Sega Soccer Slam
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Visual Concepts
Genre: Sports
Release Date: March 19, 2002
Opinion: James Freeman
I'm the last guy on Earth anybody would see playing the latest copy of Madden, or any other sports game for that matter. The only exceptions to this law are the quirky and surreal games bearing little resemblance to reality. Games like NBA Jam and NFL Blitz always went well with gamers, and rarely is there a game that is exempt of this rule. Fortunately the GameCube library is stuffed full of gems like these, and one of them happens to be the best soccer game on the system: Sega Soccer Slam. It received generous reviews and while it probably was a big hit for its time, it's an old title that people have long ago forgotten. And this is a title that deserves to be remembered in the annals of great arcade sports games.
Who cares about emulating real life soccer? In Soccer Slam, two teams of three wacky characters duke it out within outrageously surreal environments. It's arcade soccer at its best, and I loved every second of it. Since the fields are at least half as big as a normal soccer field, the action is much more intense and you're always on your toes either driving forward on offense or punching the hell out of the opponents trying to block a goal. When enough punches and sweet moves built up, your team's action meter fills up and your players can shift into flaming balls of fire (team el fuego), watery sprays of fury (sub zero), or any of the other abilities of each particular team. The scoring happens suddenly, the scramble back onto defense is frantic, and the fun factor in Sega Soccer Slam far exceeds that of any "normal" sports title on the Cube.
Because the game is so old, gamers should have no problems finding it in the used bins of local stores such as EB Games for $15. Heck, you can get it new at EB for that price. For fans of old who never took the chance, or new gamers who haven't even heard of it, this is a title worth getting and remembering. With EA taking hold of the simulated sports game market, we often get games with a few updated stats, a few tweaks to the gameplay, but true ground-breaking stuff doesn't always happen with the genre. Sega Soccer Slam takes sports to a new level. Definitely a major sleeper hit, and perhaps even the best to appear on the GCN.
