Red Card 20-03
The minds behind NFL Blitz try their hand at soccer. Hands-on impressions galore are just a click away.
Published: March 22, 2002
There are few games that are as instantly playable as NFL Blitz. Even before you know what buttons do what, you've moved the ball 10 feet up the field. This of course was game design that didn't happen by accident, it took a unique vision of what worked well about the real-life game and should be included, but stripped out all the superfluous extras that made the digital version a simulation. They tweaked speed and player size, adjusted the relative Xtreem-ness of the hits and played around with the official rules. Surprisingly, the designers at Midway were still able to snag the official NFL license to keep things somewhat tethered to real NFL players and locales. It was a formula that paid off big and has since hit upon various yearly upgrades and tweaks.
Enter Red Card, the first attempt by the same demented minds that brought you the quintessential arcade American football game to add a little more spice to European football (that's soccer to all you uninitiated Yanks). Red Card is still soccer - perhaps even more so than Blitz is football - but it has undergone a couple of rough-and-tumble tweaks. As is to be expected from the Blitz crew, aggression is a major factor in the game, and big hits are commonplace. Sick of that bastard always taking the ball just because he has better footwork than you? Fine, slip his feet out from under him and introduce the back of his head to the pitch with a well-placed sweep. What about that defender that always seems to slide tackle you before you can get a shot off on goal? What's a friendly rivalry if not peppered with the occasional cleat to the face? As long as the refs aren't watching, anything's fair game in the world of Red Card.
We managed to get our hands on a preview build of the game and have taken it through the paces. Despite being quite early and lacking most of the major season features, the game shows remarkable promise. Soccer has always been one of those games that seems to be playable even for those that aren't sports game nuts, and it's nice to see that Red Card offers something on par with anything EA or Konami can kick out - at least on the surface. It's still far too early to tell how things like balance and AI will play a part, but if the game can have us in the offices on our feet as we charge the goal, it's got that certain something.
The preview build we have lacked any of the full season options, but the quick friendly matches were easy to slip into with an interface that was almost exactly like the other 20-02 games from Midway. While no specific regional teams were available (boooo, no Man U!), each country had a presence with reasonably accurate information for offense, defense, speed, stamina and morale. The main gameplay is still very traditional soccer, but there are two meters, the now standard turbo meter and something called a 1-2-3-4 meter, which allows for super boosts of speed, extra hard hits and a Matrix-like bullet time maneuver that slows down the game to highlight a big pass. It's actually much more useful than it sounds, and since the elapsed time is seconds (if that) in real-time, the switch to slo-mo doesn't interfere with the gameplay. Shots on goal were handled with a nifty flick of the right analog stick; a quick snap to the upper right would shoot the ball to the corresponding part of the net. Very useful for on-the-run shots and penalty kicks.
Once again, the RenderWare platform gets a chance to shine. While the player models weren't overly detailed, they did look good, and the grass looked absolutely stunning. Animation was fluid and diverse, and offered plenty of small touches like players in the vicinity of a headed or cross kicked ball stopping to watch it arc earthward. When slide tackles are executed, small blades of grass are kicked up, and big powered up shots send the ball hurtling toward the net with a clean trail of white smoke. Best of all, the entire game screams along at a rock-solid 60fps.
Red Card still has a long way to go, but from all indications, this could absolutely be the soccer game for people who don't like soccer games. We'll be sure to keep you up to date as new builds come in.
Enter Red Card, the first attempt by the same demented minds that brought you the quintessential arcade American football game to add a little more spice to European football (that's soccer to all you uninitiated Yanks). Red Card is still soccer - perhaps even more so than Blitz is football - but it has undergone a couple of rough-and-tumble tweaks. As is to be expected from the Blitz crew, aggression is a major factor in the game, and big hits are commonplace. Sick of that bastard always taking the ball just because he has better footwork than you? Fine, slip his feet out from under him and introduce the back of his head to the pitch with a well-placed sweep. What about that defender that always seems to slide tackle you before you can get a shot off on goal? What's a friendly rivalry if not peppered with the occasional cleat to the face? As long as the refs aren't watching, anything's fair game in the world of Red Card.
We managed to get our hands on a preview build of the game and have taken it through the paces. Despite being quite early and lacking most of the major season features, the game shows remarkable promise. Soccer has always been one of those games that seems to be playable even for those that aren't sports game nuts, and it's nice to see that Red Card offers something on par with anything EA or Konami can kick out - at least on the surface. It's still far too early to tell how things like balance and AI will play a part, but if the game can have us in the offices on our feet as we charge the goal, it's got that certain something.
The preview build we have lacked any of the full season options, but the quick friendly matches were easy to slip into with an interface that was almost exactly like the other 20-02 games from Midway. While no specific regional teams were available (boooo, no Man U!), each country had a presence with reasonably accurate information for offense, defense, speed, stamina and morale. The main gameplay is still very traditional soccer, but there are two meters, the now standard turbo meter and something called a 1-2-3-4 meter, which allows for super boosts of speed, extra hard hits and a Matrix-like bullet time maneuver that slows down the game to highlight a big pass. It's actually much more useful than it sounds, and since the elapsed time is seconds (if that) in real-time, the switch to slo-mo doesn't interfere with the gameplay. Shots on goal were handled with a nifty flick of the right analog stick; a quick snap to the upper right would shoot the ball to the corresponding part of the net. Very useful for on-the-run shots and penalty kicks.
Once again, the RenderWare platform gets a chance to shine. While the player models weren't overly detailed, they did look good, and the grass looked absolutely stunning. Animation was fluid and diverse, and offered plenty of small touches like players in the vicinity of a headed or cross kicked ball stopping to watch it arc earthward. When slide tackles are executed, small blades of grass are kicked up, and big powered up shots send the ball hurtling toward the net with a clean trail of white smoke. Best of all, the entire game screams along at a rock-solid 60fps.
Red Card still has a long way to go, but from all indications, this could absolutely be the soccer game for people who don't like soccer games. We'll be sure to keep you up to date as new builds come in.
