Sega Soccer Slam Review

Sports can be difficult for some of us to get into, not because we’re nerds with no coordination, but because we don’t respond well to situations with so many scrupulous rules. Playing soccer during recess wasn’t so much about playing soccer as it was about kicking your classmates in the shins. That’s why unreal soccer games like Super Mario Strikers and Sega Soccer Slam are so fun. You can do whatever you want! There just happens to be a ball and two goals on the field.

Sega Soccer Slam is all about unruly conduct. These three-on-three matches are designed to be quick and painful. Passing, stealing, and shooting are fine and well, but the real fun of the game comes from punching each other. It’s quite satisfying to smack someone so hard, they do a back flip and miss catching a pass. You can even attack the goalie, which leads to some interesting tactics where one player may try to distract the goalie while another player shoots. Actions like making successful passes (or combos of passes), taking shots, or stealing the ball are rewarded with points. When your point meter reaches a certain level, you can use temporary boost power to mix things up even more. And you’ll need to use these special powers, because the goalie is usually no pushover. But the goalie will make mistakes, in or out of your favor. This time, however, there’s no room to complain, because you can take over the goalie at any time. This is purely optional (the computer does a better job than I ever could, anyway), but it’s a great addition that ups the challenge even more. Soccer Slam definitely feels like skill is required, but it’s also simple and easy enough for less-experienced gamers to jump in and enjoy.

An unfortunate setback to all this is that the controls don’t always match the franticness of the game. In Soccer Slam, it is imperative to think quick, lest you want to get clobbered. But sometimes the controls feel slow and unresponsive. To make a lobbed pass, you have to hold down the A button, and it takes a few seconds for this to register. By then, it’s most likely too late; somebody’s stolen the ball from you. The more elaborate charge shots are also gummed up with fancy animations of your character doing a flip, which, consequently, takes just enough time for somebody to stop you. The game’s still fun, and it’s easy to forgive its shortcomings, but you will undoubtedly find yourself saying, “Why didn’t I shoot that?!”

The meat of the game is its quest mode, where you take one team (from five) through a series of matches and soccer-related mini-games, earning money and buying stat-increasing accessories along the way. The only problem with this is just how much work you go through for such little rewards. Your final prize for sticking through twelve six-minute matches is a new playing field. The real surprise, though, is that there’s nothing inherently special or different about these new courses. It makes quest mode a near waste of time to trudge through with each and every team. But if you buy Soccer Slam to play by yourself, you won’t enjoy it much, anyway. This is a game that does better (much, much better) with two, three, or four players in. If so desired, you can even take other players into quest mode and let them play on your team. Unfortunately, matches are limited to three-on-three, so you can’t have all four players on the same team.

Soccer Slam’s final achievement is its great personality. The graphics are definitely cartoony, but the crazy character designs and voice overs add a lot of life to what originally looked like a visual bore. Not all of these original characters are winners (bald girls are never a win-win situation), but they really feel like caricatures ripped from some obscure TV show. Another interesting note about the presentation is just how much work went into the music. Music only plays in the menus, but there are seven different songs that randomly play, and most of it is pretty entertaining.

Final Comments

When it comes to soccer games on GameCube, most people will be inclined to buy Super Mario Strikers simply because it has Mario in it. And that’s not necessarily a bad choice. However, Soccer Slam is ultimately the better game. Better personality. Better sense of skill. Better on-field options. It may not allow four players to be on the same time or feel like the controls are entirely perfect, but fans of unruly soccer games should definitely look into this one.