Wild Cup Soccer
Teque / Millenium 1994
Genre: Sport, Action
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
System: Amiga
Rating:
Mr Creosote:
2/6
Overall: 2/6
To us Europeans, American Football is just a big slaughter anyway. So when we play Brutal Sports Football, we don't even notice much of a difference to what's offered in the NFL. Who cares if a few weapons have been added? Don't those suits make living weapons out of the players anyway (dramatic pause...)?
When the same thing is done to our beloved football (the sport ignorant 'Americans' call soccer) though, it's of course so much different! Killing opponent players? Shooting their heads off with guns? And even more of a sacrilege: no offside??? How could they!?
Objectively spoken, Wild Cup Soccer has about as much to do with soccer-football as Brutal Sports Football is like football-football. Which makes sense since what we have here is the official sequel to the sports classic.
The game plays very similar: your team has to score more goals than the opponent and / or kill as many of his players as possible. The ball cannot be carried? Who cares, it's 'glued' to the foot of the active player anyway! So no change there.
If you look at the details, you'll find quite a few changes though. The 'Brutal Sports line' took a similar developement as its big idol, the Speedball series: this second part has a transfer market and more individuality for the teams and players. Instead of the faceless androids of BSF, WCS consists of eight teams playing in two leagues which all consist of different 'races' of players. These are some kind of humanoid animals, e.g. rhinos, monkeys or lizards running on two legs. Through the wonders of the transfer market, the teams mix very quickly though. The best thing about this: each player is actually individually recognizable on the field! One monkey is not necessarily equally talented as the others, there are stars and wimps - just like in real life.
These changes are actually very well done, even better than in Speedball 2 - you will begin to love and care for your little stars in no time! There are a few downsides which make WCS inferior to its predecessor though.
First of all, there are the graphics. The colours look very nice, but this isometric perspective is just confusing! This might be no problem for players who are used to modern-type sports games with their weird changing 'cameras', but I can't get used to it! It's incredibly hard to pass the ball accurately or even to approximate distances 'with the eye' this way.
Then there are the weapons. Unlike in BSF where those lay around on the fields and could be picked up, you have to buy them for the individual players in WCS. On the first view, this is a good idea. But since the prices for the weapons are so low, you'll have your whole team fully equipped after only a few games! And then, all of them are running around with their swords, guns, mortars or whatever. It takes away the 'special flavour' from the weapons.
Most important downside: the difficulty. I have almost never lost a match in WCS! Even when I tried it for the very first time, I won. Only 1-0 then, but I won. In all the hundreds of matches I've played, all my opponents only scored one single goal against me - combined! The only single time I've lost a match was when another team actually killed all my players who were still exhausted from the last match (here, the controls kick in: your own players always automatically try to go for the ball, even when you tell them otherwise; in this case, an enemy player literally bombarded the spot the ball lay on and all my players of course ran into that 'trap'). Way too easy!
It should also be mentioned that the game has a few bugs. For example when a team doesn't have enough players to even begin a match anymore, they automatically win it. Huh? And once, I had wiped out all of the opponent's players but one, and when this one guy killed the first of my players, he was announced winner for terminating my team. Erm, yes. All this is annoying, but I wouldn't call the game bug-ridden.
Fooling around with the transfer market, playing some quick matches - that is really great fun in Wild Cup Soccer. Unfortunately, it is just not big enough a challenge to get you addicted for longer.
When the same thing is done to our beloved football (the sport ignorant 'Americans' call soccer) though, it's of course so much different! Killing opponent players? Shooting their heads off with guns? And even more of a sacrilege: no offside??? How could they!?
Objectively spoken, Wild Cup Soccer has about as much to do with soccer-football as Brutal Sports Football is like football-football. Which makes sense since what we have here is the official sequel to the sports classic.
The game plays very similar: your team has to score more goals than the opponent and / or kill as many of his players as possible. The ball cannot be carried? Who cares, it's 'glued' to the foot of the active player anyway! So no change there.
If you look at the details, you'll find quite a few changes though. The 'Brutal Sports line' took a similar developement as its big idol, the Speedball series: this second part has a transfer market and more individuality for the teams and players. Instead of the faceless androids of BSF, WCS consists of eight teams playing in two leagues which all consist of different 'races' of players. These are some kind of humanoid animals, e.g. rhinos, monkeys or lizards running on two legs. Through the wonders of the transfer market, the teams mix very quickly though. The best thing about this: each player is actually individually recognizable on the field! One monkey is not necessarily equally talented as the others, there are stars and wimps - just like in real life.
These changes are actually very well done, even better than in Speedball 2 - you will begin to love and care for your little stars in no time! There are a few downsides which make WCS inferior to its predecessor though.
First of all, there are the graphics. The colours look very nice, but this isometric perspective is just confusing! This might be no problem for players who are used to modern-type sports games with their weird changing 'cameras', but I can't get used to it! It's incredibly hard to pass the ball accurately or even to approximate distances 'with the eye' this way.
Then there are the weapons. Unlike in BSF where those lay around on the fields and could be picked up, you have to buy them for the individual players in WCS. On the first view, this is a good idea. But since the prices for the weapons are so low, you'll have your whole team fully equipped after only a few games! And then, all of them are running around with their swords, guns, mortars or whatever. It takes away the 'special flavour' from the weapons.
Most important downside: the difficulty. I have almost never lost a match in WCS! Even when I tried it for the very first time, I won. Only 1-0 then, but I won. In all the hundreds of matches I've played, all my opponents only scored one single goal against me - combined! The only single time I've lost a match was when another team actually killed all my players who were still exhausted from the last match (here, the controls kick in: your own players always automatically try to go for the ball, even when you tell them otherwise; in this case, an enemy player literally bombarded the spot the ball lay on and all my players of course ran into that 'trap'). Way too easy!
It should also be mentioned that the game has a few bugs. For example when a team doesn't have enough players to even begin a match anymore, they automatically win it. Huh? And once, I had wiped out all of the opponent's players but one, and when this one guy killed the first of my players, he was announced winner for terminating my team. Erm, yes. All this is annoying, but I wouldn't call the game bug-ridden.
Fooling around with the transfer market, playing some quick matches - that is really great fun in Wild Cup Soccer. Unfortunately, it is just not big enough a challenge to get you addicted for longer.
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