Steven Gerrard's Total Soccer 2002 (GBA)

I bought this game – let’s be honest – because there weren’t any other football games out for the GBA at the time. Since then you’ve got your Beckhams, your ISS’s but not then. The blurb on the back encouraged me to take my team to the dizzy heigts of the club and international season, accompanied by the usual pathetic screenshots that adorn the back of all GBA games.

The games starts with a basic front end options screen, nothing ...
...out of the tiny speaker ten times louder than most other games. You have a choice of a single player game, a link up match or a competition, from several European leagues or cup competitions. There’s also the options screen which does basically all you’d need it do.

After picking your team and opponents as well as making your tactical choices, the game starts. There’s only one way to describe the look and feel of the game – Sensible ... more

I bought this game – let’s be honest – because there weren’t any other football games out for the GBA at the time. Since then you’ve got your Beckhams, your ISS’s but not then. The blurb on the back encouraged me to take my team to the dizzy heigts of the club and international season, accompanied by the usual pathetic screenshots that adorn the back of all GBA games.

The games starts with a basic front end options screen, nothing fancy, just functional apart from the awful music that blasts out of the tiny speaker ten times louder than most other games. You have a choice of a single player game, a link up match or a competition, from several European leagues or cup competitions. There’s also the options screen which does basically all you’d need it do.

After picking your team and opponents as well as making your tactical choices, the game starts. There’s only one way to describe the look and feel of the game – Sensible Soccer. For those who’ve played it I really don’t have to say any more, stop reading now. However, for those who haven’t, the game is viewed from a top down angle, and the action is fast and furious. This game is designed for goals, the more the merrier. The controls are simple and intuitive. With the standard game setting the ball sticks to your feet until you choose to pass it. A quick press of the B button will almost always send the ball directly to the feet of another teammate. Get into a shooting position and press A. A quick adjustment on the D-pad just after shooting will bend the ball, Gerrard-style (actually it’s more like Beckham, but he’s got his own game) towards the top corner and away from the keeper. Sounds easy and on the easiest difficulty setting it certainly is. Switch it to anything harder and the matches become a lot tighter, usually 1-0 affairs. Not as spectacular but very gripping with a winning goal usually occuring in the last minute. To make it extra hard go into the options and set the dribbling type to normal (the default is auto). Take to the pitch again and if you attempt a 180% turn the ball stays where it was while you go running off in the opposite direction. Dribbling now involves making delicate circles up the pitch rather than haphazard Tron-like cornering. I tend to stick with the automatic dribbling.

If you buy this game for what it is intended to be, that is, a quick fix of fast footie action, then you won’t be disappointed. If, however, you want an in depth simulation with all the trimmings then I wouldn’t bother, it’s not for you – especially considering that if you play in a league game then you only get 3 points for a win and no points for a draw (surely a major bug?). Overall though, despite that glaring mistake, it’s great fun and quite a good little game in it’s own right.
 

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