Goal!
Reviewed by Brian Mulholland
Goal! is a basic sports game simulating Soccer or European Football.
There are several modes involving shootouts like the World Cup uses
to decide ties, US Championship play, and World Cup play. You can play
with or against a friend or alone. The game features a full field of
players each with differing skills, speeds and strengths.
Graphics 7 out of 10
Like most sports game there's not a whole lot of demand put on the
graphics. You draw and animate players, a big green field, and a few crowd
shots and you're done. The developers threw some cut scenes in for post-goal
celebrations, penalties, and a few stills for the championship moments, but
all around the graphics are basic and functional, although more attention
should have been paid to the animation of the ball-handling players.
Music and Sound 7 out of 10
The music isn't bad, but given how long you hear it for it would have been
nice for some more variety. But the tune fits and while the effects aren't
terribly realistic and don't really represent the things they try to represent,
they fit well, so you hardly notice.
Game Challenge 8 out of 10
Like most sports games with a little practice and the mastering of a few
unrealistic tricks you'll find yourself capable of dominating this game to
ridiculous extremes. I can't remember the last World Cup championship
game won 20-0, can you? Particularly the first round of the world cup
competition all you have to do is wiggle and the defenders can't touch you
until you reach the goal box (where the game always makes the defenders
successfully steal from you if they come even close). The game gets really
easy if you apply the deadly curve to your kicks. You see in GOAL, the
designers made the goal-keepers pretty decent at stopping direct shots
from about goal-box depth or closer which is obviously where they expected
most people to shoot from because to far before this you can't really see the
net. Close in like this you have to time and angle your shots well to get past
the goalie, or pass to a teammate and have him hit the open net...just like
real soccer. Where this lovely goal-keeping breaks down is blind shots from
just inside midfield. By blasting and heavily curving long range shots like
this, the goalie generally does not react until too late to keep the shot from
arcing into the corners. With practice you should be able to score at will
from certain spots on the field. The only challenge is getting to the right
points on the field without the defenders stealing the ball. Aside from the
first round of the World Cup the defenders will steal liberally, but some
skillful passing and wiggling can keep you alive long enough. In fact, the
greatest challenge the game presents is when you refrain from these
distance shots. In this way the game is actually pretty realistic with
reasonable scores. Even better yet is when two people play as a team and
try to set one another up for nice 'realistic' goals.
Game Play-Fun 9 out of 10
With a friend, Goal! can be great fun. The struggle to use teamwork instead
of the midfield shots can create a great deal of fun since it is often hard
to coordinate well. Plus the World Cup mode naturally bring out a certain
degree of nationalistic pride.
Frustration
It's hard to imagine anyone being frustrated with anything in this game.
I guess if you're having learning curve difficulties the game can be
challenging when moving from the first round of the world cup to the
second, but with a minimum of practice you should overcome this. If
you're having problems, play the US Championship since for some profane
reason this is as difficult as the second round from the very start (which
makes no sense given that US Soccer is a joke compared to the rest of
the world).
Replayability 9 out of 10
With a friend you can play this game ad infinitum. We did. Although our
fascination might have been as much a factor of this being one of the handful
of games I owned for NES that allowed two players to play together. No one
wanted to play against me when I was growing up. :) All bragging aside however
this game was a lot of fun.
Overall 8 out of 10
Basically, Goal! was about as realistic as other NES sports games. Just
like all of them if you master and abuse a couple tricks you can dominate
freely, but if you refrain you can have a pretty good time. Particularly
with the tandem play mode.