Bring back Ocean's Match Day!, 22 Jul 2003

Sadly, David Beckham Soccer falls into the second category. OK, there are pretty graphics, the 'commentry' is pretty good (though there are no classic Ron Atkinson phrases to speak of) if sometimes a little out of context with the actual match at times and there is a catchy tune over the menus. Sadly, the gameplay itself doesn't match it.

The blurb says "[the game] features hundreds of up to date teams and players". Well, not strictly speaking true. For instance, look carefully, and all the England team members names are mis-spelt (Seeman for instance) and the 'classic challenge' game features the Liverpool v Arsenal championship decider from a good few years back, but Arsenal seem to be referred to as 'Highbury'. I can only assume this has something to do with image rights (and me being picky) but flies against the claims made.

Also, most of these are locked (again frustrating, cos I want to play as my favourite team!) until you complete stages of David's Training academy, with "tests set by David himself, including corner taking, shooting, passing and David's world renowned free kicks". To say 'set by David himself' is a bit tenuous too - all you see is a pitcure of Beckhams head (like the one on the box) and some text explaining what to do... there is no audio or movie as this might suggest.

Anyhow, the 'academy' is a good idea, to get used to some of the controls (some of which are over complicated and not at all intuitive) and does help but overall, the gameplay is too fast to enable you to master the controls during an actual game.

I'm getting there with them but it's very demoralising losing 10-0 every game because the computer controlled opposition are too fast and have got the ball back by the time you have remembered how to hit a long ball out of defence. Don't ask about shooting - I haven't managed to get that close to the opposition goal yet!

There needed to be some levels built into the game (easy / meduim / hard) while you got into the game. At the moment, it's too frustating to keep playing, so I might well end up selling my copy on.

There are some nice touches to the game but the gameplay itself is pretty awful - gimme back my Amstrad and a copy of Matchday!