I don't
I'm oddly addicted to Fifa World Cup on the PSP though. It's one of the games I got free with my Go!
I keep trying modern football games, but just can't get on with them. When I was at college, I was addicted to Kick Off and Kick Off 2 though. Even though I despise watching football and physically playing it, I really enjoyed those games.
Everyone moved to Sensible Soccer when it came out a year later, but my heart was always with Kick Off 2.
I loved the way that it was all down to ball control and timing. You could make a mad run from one end of the pitch to the other and score - or lob the ball to a striker and do an overhead kick into the back of the net. The game requires fast reactions, skill, timing and tight wits.
It also cost £25 20 years ago for people complaining about the cost of games now... £25 for a game written in six months by five people in a shed in Norfolk. Sheesh!
The best thing about it was it was vertically scrolling, rather than the modern horizontal. I've never been able to make the transition.
Back to Fifa World Cup 2010 on the PSP.
It's rubbish, side action typical fayre. Only it isn't... It has a "Captain Your Country" mode.
This is where I'm addicted.
It's back to a vertical view point.
It concentrates on a single player, so you don't need the mind of a football addict to lay out "plays" and be all tactical and stuff. You just concentrate on you.
It has an "easy button mode". Kick Off 2 had four directions and one "fire button". With those five simple things, you could dribble, pass high, pass low, shoot, swerve, scissor kick, save, header and overhead kick. Modern games have all the buttons use, and a combination of others. It's like learning to fly a 747 with the combinations rather than kick about a pig skin.
The easy mode brings it back to movement and a few simple button presses. It's streamlined and back to how I loved my football games. Fast, furious, enjoyable and yet still challenging enough.
Most of the game is rubbish like all other modern games, but this one mode saves it completely from being utter dross, and it's taken at least 6 hours of my life this week, with a plan to lose more
Anyone else been playing the Blur demo? Download the PS3 version and get an online rank of 5 before 25th August and you get entered for a free prize draw to win a real BMW. It's well worth it, as the demo is brilliant fun to play online.