As I looked longingly at my housemate's copy of Pro Evolution Soccer 5, I found myself not only crying inside, but also pondering: Why are all the football games on the Dreamcast shite? There isn't a single decent footy game on the DC. Virtua Striker 2: WANK; Dream Soccer: WANK; European Super League: ABHORRENT. So, here as evidence are exhibits A, B, C, D and E to support my claim that the Dreamcast has the worst football games of any console ever released.

Exhibit A: Virtua Striker 2
Ok, so it's an arcade port...but why port an unplayable abomination like this? Even when you're playing it in the pub after several pints of Stella, this is still crap. You can't change the view, there is that awful "swoosh" noise when you tackle another player, commentary consists of "GOOOOOOAL!" The graphics are decent, but the rest is as comparable to real football as Peter Jackson's King Kong is to a trip to Knowsley Safari Park.

Exhibit B: European Super League
It has 16 teams. There is no commentary. It is unplayable. It has graphics like a Master System game. Do me a favour.

Exhibit C: 90 Minutes
Ho ho...this is so bad it's actually good!!! God, where do I start with 90 Minutes? I don't think my vocabulary is wide enough to fully describe how horrific 90 Minutes is...it's even got spelling mistakes and the grammar on the options screen is as if it has been translated from Japanese, to Ancient Greek, to fucking Klingon and then into English. Awesomely bad.

Exhibit D: UEFA Dream Soccer
OK, so its not as bad as the others listed here, but whats with the Benny Hill style running animation? Also - if you line up a shot at goal, the player spins round and kicks in the opposite direction...but the ball still flies toward the goal! Terrific. How did they miss that in playtesting...come to think of it, how did they miss the rest of the shit enclosed within this GD-Rom? And a woman commentating on football? SACRELIDGE! She's only there to look at "Bavid Deckhum"'s arse.

Exhibit E: Worldwide Soccer 2000
Not, as I was hoping, an update of the Earth shattering Saturn footy game Sega Worldwide Soccer '97. No, it's actually an update of smelly PSX footy game World League Soccer. It's even got the same commentary, poo graphics and cheap scoring methods. Silicon Dreams, you are the games developing equivalent of Andy Capp, you lazy gits.

Exhibit F: Worldwide Soccer: Euro Edition
The same as 2000, but with the most contradictory name since the
American baseball league decided to call it's premier competition the World Series.

Exhibit G: Xzibit
Oh Dear. His real name is Alvin Joiner and that's not his real voice...a 12 foot robot was sent back in time from the year 2376 and stands behind him in stealth mode - Alvin moves his mouth and the robot speaks. Tragic.


So there you have it. While the Dreamcast kicks a veritable black hole of arse when it comes to other sports* - Ice Hockey (NHL 2K), Nascar (Daytona), Tennis (Virtua Tennis 2), Athletics (ESPN Track & Field), F1 (F1 World Grand Prix 2), NFL (NFL Blitz), Rally (Sega Rally 2) and even squashing mice into a rocket before a huge cartoon cat gets them (Chu Chu Rocket)...it absolutley stinks when it comes to football. Bah.

Heres hoping the Dreamcast 2 gets the footy game it deserves.

* I've left out WWF Royal Rumble simply because I find the girth of Kurt Angle's neck morally wrong.

Also, many thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday on Saturday 4th March. Click here to see how many cards I got!