Why New Star Soccer is Bad and Addictive
Things to do in lockdown. Watch a lot of TV. Start new blogs. Promise yourself you'll start exercising again tomorrow. Make a lot of slow cooker recipes. Remember you've got a Kongregate account.
Kongregate, for those who don't know, is a site full of browser games. It's a good outlet for my probable ADD as I can just switch to something different while I waste my life on my computer. My game of choice there had been Retro Bowl, a genuinely good American Football game, but when my cat deleted my save data I got sad and tried something else.
That something else was New Star Soccer, a football game from the same developer, and it is genuinely bad and I can't stop playing it.
There's three categories of bad here
1. Comically Bad
This stuff sometimes makes the game more enjoyable than not, but reading reports about Liverpool fans laughing at my shooting after my L2 Torquay side just beat them in the League Cup semi-finals thanks to my brilliant playmaking is just dumb. My shooting isn't the story there!
What is the story of the game is how a sixteen year old unknown became the greatest player ever after a meteoric rise inspired by "NRG Drinks" that allowed him to work harder and become a freak athlete. Lance Armstrong approves. We'll ignore the part about how talented sixteen year old footballers aren't playing conference games, it's all about how my footballer was so busy being "NRG Drinks" he didn't even own a pair of boots until he'd been playing the game for a year.
The price for these drinks keep going up the better you are too. The price of an NRG Drink in my game is higher than that of a TV. Or my house. Or two games' wages.
The comments section on Kongregate is just filled with people laughing at the ridiculous nature of the game. It's not a huge deal, but it doesn't help when there's other issues.
2. Bad Gameplay
The basic mechanic of the game is the ball falls to you. You get to pick where to try and make your play on one screen, then have to hit a moving ball on the next to execute. There is something strangely addictive about that but the execution is pretty bad in a way that makes it feel not like football. For one thing, your team mates are static as hell. There's no joy to be had from hitting a great forward run, because there are no forward runs. For another, I have no idea of how the ball is coming into me. Shots I'd try on the volley aren't shots I'd try with the ball on the ground. And as a result, it feels very RNG driven whether I have a chance to have a good match or a bad one. Ditto for the training exercise.
Outside of the game screen, the game is a poorly explained cluster. I have properties because they aid in my recovery of energy after a match, but I don't know by how much. I had to search the internet for what the various types of NRG drinks do. Little is explained. The match the cards mini-games for improving relationships adds nothing to the experience. And as for the press conferences? Instant F5 territory.
3. Just Bad
It's a phone browser game that's been ported to desktop, and ported with a tiny phone sized window. The odds of accidentally moving the cursor off of the game window when trying to hit the ball are real good, particularly if you're trying to chip it. The odds of that happening are even better when accounting for the game being very laggy.
The basics of this game - hitting the ball and watching your character progress - are great. Everything else around it - isn't. I considered getting the phone browser version but the reviews say the ads are obnoxious. And that's a shame, because it means I'm probably going to have to peace out on a game that could be a hugely fun waste of time - but instead is just wasting my F5 button.
Kongregate, for those who don't know, is a site full of browser games. It's a good outlet for my probable ADD as I can just switch to something different while I waste my life on my computer. My game of choice there had been Retro Bowl, a genuinely good American Football game, but when my cat deleted my save data I got sad and tried something else.
That something else was New Star Soccer, a football game from the same developer, and it is genuinely bad and I can't stop playing it.
There's three categories of bad here
1. Comically Bad
This stuff sometimes makes the game more enjoyable than not, but reading reports about Liverpool fans laughing at my shooting after my L2 Torquay side just beat them in the League Cup semi-finals thanks to my brilliant playmaking is just dumb. My shooting isn't the story there!
What is the story of the game is how a sixteen year old unknown became the greatest player ever after a meteoric rise inspired by "NRG Drinks" that allowed him to work harder and become a freak athlete. Lance Armstrong approves. We'll ignore the part about how talented sixteen year old footballers aren't playing conference games, it's all about how my footballer was so busy being "NRG Drinks" he didn't even own a pair of boots until he'd been playing the game for a year.
The price for these drinks keep going up the better you are too. The price of an NRG Drink in my game is higher than that of a TV. Or my house. Or two games' wages.
The comments section on Kongregate is just filled with people laughing at the ridiculous nature of the game. It's not a huge deal, but it doesn't help when there's other issues.
2. Bad Gameplay
The basic mechanic of the game is the ball falls to you. You get to pick where to try and make your play on one screen, then have to hit a moving ball on the next to execute. There is something strangely addictive about that but the execution is pretty bad in a way that makes it feel not like football. For one thing, your team mates are static as hell. There's no joy to be had from hitting a great forward run, because there are no forward runs. For another, I have no idea of how the ball is coming into me. Shots I'd try on the volley aren't shots I'd try with the ball on the ground. And as a result, it feels very RNG driven whether I have a chance to have a good match or a bad one. Ditto for the training exercise.
Outside of the game screen, the game is a poorly explained cluster. I have properties because they aid in my recovery of energy after a match, but I don't know by how much. I had to search the internet for what the various types of NRG drinks do. Little is explained. The match the cards mini-games for improving relationships adds nothing to the experience. And as for the press conferences? Instant F5 territory.
3. Just Bad
It's a phone browser game that's been ported to desktop, and ported with a tiny phone sized window. The odds of accidentally moving the cursor off of the game window when trying to hit the ball are real good, particularly if you're trying to chip it. The odds of that happening are even better when accounting for the game being very laggy.
The basics of this game - hitting the ball and watching your character progress - are great. Everything else around it - isn't. I considered getting the phone browser version but the reviews say the ads are obnoxious. And that's a shame, because it means I'm probably going to have to peace out on a game that could be a hugely fun waste of time - but instead is just wasting my F5 button.
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