ladies and gentlemen, this game is yet another fine and outstanding example of incompetent game developers coupled with the fact that they're trying to leech off some famous name (in this case, David Beckham) in order to make some money.

This is one of the most elementary soccer yet to be released for the GBA. Let hit it off straight the bat with some positive notes because I'm a positive person. Hmm, all right, so what kind of cool thing does this game offer? There is friendly mode, competition mode, season mode, and – now get this – train with Beckham mode!

One of the lamest things in the game is ‘the story of Beckham' where they give him his biography, an interview, early years and career history. While this is a nice little touch, I still call that this is egoism. We, as gamers, don't need that in the GBA cartridge; it is just a waste of memory space.

Training with Beckham is one of the most annoying feature in this game; basically the mode is a tutorial mode in order to work on your free kick, passing, tackling etc but it is annoying as heck because if you didn't do the kick or whatever the objective is properly the game will explain it to you … which takes like a minute of your time. Then if you didn't do the objective correctly, the explanation progress starts all over again.

The game play for this game is really standard as in any soccer game; you can shoot, pass the ball and tackle. Well, at least one thing I like about the game is that you can see your teammates because the camera angle is at a semi-over head view, unlike the sideline camera angle commonly used in Fifa series.

One neat little thing about this game is that whoever has procession of the ball; their name will be displayed on the lower bottom hand corner. I find that ok, since all the players in the game look generic and there isn't a hint of distinction between them.

The graphics for this game really suffers; not because it is an eyesore, necessary, but because it is so bland. There are hardly any details for the players in the game. For example, you couldn't really tell who is who in your team because all of them look so generic, from the skin color to the hair cut. And there is no number in the back of their shirt.

The grass in the game isn't that all good either because they're just green shades of squares. Look, I'm not expecting the GBA to process enough power to show the blades of the grass, but it should have the grassy feel to it like in the Fifa series.

In closing, this is a well below soccer game for the GBA. If you want a competent and fun soccer game to play for the GBA then get Fifa. While I admire the underdog game development's company for this game they did an amateur job at it. And I don't think using David Beckham as their gimmick really works, because the rational gamers can see through the reputation and look at the game play and graphics instead. No buy, no rent.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 09/26/05