Game Reviews

X2 Football 2009

Star onStar onStar onStar offStar off
|
| X2 Football 2009
Get
X2 Football 2009
|
| X2 Football 2009

Football's gone mad. In a month when Real Madrid seems set on spending the entire GDP of a small country on a small batch of so-called Galácticos, I find myself lusting for a simpler time, when footballers played for fees that didn't require super-long cheques in order to fit scores of zeros.

Of course, the benefit of the the footballing elite being in such rude financial health is that developers are jumping over each other to translate that same beautiful game into bright, shiny new titles. Hot on the heels of Gameloft's gold award winning Real Football 2009 comes X2 Football 2009 (or, X2 Soccer 2009 to our cousins across the pond), handled by the team that had much success with FIFA on the DS.

Unfortunately, X2 owes less to a band of Galácticos and more to Grimsby Town on a wet weekend. The heart is most certainly there, but it isn't quite the solid, stable replication of the game for which we might have been hoping.

That said, you can't fault its controls, which make good use of the touchscreen. Using a series of digital buttons that initially seem complex, you'll actually find yourself slipping between passing, shooting and tackling with little fuss.

These action buttons are located on the right side of the screen, while a virtual analogue stick pops up on the left wherever you place your thumb. The stick responds well, giving you an easy handle on the speed and direction of your players: the further out you drag your thumb, the faster they sprint.

There's little to chastise when it comes to content, either. Though club sides are a no-no (the developers thankfully sidestepping the need to include Highbury FC and Manchester Reds as a result), a comprehensive line-up of national squads complete with their full roster of licensed players make the package. You can take each and every one into World Cup style knock-out tournaments or full international leagues.

Superficially, there's also fun to be had with flowing moves kicked off by seamless passes leading to a solid strike on goal or two. Anyone who thoroughly knows football, however, will spot glaring flaws after just a few minutes of dedicated play.

Of particular note is the behaviour of rival players who are often content to stand around and watch while you fly past them on anything other than the game's expert level of difficulty. Even then when they do make a tackle, they usually lose it again straight away. Mere contact with an opposing player often enough to cause a switch in possession.

In this way, even successful tackles against a rival can result in them coming away with the ball, possession literally switching between the two players three, four, five or more times.

The engine doesn't cope with challenges well at all. Sliding in and winning the ball often causes the game to freeze up for a split second or two, interrupting the flow of play on an alarmingly frequent basis. In fact, generally hectic play as a rule doesn't seem to go down too well: a particularly close match of ours that was packed with three red cards and a couple of penalties finally caused the game to crash when a defender poked the ball into his own net.

To be fair, repeated attempts to replicate this situation thankfully didn't bear the same fruit. An isolated bug isn't a reason to punish the game as a whole.

Even so, X2 Football 2009 can only be viewed as a valiant first step towards something special further down the line. Up until recently, such niggles used to bug almost all footie titles on the mobile.

Even as recently as a year ago, X2 Games's soccer simulation would have held its own amongst the competition, despite its faults. Mobile football is an ever improving sport, though, and with the likes of Real Football bringing increasing panache and pace to the pitch with every release, X2 Football 2009 feels like the last bastion of an all the more innocent, almost obsolete age.

X2 Football 2009

Suffering from one too many niggles and with a foot still in the past, X2 Football 2009 shows promise but is some way off challenging for the title
Score
Keith Andrew
Keith Andrew
With a fine eye for detail, Keith Andrew is fuelled by strong coffee, Kylie Minogue and the shapely curve of a san serif font. He's also Pocket Gamer's resident football gaming expert and, thanks to his work on PG.biz, monitors the market share of all mobile OSes on a daily basis.