Australian Gamer Review :: Virtua Pro Football

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Virtua Pro Football

Reviewed on: Playstation 2
Available on: Playstation 2

Virtua Pro Football is released as a budget title but despite this I can’t recommend it to anyone (unless of course you have a budget for rubbish games).

Players: 1 - 2 Players
Genre:
Release: TBA

Developer: Sega
Distributor: Sega

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There was a time back last decade that I thought that the word “Vitua” was some sort of secret Japanese SEGA codeword for “Extra Good Computer Game”. I’d imagined that by travelling to SEGA’s Japanese headquarters and muttering the word “Virtua” to a guard behind a steel door, I’d be allowed entrance into a secret chamber of luminaries who would sit at a triangle table and drink sake whilst talking frankly regarding the rise of SEGA and how eventually they would take over the world.

Virtua Racing, Virtua Fighter, Virtua Tennis, all fantastic games that backed up my theory. As long as the “Virtua” prefix was in place, then you could be assured that a wonderful gaming experience was waiting for you. The world was a simple place, Nintendo had the word “Super” and SEGA had the word “Virtua”.

But sadly, love is for poets and alas the stars are just pinholes in the curtain of night…

SEGA released “Virtua Soccer” for Dreamcast and things would never be the same. It was not worthy of the “Virtua” tag , but rather than be honourable and remove the “Super” title like Nintendo had when they released “Mario Party”, SEGA had been dishonourable enough to try fool their fans and thus broke the circle of trust.

No longer would I sit at the table of SEGA and eat Sushi with Yu Suzuki and the Sonic Programming Team and sing songs about the 3D0 being rubbish while drinking Asahi Beer. No longer could the word “Virtua” be held as a benchmark of gaming excellence. SEGA was wrong about the importance of 3D gaming, they were wrong to use the Virtua word loosely, would these two wrongs ever make a right?

I am an old man these days. A man jaded by the rigors of modern gaming. It is a time of rain after the sunshine of my youth. A time when a new soccer game comes to the console bandying the Virtua title. My instincts tell me I must resist, but I am compelled to have it, to hold and to rub it through my hairy chest and down into my underpants, before smelling its plastic newness mixed with my salty sweat. I must place it in my PS2 console, I must experience the “Virtua” again.

A wise man would say “Fool me once, shame on SEGA, fool me twice, shame on Brett”, and that wise man was me. Will this wise man be fooled again, or will this analogy completely collapse under the weight of its nonsensical premise? Lets begin our journey…

My experience with Virtua Pro Football began promisingly enough. The game boots to the introduction sequence in mere seconds , and what an introduction it is! A cell shaded youth wanders up to a wall and begins tagging it up with a giant picture of a football player. Suddenly the graffiti footballer comes to life and multiplies into a full team and begins playing soccer with the young man. It reminds me of a dream I have at night where I make a life sized Denise Richards from cardboard who comes to life and makes me cookies while telling me that I’m better in bed than Charlie Sheen.

Imaginary sexual conquests aside, a few seconds later we reach the menu screen of Virtua Pro Football and its time to jump into a exhibition game. The first two divisions of the English Premier League are represented as well as a few other world leagues and teams that my feeble knowledge of world soccer had no clue existed. I scanned quickly through looking for teams with rude sounding names but settled on Manchester for my team and some random Division Two team for my computer opponent in the hope of scoring some cheap goals.

Another quick load and finally the bubble bursts for Virtua Pro Football. The pre match camera zooms around the stadium, showing off some of the worst aliasing I have ever seen. “Eye candy” is a cliché that is over used by every game journalist on the planet and now it is my turn to make my own cliché. Virtua Pro Football is heavy on the “Eye Broccoli”, it is one ugly game.

The commentator starts up, telling me its raining today. Maybe he’s watching another game, because it definitely wasn’t raining in the game I was playing. Perhaps he thought all the horrible aliasing on the stadium was rain? He then proceeds to tell me identical information regarding my team and the one I’m playing. I have a feeling I won’t be needing my “Secret SEGA Society Sake Drinking Mug”, but still hold hope that graphics and sound aren’t everything and that game play might pull this title over the line.

If you’ve ever watched under 12’s soccer, then you have some idea of what Virtua Pro Football plays like. The passing system doesn’t work due your team mates being too stupid to recognise what the ball is and since the ball holder can run just as quickly as the defence, it becomes easier to just run up the field with all the other players following you, comet ball style.

Shooting is done with a power bar that fills as you hold down the shoot button. Remember Fifa 2001? Well its pissed off that Virtua Pro Football stole its goal shooting system and apparently there is going to be a fight near the bike racks after school. Most of the time the ball will bounce off the keeper giving you the chance to shovel it back into the net, resulting in some of the most unexciting replays since Channel Ten bought the rights to “Welcome Back Kotter”. Broccoli graphics, broccoli game play.

When your not in possession, Virtua Pro Football suffers from a condition known to soccer games as “Random Player Switching Syndrome”. It seems any time one of your players gets close to the ball carrier, you suddenly switch control to another player who has been up in the stands chatting up girl band members. Is it too much to ask that everyone stays in their positions, especially considering the game makes a big sing and dance about selecting your defensive set up before each half?

I finished my exhibition game, put my clothes back on, and decided to try the Career Mode. One day the nice people at Fox will make a drama series of my life, but for now I am content with creating hideous digital representations of myself in computer games. Virtua Football Career Mode Brett had a mullet, the fattest head possible, a porn star moustache and some natty green glasses.

The rest of career mode resembles an Amiga game from the 1990’s. Talking heads take you week by week through the pre and regular season with your replies or options being limited to one of three choices. Aside from press interviews and talks with the coach, your team mates also come to you for life advice. You can buy cars and houses to boost your publicity or go to nightclubs to improve team morale but since the reward for the player is simply a picture of the house or activity the whole process feels a bit pointless and dated.

Once a month you get thrown into a game situation where the horrible game engine conspires to rob you of the small amount of enjoyment you may have been having in the “choose your own adventure” career mode.

Virtua Pro Football is released as a budget title but despite this I can’t recommend it to anyone (unless of course you have a budget for rubbish games). It feels and plays like a soccer game from five years ago and the career mode is a laughable throwback to the 1980’s, reminding me of an old Amiga game called Supercars with its three replies to canned questions interaction. Your better off spending your time with a cardboard cut out of Denise Richards and a slab of cookie dough.

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Final Verdict

I wanted to love Virtua Pro Football, to cherish it as a return to glory for SEGA. Instead I was left with a game as flaccid as Pele without his Viagra subscription.

Pros
Load times are really good, the introduction video is strange, going to the nightclub is an option in Career Mode.
Cons
The soccer part of the game is horribly broken, the career mode part of the game is old and clunky, broccoli standard graphics and super repetitive commentary.