Street Soccer 2 Hands-On

Soccer--or "football," as the vast majority of Planet Earth insists on calling it--is a pretty elemental sport, when you think about it. There's a lot of fast running and hard kicking, as well as the constant jockeying for position that can become pretty physical at higher levels of play; in fact, if it's being played passionately, the game's about two steps away from an all-out street fight. DChoc's upcoming Street Soccer 2 takes the sport to this logical extreme, and that's a good thing, in our opinion.

In Street Soccer 2, you man a team of three pseudo-British soccer hooligans who travel from one deserted lot to another, waging war against other bands of thugs. The game's steeped in tongue-in-cheek references to hooligan culture. Americans may not necessarily be familiar with this particular phenomenon, but odds are they'll relate to the violent, rebellious attitude that pervades certain groups of European "football supporters." We certainly did. For example, in "Rule the Streets," the game's story mode, your guide to the seamy world of street soccer appears to have seen the business end of more than one tire iron in his day; he encourages you to beat your enemies down mercilessly. Plus, a catchy punk tune loops over and over again during play on the Nokia 6620, in lieu of sound effects.

Street Soccer 2's gameplay is pretty simple, just like a swift knee to the midsection. In fact, that's one of the maneuvers you can perform during play. There's only one action key for playing "defense" (read: fighting), passing, and shooting, and the game automatically switches you to the player nearest the ball, if you don't have it. The CPU players space themselves well, so this scheme works decently; there are power-ups lying around to spice up the action, like speed boosts and medpacks. While on defense, the action key will perform a trip, a lunging kick, or a knee, which usually results in a turnover. Occasionally, it'll also start a fistfight, which is the coolest part of the game by far. The viewpoint switches from overhead to side view, where you can watch the two undershirt-clad fools go at it. You get a short period of time to try to knock out the other dude with combinations of punches and kicks while blocking his attacks. In a humorous bit of animation, the loser of the fight gets carted off on a stretcher, and his team has to play a man down until the end of the half.

We like what we've seen from Street Soccer 2 so far. It's a lighthearted and very playable little soccer game with an interesting European flavor to it. This game will be going live on carriers by the end of the month, so be sure to check back here for the full review soon.