Gameboy Color ~ Fifa 2000 Review

Overview

We all know about the Fifa series. Footy, soccer, football, or whatever you call it is normally done quite badly on handhelds as I would assume. Game developers try everything they can do to juice out the wee little Gameboy's capabilities to create simplified yet good fun games for us all to play. But sometimes they can try too hard and end up with what we have here as Fifa 2000.

Gameplay and Realism

The Gameboy Color offers plenty of space for gameplay, but not that much for realism. This game offers hardly of either.

Let me begin by saying how about just over half a minute is wasted when you wait for all the game's credits to pop up. Finally when that cool looking rotating stadium pops-up, you still have to push start to enter the game's menu. Now let us look into the actual game. Oh no, that long wait wasn't worth it at all.

Basically you have 2 buttons. One for shooting, speed burst or tackling. The other for passing and changing players.

This game is very similar to the old Fifa games on the Sega Genesis. In my opinion, they all sucked. But this is worse. There is just no way to pass the ball around efficiently. It just all feels so awkward. You pass the ball, pass it around some more, the computer might take it off you, then you try to get it back. And if you're in the goal box, you'll take a shot. That's all this game is. It isn't simple. It's a big hapless childish scramble for the ball. I personally found it easier to boot the ball up the field to a player up front, and have him sprint as close as he can to the goal for a shot on goal. Hardly realistic at all. At least the game isn't too hard to score goals.

3 out of 10

Graphics

Well the best graphics of the game can be seen before you kick off. That THQ logo popping up looked quite impressive. So did that cool rotating stadium and the colourful game menus. Going ingame, the players resemble fat human stick figures that animate kinda realistically. Everything else looks alright. But in actual fact, this game looks no different to Fifa 98, so no effort has been made to make this game look better.

3 out of 5

Sound and Music

As you would expect, sounds during the game are just beeps and toots. The crowd sounds are just an irritating and continuous clapping sound, that slightly changes when a goal is scored. The music sounds quite funky though.

2.5 out of 5

Playability and Versatility

On attack, you just pass the ball around until you get a player close to goal for a shot. There isn't any time to put in constructive crosses or stuff like that. And it is really easy to lose possession through it all.

Now for defence, you simply either run your player in to tackle, or the computer will do it for you automatically. The controls are rather unresponsive, so you tend to keep pressing the tackle button, which only works when you're close to an opposing player. So then at times when I regain possession, I don't know whether it was me, or one of my other players who tackled for the ball. As far as team tactics are concerned, there are a host of them to choose from. Things like long ball, all out attack and changing formations. But because the game plays like a jumbled up mess, these tactics won't have much of an effect.

1.25 out of 5

Options

Game modes include exhibition match, playoff, league, tournament and even an indoor mode, which I think is better than playing on the pitch, because it is a lot easier to score goals. There are only a bunch of international sides, along with the THQ Tornados. But there are no real players, so having all those teams is a waste of time. Being an EA Sports game, you would not expect that.

A password save option is available to save progress, in case you insanely like this game. The only thing I suggest is to just select quick start from the main menu, because that is all you will ever need to get everything out of this game.

2 out of 5

For: cool looking credit animations, colourful menus, indoor mode.

Against: lacks any fun gameplay, looks just like Fifa 98, mediocre sound effects, no club sides, no real players.

Overall, this is a poor showing from THQ. It probably seems that they just tried too hard to emulate football on a handheld, but ended up with an unplayable jumble of kick and chase that is not simple. Or maybe they didn't try at all?