World Penalties 2010

It’s that time of year again. Once every other year an international tournament kicks off and English fans heap ridiculous expectations on “our boys.”

This despite the fact that consistently exiting competitions at around the quarter final stage suggests the team is ‘only’ the eighth best in the world.

Still, this seemingly unshakable, borderline insane belief in the team falters under one particular set of circumstances – penalties.

It’s a strange, tortuous part of football that relies on a strong mentality as much as technique. And England are consistently found wanting in both areas when it comes to the latter stages of competitions.

World Penalties 2010 is a game that focuses on the dark art of penalty taking. Sadly, like England, it lacks both technique and brains when it comes to those do or die spot kicks.

Essentially, developer Bravo Game Studios has ripped out the penalty system from a fully fledged footy game and made an entire game out of it. Unfortunately, it’s failed to add anything that might make you want to purchase it over said alternatives.

Having picked a national team in either Friendly or Championship mode, you’re placed into a standard penalty situation viewed from behind your kicker. First you have to stop a waggling arrow to set your direction (pressing up or down to adjust the height), then you set the amount of swerve (shouldn’t that apply more to free kicks?) followed by the power.

And that’s it for kicking. When it’s your turn to defend, all you need do is press a direction to send your goalie sprawling accordingly.

If this sounds like a meagre setup for a game, that’s because it is. You get to select your kickers from a squad (which is non-official, so you get to play as Roney or Messo), but their stats don’t seem to have a massive impact on the quality of the penalty.

The game does have a couple of nice touches, such as the summaries that accompany each nation. Even here, though, there are some sloppy spelling mistakes (Germany “have the right blend of experienced and younger players to thake them all the way”).

It's worth noting that EA's 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa offers a Free Kick Challenge mode that offers a similar footy face-off premise, but with superior execution. And that's just a bonus mode.

Ultimately, it’s hard to look on World Penalties 2010 as anything more than a cynical World Cup cash-in, such is its lack of content or polish.

In penalty terms this is something of a clumsy, hopeful punt.