Here is a part of this game that I absolutely adore before I get into any of its mechanics or anything: it is the laziest thing in gaming history. You want to possibly argue that sports games take kids from the outdoors and ruin their lives? Foosball says “don’t even get up and use the table, kids! You can play foosball with your thumbs!” None of that annoying arm-wiggling or standing up that has caused problems in the past such as back injury, arthritis, or finger cancer! Anyways, I’ve had my fun, here’s the review.
VISUALS/SOUNDTRACK: 1.5/2
The soundtrack is basically loops of the same few songs over and over again, though from the sound point of an audio engineer they were mixed well and will change to different songs overtime mid-gameplay… this is good because I think they realized that the songs were really generic and gross. On another positive note… I guess… the visuals aren’t necessarily bad. I think they compliment the goofy play style and the fact that it if you want it to be realistic you can get off your glue-seat and buy yourself a foosball table. If your PS3 is stopping you from this, then the problem is all yours. All in your head, bub.
GAMEPLAY: 1/2
Though glitchy at times and not extremely complex or made for hours upon hours of fun per say, the game actually holds its own surprisingly. You flick your fooses around with the right stick to hit the ball and use the left stick to simultaneously move them all (unless you have PlayStation Move remotes… which I don’t have). Against CPU’s in the Tournament mode (of which you unlock things) this is a tedious thing that may require quick strategy to win. Against a friend or three however, this is absolute madness.
There are trick shots and a gauge that you utilize to make trick shots. Some of the trick shots aren’t really worth building up the gauge a lot of the time and the system in which you hold the ball in order to do a trick shot is a little finicky and hard to use to begin with. Even if you wanted to do a regular shot, it doesn’t feel all that natural, but after a bit of time figuring out what you are doing, it sort of makes sense… sort of.
You won’t need to know much of that though unless you are hoping to be an absolute pro at digital foosball. Against a couple friends on the weekend, basically flip the right stick around. Most of the fun you are going to squeeze out of this game comes from the fact that the ball moves from side to side like a roller coaster. If you blink, you will probably get scored on or accidentally score. It is intense, and I will admit it can be a blast, but when you actually think about it, like when you play it alone or do a review on it, you realize how mind-numbingly simple and “happy meal” this game is.
REPLAY VALUE: 1.5/2
The replay value is about as good as you would get from any sports sim, if not a little better. Playing in the tournament mode earns you up to three stars per match. If you beat the opponent, you will get a star. If you do relatively good at that match you will earn two stars, and if you don’t let them score a single point and molest their goal you will get a perfect. The matches increase in difficulty as you unlock more of them and you can use your stars you get from said matches to buy whatever unlockable thing you can in the unlockables menu. A cheap yet somehow satisfying reason to play. Unlockables include gimmicky balls and different foosmen, because what else could a man want to put his hard work and sweat into? You can also just buy the unlockables with real world money, although you can get all of them for free by simply unlocking them. Is this the generation I am growing in, or was the development team just that desperate for money?
Another crappy thing here is that you have to unlock the trick shots. There are only four, and they barely work, as I mentioned before, but they all cost at the very least 5 stars. Those are valuable stars you could be using to buy a space-themed foosball table or a ball that is eternally lit on fire!
STORYLINE: ???
Usually this is where I talk about a game’s storyline… but Foosball 2012 really doesn’t have one. Neither does Madden or Mario Tennis. So I’m not sure what’s right here. Foosball gods…. Guide me!
ORIGINALITY/CREATIVITY: 1/2
I will have to say that most of the creativity is in the control scheme. I feel most developers making a foosball game would have made the first thought for hitting the ball to be X or something, but these guys made it more of an extension of your thumb and mind. The game has an attitude of its own, but the attitude isn’t anything that is going to blow you away or impress you. It simply exists. The tournament mode allows you to play depending on how many overall stars you earned. So you can play on whatever difficulty you feel at the moment and then go back to an easier stage after knocking out several harder ones, or saving the challenging ones after warming up those foosies. It’s simple but interesting.
I guess it is a smart game, but it isn’t going to send you into a new dimension of thought or anything crazy.
OVERALL RATING: 5.5/10
Don’t get me wrong, the game is a fun experience for a bit, but as a game as a whole, it is a bit of a glitchy, generic mess. Let’s face it: this is a game simulating another game that is made basically to pass time or get drunk with friends on, and even that premise is arguably a slight rip-off of real sports. It could have been a lot worse I suppose, it is definitely playable, but it feels a little carnie or like a mini-game trying to present itself as a full game. And the soundtrack honestly, I didn’t want to mention it because I didn’t want it to be seen as part of my score… but listen to that theme song when you play it. Is this game attempting to… take itself seriously?