RFI
Jun 22 2006, 09:44 AM
Game: South Park Football
Creator: Andrew Rumney
Genre: Sports
Description: Play team against team through the game of 'Football' or 'Soccer'.

Rating: 42%

Review: "The game offers a few moments of fun but drowns itself in it's own simplicity."




After a lovely meal of Taco Bell, I blasted my air conditioner and went on to my PC. I searched the archives and quickly laid my eyes upon a game called "South Park Football". I began downloading immediately. I was relaxed. I was happy. I was ready to indulge into a simple game. To my surprise, the term "football" in this game meant "Soccer" Ha. Me and my silly regional settings. I was actually quite pleased as we all know universal "Football" is far more fun to play than American "Football".

In South Park Football, the player controls a team of the familiar South Park characters against a team of less familiar characters in a competitive game of Soccer, or as people outside the United States call it, Football. In case you're not familiar with the sport, and God help you if so, the objective is to move the ball forward into the other teams net without using your upper limbs. (Arms, as we call them in English) This will give the offensive team a set amount of points. In this game's case, it's one. It may sound easy, but the tables can turn at any time causing you to have to go back and retrieve the ball in an act of defense before the other team manages to put the ball into your net, which would earn them points. In this game, the aim is exactly the same. You'll manage to control one team member (Whichever has the ball) and kick the ball into the corresponding net. The default player is Cartman. Upon starting your very first match, you'll attempt using the controls and say to yourself; "What the hell was the creator of this game thinking?" The left mouse button causes the player to move toward the cursor while the right mouse button causes the player to kick the ball forward. (The moving of the mouse itself positions the cursor) However, you'll soon realize the controls are extremely convienient and give the gameplay it's glam. (Don't worry, no Cocktails BS control scheme to be found here) After scoring a point, players return to their positions before the game can resume. This break give a realistic feeling to the game.

Despite a good control scheme and a pretty little game engine, the gameplay does not come without flaw. If you happen to kick the ball upward toward the trees in the background, the ball will tend to continue going upward. This traps the ball off the game field far beyond your teams reach. Luckily, the other team has the power to fly and climb trees so you can sometimes get the ball back. (If you can steal it from them) The A.I. for all of the players who don't happen to have the ball is awful. They move around almost randomly. They do sometimes manage to steal the ball from the other team, however, which does serve some point to their existence.

Graphically, the game is very basic. Graphics are as good as they need to be in order to pull off such a game. The players on the field stance themselves in all directions in response to their movements. Once again, this adds to the realistic touch of the game of Football. The graphics show no sign of being original. Sprites are taken from other South Park games. Along with the mediocre gameplay graphics come the not-so-awesome menu and title screen graphics. The author shows little enthusiasm in his opening title along with the rest of the screens. If anything, this little game looks to have suffered the same fate as many of the other South Park Games: It was rushed. This shows with the quickly-made hard-to-see yellow game title in the opening frame/title screen. There is also a lack of greatness in the games menu screen as there is little to be seen. Perhaps the intentions might have been to make a quick project, but either way, graphical beauty was shunned. Still, unlike with most games, my eyes do not end up bleeding after a thorough play. All seemed to suite the premise of the game.

Oh my God, I can hear the ball getting kicked around! Awesome. More realism! I was glad to hear the sound effect after realizing that the game intentionally skips the expected musical cue. You'll kick the ball and get the expected reponse of the sound of it getting hit. However, once you hear that, you've pretty much heard the best of what this game has to offer from it's sound department. Along with this one good sound effect come a few more that just serve as annoying. Upon scoring a goal, despite which team happens to do so, you'll hear the audience give a quick applaud. Nice, you could say, but after hearing the same sound several times, it starts to get old. It's obvious that there was no special engine made to play the sound effects at a more realistic level just as it's obvious there is no gameplay music. I also noticed that at the very start of the game, you can hear the sound of the title as it flies on to the screen, but you won't ever hear the sound of the ball as it flies across the field. Perhaps more ambiance and audience reactions could have made this game better, but in their absence, the game stays mediocre throughout it's sound department.

Much like the game's sound, the game's music also remains the same: Uninspired and lacking. It's nice to hear atleast some music in the opening screen even if it is unoriginal, but while during the actual gameplay, I was expecting something! Something! Anything! Hell, even if it were some lame montage rock music from the 80s, it would have been good! The lack of music and ambiance brings the gameplay down a few pegs. (Good thing this game is not about pirates) As for the opening and menu screens, the music seems to suite the author's silly intentions toward the project, but during the game menu screen, the mood suddenly changes to dark and gloomy. It's like I can almost hear myself closing the application. "After these few menu screens, what is there to look forward to anyway?" -My ears say to me.

Perhaps the most meaningless innovation to the game is it's difficulty and pacing. It offers almost no story or plot elements whatsoever. You can either tweek your way around Tweek and his team and easily score a point resorting to the same exact play over and over, or you can watch as the ever-so-difficult Bostonian kids slip the ball from you before you even have time to find the cursor on the screen. It's nice to see there is a difficulty setting that you can change, but hysterically Easy to ungodly hard is a pretty big jump. Players are either bored scoring goal after goal or clicking randomly hoping to Allah that they atleast get the ball back on there side. Of course, they lose their chance at this as soon as they click off the application window and lose control completely. Ever accidentally hit the taskbar during a game? You will.

As you expand your horizons and your talents, you'll find yourself absolutely PWNing Tweek and his Team. You'll then move on to an army of kids from Boston which will make you feel like you've been wasting your time gaining any experience from Tweek as the tactics you'll use to defeat Tweek serve no purpose on the secondary battlefield. This mental interpretation (And fact) ruins the game even further. (Perhaps they could play that song 'More Than a Feeling' in the Boston level. Hey, it'd atleast be SOMETHING!)

By now, it's either the lack of outstanding graphics, (Which would compliment the game engine immensely) the repetitive and uninspired sounds echoing across the fields, the feeling of dispair that covers my body from the lack of music, and absence of soul and emotion involved in the the pacing that is giving me chills, OR it's the fact that my air conditioner is still on full blast. The game offers a few moments of fun but drowns itself in it's own simplicity. In the end, South Park Football makes for a cute and quick little play but offers nothing beyond that. It's no wise purchase, but if you MUST play it, I advise you to rent it first. tongue.gif


Gameplay: 5/10
Graphics: 5/10
Sound: 3/10
Music: 4/10
Value: 4/10

Overall: 21/50
= 42%