Balls? (Lego Football Mania (GBA))

Member Name: theediscerning

Product:	Lego Football Mania (GBA)
Date:	07/02/03 (142 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fast, childish fun, Good FX

Disadvantages: Painfully slow to load, Dreadful music

Theediscerning returned to theediscerning towers just after Christmas to find one of the residents, B, had had to buy himself a Christmas present.

Theediscerning opened his post to find he had won a Playstation 2 game, Football Mania, from Lego and Electronic Arts, over the Internet.

Theediscerning was lucky, therefore, that the present bought for B, by B, was a Playstation 2.

And so after the buzz B got from playing (and failing at) Two Towers, theediscerning slid his disc into the tray and tried Football Mania.

And rather a lot of childish, inept, slow-slow-quick-quick-slow fun followed.

Theediscerning counts himself lucky that the first thing he did was to turn the music off on the options page, because it truly is awful. You will want to do the same first, whether it's you or your off-spring playing the game.

The next thing was to play some friendlies in the Quick Start zone. This avoids everything like turning off gimmicks, changing length of match-time, and just lets you knock about the pitch for a few minutes, and generally thrash the daylights out of B, should you be theediscerning.

But what is the game for/about/etc, thee' hears you cry. Well, as the title suggests, it is a football game, but with a difference. For a start, you're playing on a pitch that may be rectangular, or octagonal, but it will certainly have a plasma field around the edges so the ball is never out of play.

For a second, you're playing with Lego men. Yes, the peculiar characters peopling the Lego world have invaded the pitch, and with their rather inflexible waists and legs, and horribly stereotyped nataional faces, they're here to stay. And they're your men and women, so you'd better get to like them.

The gimmicks to the game also include the power-ups, glowing cubes scattered throughout the pitch, that you collect by running through - if you can; although it always appea
rs to have been hit it is more often than not seemingly down to luck. They include one to make the ball a ticking time-bomb, which will disable the opponents for a bit if it goes off, one to reverse the opponent's gamepad controls temporarily, one to create a Dune-like forcefield round your player, ones to speed up yourself or slow down the enemy, etc. The best and most effective is that which makes a rocket out of the ball, which homes in on the opponent's goal, and can hardly ever be saved.

Thankfully the game completely ignores the awful '80s computer football sim games' trap, where you had to manage the team and buy and sell players, and wash the interval pie pans up, etc. That was enough to put theediscerning off this sort of game for life, that and the fact that the controls were often so gruddamn awful to learn.

In LegoLand, however, these things are different. Yes, there are sides of the game where you have to fiddle with the squad, but that is to a minimum, and the controls are simple. One button to pass or tackle, one to shoot, one to speed up, one to do a trick, and so on. Even theediscerning picked it up - eventually. You can even head the ball, but it's not been done on the Playstation concerned.

Once B has gone up to bed in his high dudgeon (we often ask him why he doesn't use a bedroom instead of a high dudgeon, but that's another story), you can scout around the other game-playing modes. There is always the option to play v. the computer, and it has three levels of difficulty.

Playing against the computer can also mean taking part in the World Cup, which is where the national stereotypes come in. Only yesterday theediscerning was warming up for this op by playing this option, and found the German squad with their little moustaches..., who could thrash the beejaysis out of an Asian team, partly because of their little slinty eyes. Very Queens-husband,-what's-his-name friendl
y, this.

What could come across as rather a glitch in the game occured yesterday, too. While playing Germany in the World Cup, theediscerning meant to be playing AS Germany, not against it. However, in assigning the number one control pad to a team, he ended up playing against his hirsute heroes, and then had to proceed to score 16 own goals in 6 minutes.

The game is really quite simple, as has already been said, but should you desire to hone your skills, there is a section of the game called the Skill Zone. Theediscerning only tried - and failed - at one of these, the dribbling the ball through gates section. Despite using a huge TV, the lights to tell you your next target for dribbling to were more or less invisible, and really it was a waste of time. Avoid.

The final section of the game really highlights how child-orientated this game is. The "Story Mode" has you playing match after match, while a narrative no more complex than the first three paragraphs of this op (see, there was a point!) is played out.

Basically, if you win six matches, your trophy is stolen by the Brickster (shock, horror), who runs riot with it around the galaxy(!) with you in hot pursuit, playing games for gifts to give to other people with clues to where it is. There is nothing to this other than a list of peculiar teams to conquer, and odd locations to play in.

This is where the painfully slow side to the disc comes into play. Each pitch takes 30 seconds or more to load, which when compared to something like Colin McRae Rally 3 (op coming soon - perhaps!) is far too slow. Yes, they are great to look at, but really...

Play the team, and win or lose, you move on - if you do get beat you play the same opponents again and they've suddenly turned into simpletons. Win and the enemy are 'unlocked' and hey, they're much better than your players, so you have to delete your team, use the new bunch, wait for th
at to save, wait for the new pitch to load, and so on.

How children of the target age-range (5 to 13, at a child-ignorant guess) are supposed to have the patience for this sort of delay and pettifogging (is that the right word? - it sounds it) is beyond theediscerning. How he kept his hat on either, we still don't know.

Despite the many pauses between the action, there are many highlights to playing, even if you don't have B's face to laugh at when you thunder in a rocket from your own goal-mouth. The sound FX are rather good and fun. On blasting in a goal you get to see your team celebrate (the break-dancing routine worth staying up for), or your opponents kick each other's Harrises, and then get a whole range of action replays from multiple camera angles.

The locations are fun and pretty, even if they are the causes of the delays - whether they be Antarctic research stations or creaking pirate galleons.

All you need worry about before having a quick knock-up is to select from the eight or so languages, turn the music off, work out which side you are actually assigning your control to, and as an option, choose whether to select an attacking, defensive or balanced team. And that's it - you have five outfield players to make merry with. (The goalies you never control, apart from on penalty shot-outs, and are very good at the banana kick-save, and nearly always pass it out to your players. Good chaps all.)

So yes it is childish, but hey, so are some of us. Regardless of that, it seems to be just like many other Playstation games - the next best thing since sliced bread for littluns - in this case the very littluns, a waste of time for properly discerning adults, and a great post-pub chill-out laugh for students.

* * * * *

The last time theediscerning did research for this, he found the game came out August 2002, and is normally £16.99 on amazon, who were however doing a speci
al for £15. Even cheaper and better, however, is to win it online...

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