Reviewed just in time for the World Cup...wait a minute.
It's not hard to see why Midway's Sports division has been so successful. Their formula is straight up - take an existing sport, remove a few players, add copious dollops of extreme violence and over-the-top gameplay, and watch the moneyhats pile high to the ceiling. NHL Hitz followed this recipe to great acclaim, MLB Slugfest is probably the most flat-out fun baseball game available on the market, and there's always the daddy of 'em all, the juggernaut known as NFL Blitz. Great games all, and all following certain steps. Well, Red Card Soccer 20-03 also has the extreme genes, but not everything is as it seems at first.
Right off the bat, you'll notice that Midway kept the proper number of players on the pitch instead of knocking it down to 3 or 4 forwards. This wasn't what I was expecting, considering the nature of most Midway Sports games, but it works just fine. There are different kinds of passes and shots available, plus the ability to spin and juke around opposing players. The control doesn't provide quite the amount of diversity that EA's FIFA series does, but the simplification actually works in Red Card's favour. Limited turbo can be used to whip around defenders or catch up to opposing forwards, and the seperate boost meter gives added punch to slide tackles, shots, and fists to the head.
The audio in RedCard 20-03 ranges from the good to the passable - the commentary from the two-man team of Brits in the box is rather dry, and they never seem to get really excited. The SFX, however, is well done, with the wooshing of a well-struck volley coming from the speakers crystal clear. Nasty fouls and slide tackles sound painfully cringe-worthy, adding to the atmosphere.
The usual Midway unlockables can be found - secret teams with weird players, new stadiums to play in, cheat codes, and what not. The graphics on GameCube seems a little blurrier than the original PS2 version, but it's not to the detriment of the core gamplay - it looks good enough for what it does. The stadiums tend to suffer in image quality as opposed to the actual players, and that's fine by me.
How does Red Card compare to other soccer titles on the market? Well, it's not as realistic as FIFA, and certainly isn't as outrageous as Sega's Soccer Slam. It does occupy a comfortable niche somewhere in the middle, however, and holds it own as a fun, easy to pick up soccer title. I'd like to see an updated version down the line make more of an effort to distinguish itself from FIFA, however - as it stands right now, I can just turn down the foul calls in World Cup 2002 and get an experience that isn't far off what RedCard Soccer 2003 offers. Cut down the number of players while retaining the core gameplay and Midway could really set itself apart from the rest of the pack. Something to think about.
