Ultimate Beach Soccer Review





Developer: PAM Publisher: DreamCatcher
Release Date: October 20, 2003 Also On: GBA

Soccer isn’t my favorite sport. In fact, it is on my bottom tier of preferred sports. The concept of putting soccer, one of the most boring sports, and combining it with beach sports, would be one of the last ideas that I would come up with.

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The ball is kicked by pressing X, then the direction you want the ball to go with the left thumbstick. R is used to run, while L is used to switch between players. While on defense, you can dive with X. The playing field in UBS is small. There is little room to pass and stay open. The game ends up being a win for the kicker with the best accuracy, since shots are attempted quite often.

UBS has four exotic locations. While limited, they don’t fail to impress. Whether the stadium is in Rio, Bangkok, Venice, or Marseilles, they all have a regional crowd. The crowds do little more than chant, with some terrible audio; all you hear is “hotdogs� and snooze inducing commentary. Game modes in UBS include Friendly, Arcade, Soccer Tour, Training, and Custom Competition.

UBS’ strongest suit is its graphical presentation. The graphics aren’t actually half bad. There are nice sand effects and player shadows, along with smooth player movements. The crowd happens to be realistic, not the “wallpaper� crowd found in many sports titles. The worst parts about the game’s graphics are the loads in-between sequences (the screen turns black) and the cheerleaders who look like men. I extremely dislike to “hate on� games, but UBS deserves it.

The game itself is slow and clumsy, there’s absolutely no fun here. UBS gives you no reason to come back, and because of that, its replay value drops dramatically. You just don’t want to play this game; I almost felt that I played it far too long, yet I probably played it, at most, for 4 hours. If you own a GBA, I suggest you pick up the handheld version, because the console version sure can’t compete.

Graphics: 7.5
Sound: 0
Gameplay: 2
Creativity: 5
Replay Value/Game Length: 3
Final: 3
Written by Kyle Review Guide

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