Living in the UK, I’ve always had a hard time in not being a football fan. It’s pretty much a given here that everyone you meet will at some point ask you which team you support and my usual reply of “I don’t follow football” usually kills the conversation quicker than if I’d have thrown a Nazi salute at them.
Strangely though I’ve always enjoyed football games… Well a particular kind of football game anyway. You see I’m not a fan of the modern day Fifa or Pro Evolution Soccer games and when someone hands me a second controller whilst explaining the nuances between a lofted pass and low through ball I begin to lose the will to live. No I like my footie games to be as arcadey and unrealistic as possible. Everything from Super Soccer on the Super Nintendo to Mario Strikers on the Wii is right up my alley. Give me a pass button and a shoot button, and I’m happy. (If the ball bounces off the walls it’s a bonus.)
It was for this reason that Pocket Soccer for the Game Boy Color caught my eye on eBay recently. A quick google search proved fairly uneventful, though it did unearth an old IGN preview in which the writer shared their positive first impressions of the game. Digging a little deeper I learned that the game was developed by a company called Game-Play Studios and published by none other than Nintendo themselves. Despite having the big ‘N’s backing however the game seemed to go entirely unnoticed when it finally released in March 2001, so much so that I can’t seem to find any evidence of anyone having ever bothered to review of the game at all. So once again here goes, what as far as I know is the game’s first ever online review.
The game plays as a simplified five a-side, arcade style football game. You won’t find the offside rule or even throw-ins and corners in play here, just simple, passing and shooting action over two halves. The controls are simple but have just enough depth to keep the game from feeling too basic. The buttons are somewhat context sensitive with the A button being used for both shooting and sliding tackles and the B button being used for passing to nearby player, clearing the ball and for normal tackles. Switching between the players is done by pressing the select button, though control will automatically switch to a player who gains control of the ball. The power of each pass and shot seems to be automatically decided by the game depending on the situation, so a pass to a nearby player will be much softer than a long pass for instance. The D-Pad is used to move the active player and determine the direction of the pass or shot. Shots can also be curved slightly in mid-air with a bit of adjustment on the d-pad.
The length of each match can be tweaked to suit the player with anything from 1 minute to 9 minutes per half being an option. The game certainly seems far more suited 1 or 3 minutes per half as anything more than that and you end up with a final score looking more like a rugby match than a football one.
There are four different game modes included. ‘Quick Start’ enables you to play as a randomly selected team against a randomly selected opponent in a one off match. ‘Exhibition’ mode allows you to pick yours and your opponent’s team in a one off match and in the ‘Playoffs’ you can take a team throughout a knockout style tournament with a choice of 8, 16 or 32 teams.
The ‘League’ mode however is where the game really shows its really quite impressive depth.
Here you take control one of many fictional teams included and play through an entire season or if you prefer you can create your own from scratch. Everything, from the team name, colours and home ground can be changed as can the names and appearances of the individual players. There is a surprising amount of customisability included with the ability to change the player’s gender, skin tone, hair and facial features. I even managed to create a team of game industry all stars. (Say what you will about Reggie Fils-Aimie but he makes a damn good goalie.) Each player also has their own individual set of stats which determine how well they are able to perform during games. This includes their speed, agility, accuracy, power and even how intelligently they perform when not being controlled by the player.
Between matches each player can take part in a training mini-game to improve some of their stats. Each training game is themed around a particular aspect of play such as passing, shooting, goal-keeping, running, dribbling or tackling. Depending on how well the training was performed it will increase the relevant stat accordingly. This means that players can be tailored to suit their positions by having the strikers focusing on power and accuracy whilst the defenders focus on tackling and passing for instance, or you could have each player improve all of their stats equally to create a team of all-rounders.
The effect on the pitch certainly becomes noticeable after a while and so spending the time to properly train your players is certainly recommended. If however you just want to get straight back to the action, the training can be skipped or even set to automatic so that the players will increase a random stat in small increments. If a player manages to become especially proficient in one area they may gain a useful skill which enables them to briefly and occasionally perform with almost superhuman attributes during the match. For instance in my team, famous Rare composer David Wise has the speed skill whilst legendary game creator Yu Suzuki has the dribble skill. If for whatever reason you don’t feel a certain team member is pulling their wait you can trade them for a player from another team. Sorry Keiji Inafune, you’re just not as good as you used to be.
There are several different leagues for your team to play through, and in each you must face every other team once. In typical fashion you’ll score 3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw and 0 points for a loss. If at the end of the season your team finishes top of the league then they’ll be rewarded with a promotion to the next league up to face tougher opponents. Similarly, finishing bottom of the league will see them demoted down. Thankfully all of your progress is kept automatically via a battery save, so no stupidly long passwords to jot down here.
Although graphically the game isn’t anything to write home about there are some nice touches here and there. Upon booting the game up, the player is treated to what I can only describe as the closest thing I’ve ever seen to a cg cut scene on a Game Boy Color. It’s pointless but pretty damn impressive anyway. During the matches the different pitches add some variety to the visuals with locations such as school halls, playgrounds and beaches. Many are littered with nice details such as graffiti, and advertisement billboards. The players themselves look pretty basic but they do the job and animate fairly well.
The music is definitely the weakest area of the game with only a couple of short looping tunes on offer. The only soundtrack during the matches is from the crowd, which gets old pretty fast. There is a nice digitised voice though when somebody scores and the sounds effects in general aren’t too bad.
Overall I had a great time with Pocket Soccer, it’s good, basic arcade-like fun but yet deep enough to keep you from switching it off too soon. It’s all to easy to lose an hour at a time in the game’s league mode as you watch your players grow and your team flourish. All too often I found myself wanting to play ‘just one more game.’
Pocket Soccer was Game-Play Studio’s debut game, however sadly it would also be their last as the company closed shop in 2002. It’s a real shame as the game showed a huge amount of promise for such a new developer and although they didn’t manage to make a huge splash in terms of sales they clearly caught the attention of Nintendo themselves who were willing to publish the game. Apparently the company was founded on the premise of putting game-play first, and with Pocket Soccer they certainly showed they were true to their word. I would have loved to have seen what other game genres the studio could have put their mind to but sadly it wasn’t to be.
Pocket Soccer, although fairly scarce, can be picked up very little money and so if you like what you’ve heard, why not seek out a copy for your Game Boy Color and take your five-a-side football team from the playground to league cup glory.
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