RedCard 2003: "How Did He Get Away With THAT?!"
Written: May 23 '02
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Fun, mildly over-the-top soccer action.
Cons: No 2-player Co-op?! That's just wrong.
The Bottom Line: If it had co-op 2-player mode, this'd be a 4 of 5.
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| Alkaiser's Full Review: Midway (working title) |
Ah yes...Midway-style soccer action. After playing Midway's contribution to football, NFL Blitz, I enjoyed last years NHL Hitz, and was just hoping Red Card 2003 didn't end up being...well, Hitz with an additional 's'.
I don't know if Sega's impending release of Soccer Slam led to this getting released now, or if it is more in line with World Cup 2002, but in either case, it ends up being an enjoyable romp through a different kind of World Cup.
I quickly set about to making up my own team to take over the world through soccer. I would have made them like the team from "Shaolin Soccer", but I can't change their uniform colors, so I just decided to make a copy of Japan, one of the two host nations this year.
My mighty team in place, it was time to take on the world. First stop, Oceania. Unfortunately, the team from American Samoa is not included, so I could not wallop them 31-0 as the Australian team decided to do this year in an attempt to qualify for the World Cup. (An attempt which failed.)
There are 40+ games you will play en route to the tournament. That's right...en route. You can just pick a team and go straight to the cup, but you won't be able to build up your team, so it's likely that you won't meet with much success that way. Especially if you're Cyprus. (who has every stat at 2 besides Morale.)
After you beat all the human teams, you'll face a random team from the minds of the Midway creators. Dolphins, SWAT, Samurai, you will come up against some odd challengers.
The graphics look pretty good. If you know what the players actually look like, you'll find that quite a few of them manage to look that same. For other countries, I'm not sure they got the looks down right, but they couldn't obtain the names either, so that wasn't surprising.
Control is a mixed bag. Guiding your player isn't that hard, but once again, the "switch to closest teammate" button doesn't seem to do its job most of the time, making the goal saving slide-tackle very, very unlikely in most cases.
You've got a turbo bar at the bottom of the screen, and a super bar. Your turbo bar is self explanatory...when you need to go fast, use it. The Super Bar is different.
Your bar has 4 stages. If you double tap the turbo button, you'll do a super dash, and burn up the field. Slide tackles and fouls won't hit you until you're out of the sprint mode.
If you want to really inflict some pain on a player, you can use a bar to unload a super foul on a character, which will generally leave them writhing on the ground for a little while.
To drain the bar, you can execute a super shot, which will allow your character to launch a Matrix-style shot that ranges from laughable to physically impossible.
Goalkeeping, like the controls, is also a mixed bag. Sometimes wide open shots from outside the box will just sail into the net. Other times, the goalie will dive to stop your Super Shot, and get the rebound.
However, a big drawback to the game is the fact that you cannot play 2 players cooperatively. I had a lot of fun playing NHL Hitz with my roommates there to help clean up, and check the goalie out of the way for free goals.
You have to play SO MANY games to get through to the cup, having another player around to help break the monotony would add a lot to improve my impressions of this game, as well as infuse the game with quite a bit more replay value.
The game also isn't quite as over the top as Hitz and Blitz were. It's still fun, but if you're looking for the rock' em-sock'em action of Midway's prior offerings, you won't find it.
Red Card 2003 takes a comfortable middle ground, giving you announcers that aren't quite as "extreme" as the Hitz guys, and slide tackles and checks that aren't as bone shattering and teeth shaking as Blitz. Red Card 2003 is more like a Yellow Card.
The familiar code entery screens that give your players special attributes like huge noggins, is also noticeably missing.
Enjoyable as a rental, but it's unlikely you'll be playing the 40+ games you need in order to advance to the Big Dance in the 5-day rental time unless you're WAY into soccer. You're probably better off renting the game in order to figure out if this game's worth a really long look.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
Alkaiser
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 - Top 500 |
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Member: Clayton Chan
Location: Irvine, CA
Reviews written: 655
Trusted by: 344 members
About Me:
Broke the 700 pound mark on my leg lifts.
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