FIFA, eat your heart out.
Why is my goalkeeper spooning my defender? Why are the opposing team just lying on the ground, watching my players jump 15 feet into the air? Why has everyone on the pitch suddenly lost all their clothes?
Just some of the questions you’ll ask yourself while playing Soccer Physics, a 2D football game that looks like it was either made by an extremely drunk person, or an extremely horny one. Or both.
The game pitches you a simple objective – score 5 goals against the enemy team, before they can score 5 against you. Within seconds of play beginning, both teams have bounced off into the world geometry, crumpled into sexualised positions and occasionally, just occasionally, kicked the football.
FIFA should really be more like this IMHO.
The reason for this menagerie of lunacy is Soccer Physics’ innovative control system. “Push the button to somehow control your team” is the game’s full tutorial, and it’s not joking. The one-tap button does little more than fling your team of rag dolls in an arbitrary direction to start either an impromptu dance session or an orgy, depending on how they are feeling that day.
Occasionally, things will happen. The ball you are kicking will turn into a beach ball, everyone’s clothes will fly off or their heads will just disappear. There’s also a replay button available for every goal scored, allowing you to relive some your best plays that somehow, against all odds, managed to go in.
Having never been a big fan of football, it’s hard for me to say whether this is all realistic or not. I’m unaware for example, of whether Arsenal have ever scored a goal by two-footed kicking their own goalie in the head while the enemy team fly backwards and face plant into a goalpost. Or whether Lionel Messi has ever scored by 69-ing a defender to death while the ball rolls slowly past.
There’s only one real bit of advice for Soccer Physics, and thats that playing it with another person is a must. To the game’s credit watching the tomfoolery with someone else is hilarious. It doesn’t matter who wins or loses in 2 player mode, but only the taking part, which I think is a sentiment that has never been expressed in a single game of FIFA or Pro Evo. Not one.
There’s also an endless mode in which you can forego scores in favour of eternal carnage. However, your stamina for playing really depends on how long the idea of utter soccer-based stupidity retains its mirth, or before you realise that you should really have spent the last hour and a half mowing the lawn or doing something a little less puerile. Like watching Cbeebies.
In the end, it’s your ability to withstand complete bemusement and what-the-fuckery that will determine whether you think Soccer Physics is worth £1.49 on iOS. I found it more enjoyable than a real football match, but that might be because I have the attention span of a hyper toddler.
Soccer Physics is available now on iOS. Developer: Otto-Ville Ojala. Website
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