Speedball 2 tournament is a futuristic sport with a mixture of skill and heavy contact, based in the year 2326. rival gangs create an ultra violent sport called speedball. Both teams wear heavy gear and use a steel ball to score goals and make points to win the game, there’s no rules, so you can pretty much beat, crunch and body check your way to victory.

Firstly to install the game i had to register my game through steam(http://www.steampowered.com/v/index.php?area=getsteamnow) and wait several hours for steam to validate my serial number, after that that game started to install, but instead of installing from the disc it downloaded the files from steam, so i had to wait even longer to get into the action.

Once all thats over you enter a simple and easy menu to navigate, in single player you get some fun well known game types which include knockout, this mode lets you play with friends on the same computer, control pads are also compatible which makes this mode better, you can even have 4 players (2v2). The second mode you can do is a league(career mode), there are 4 leagues all together with 14 matches played, you get promoted from a league if you finish first or second. Each season gives you credits to spend to recruit new players or even upgrade them. Again the league mode is very much based on today’s sports but still fun to play. Cup mode consists of 8 rounds and you play 2 legs every round, there’s also practice mode which helps in the early stages of the game.

Graphically i think the game looks decent, you wont be impressed but they are decent enough. The crowd atmosphere is quite nice. The player graphics are a little robot like and don’t move to fluently like they do with other sports games. same with passing, it can be quite hard to even see the ball at times and you wonder if you still have the ball, then you notice the AI team is running up the other end with it. Multi player is the big highlight for me, if you can get past the certain flaws in the game its a really good game to play, local player is really easy to do if you have extra controllers, online play is really easy to setup, a quick registration on the speedball website and your ready to log in and go. The website lets you create a profile, blog about matches, a friends list to show who is online, gallery to share your screenshots, match statistics of all your online games and you can also combine your teams in to clans, all good stuff for the online element of the game.

Game controls are very easy to pickup but not that easy to control on the field. Very simple WSAD to move, mouse clicks to shoot, lob pass, body check and shoulder check. They are the basics and that’s all you really need at first. The thing about the controls is its so hard to keep hold of the ball , passing and shooting isn’t accurate and you really need to practice your passing and shooting skills before playing, the control of the characters only turn in 8 directions unlike other sport games where players can turn at all angles.

Overall i think its a good buy if your into your multi player games, an essential to any sports enthusiast or hardcore fan of the series. There are some flaws and single player doesn’t really cut it for me. Its still a fair game and worth a try.

Game play 7/10 not easy to pass and shoot, ai is quite tough, multiplayer is fun though

Graphics 7/10 not the best but good enough

Sound 7/10 sound effects and music fair well with the game

Overall 7/10 Once you get into it and after the loading not a bad game at all , worth a purchase.