rob crowe

On rookie difficulty I am nothing short of tennis god, reaching grand slam finals with a player rating of 40 without losing a game. On amateur difficulty, I can't win a first round match in the lowest ranked tournaments with a player rating 15 points higher than my opponent. This isn't a bad game, its just been made with comically poor difficulty settings.

The commercial with the older man saying 'you'd never do that in a real game, it's wrong' has this game down to a tee. The football is at times ludicrous, with every team passing the ball around like peak Barcelona regardless whether they're Manchester City or Rochdale and pulling out outrageous skill moves at will. CPU goalkeepers come for everything and every punch, every headed clearance from the defenders goes perfectly to one of their players for the counter attack. Oh, and the absurd 'next time the ball goes dead' mechanic means halves go on for hilarious amounts of stoppage time. This isn't a bad game, but it's not football, not really. It's an arcade bit of fun designed for children. If you want realistic football this isn't the game for you.

I found it pretty unengaging. The central premise is clever but the movie just sort of meanders along and feels longer than it is. There's a lot of dialogue that it is delivered in a very unanimated, dispassionate kind of a way that makes paying attention quite difficult. Ultimately nothing really happens of consequence and it's 90 minutes of blandness. I'd rather watch a bad movie to be honest as it would be more memorable