It’s been another hectic holiday season in the gaming world this year with some of the biggest games releasing, causing many smaller titles to take shelter from the onslaught. Now that December has started, those smaller titles have started to come out to play again, including HandyGames’ Super Party Sports: Football. To be clear, this is actually the worldwide version of football, not American football. At first glance, it’s easy to compare this sports release to games like Worms or Angry Birds, but it comes to its own as a one-sided combat game with many puzzle-like elements. Those looking for a soccer-based brain teaser should give this one a look.
Here’s what I liked:
Simple fun — The idea of the game is to defeat every enemy and knock the ball into the goal at the end. With a simple concept and a short duration for each level, Super Party Sports: Football makes for a great pick-up-and-play game. The difficulty gradually rises but stays accessible to most people. There’s not much more to say about the game; sometimes simple is all that is needed.
Here’s what I didn’t like:
Power level adjustment — The controls are very simple. Two ways exist to shoot the ball, and an alternate way to pause the game is also mapped to the B button. So why is it that the only way to adjust how much power is put into a shot is also to use your aiming controls? The lack of precision is harmful; there were many moments when I fumbled around and lost valuable seconds in a game centered around precise timing for achieving high scores. Power should have been mapped to a button setup like the bumpers while leaving the aiming to function by itself.
Lack of background variety — All 100 levels use the same background. Although it’s a great background, it contributes a degree of monotony to the game. Despite having new puzzle elements constantly introduced to tease the player, the background visuals will be the first things to leave an impression. Even adding simple dawn, dusk and night variants of the existing background would be a welcome fix. Something is needed to distract players from the reality that the entire game is repetitive.
Wrap-up:
Super Party Sports: Football succeeds as a short-term game to pick up and play. There is fun to be had playing here; however, there is very little long-term viability. Once the player gets through all 100 levels, the motivation to continue ends. Gamers looking for something more substantial will need to look elsewhere. Pick it up only if you’re looking for a good distraction for a day or two.
Score: Try It
Achievement notes: A fairly straightforward Achievement list allows players to obtain all 1,000 Gamerscore from simply playing through all 100 levels and earning three stars on each. I’d safely estimate about 10 hours to earn every Achievement, but player skill will vary.
Super Party Sports: Football was developed and published by HandyGames. It was released on December 4, 2015 for $4.99. A copy was provided by HandyGames for review purposes.
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