Keeping up with Imagine's line of very female-oriented games, the line has now brought us Imagine: Soccer Captain. (Bet you $5 they never touch on another sport unless it's something else equally as 'feminine', like softball.) Oh! But what's this? We have a celebrity endorsement by Mia Hamm this time around; that must make this one better than usual!Ummm...no. There is nothing particularly special about this game whatsoever. In fact, I'm not sure if Mia Hamm even knows her name was borrowed for the cover - even in the game, the only hint to her likeness is that the coach's name is "Coach Mia". (You never once hear a last name.) Her character also looks NOTHING like her, might I add. Wowwww. Talk about false advertisement. Imagine is always finding new ways to re-define that term!
But back to the game in question. True to typical Imagine style, they've designed this game so that there is no real knowledge of actual soccer needed. Playing by their rules, all you have to do is run a ball up and down a field and know which goal to kick it into. Period. No caveats. Now, I'll admit that I have zero sports knowledge in pretty much any given sport, but even I'm pretty damn sure there's a hell of a lot more to the game of soccer than just that. In a line that prides itself on allegedly being "educational", it seems that they should be teaching ALL of the rules of soccer.
This is another Imagine title that depends solely on 3-D graphics. The opening title sequence is very misleading, as the animation used there is in fairly good quality, but not one bit of the rest of the game looks A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G like this! There are some characters you'll encounter that look semi-decent, but then others - your own character included - barely even look human. For the customization options being so limited, why are the graphics so terrible?? The music in the game is about the same: sounds fantastic at the opening screen, and lousy everywhere else. What a let down! I was expecting more with how it started.
You're placed onto a team with very cliched other players. There's a totally stuck up snob who's only on the team because her daddy owns a (rival) soccer team, a timid girl, a gamer geek (who seems like she was only included to throw out free PR for Nintendo), and one other fairly normal girl who's supposed to have been your character's best friend since grade school. Sure, the mix sounds pretty realistic to real life, but in execution, it falls flat. Every team you play against is the same way: you have a team of over-caffeinated speed junkies (I'm NOT kidding!), a team of old grannies who should be in a retirement home, a team of girls with anger management issues, a team of midgets, a team of Amazonians, a team of hippies, etc. The first time you encounter each of these teams, they seem a little interesting. However, for how long you'll be playing this game to completion, you'll grow VERY sick of them quickly.
You'll play through an entire season of 14 games, plus a championship game. I assumed this was where the game would end.... That's what I get for assuming. (You all know the old phrase about what happens when you assume!) You enter season 2, only to find that ALL the dialogue with other teams is now being recycled and shortened to the briefest lengths possible. Had the dialogue stayed fresh, I wouldn't have minded wasting almost a week on this game, but it didn't. I figured that surely, the game would end after season 2... NOPE! You play for 5 seasons, with the option to retire or continue playing. As I figured the storylines would keep on going if I continued, I opted not to retire. Big mistake. (Now I'll never know how the game was supposed to end. :p)
Each season has a new dilemma for your team to face. In the first season, your character and Amie get swept up into a bitter popularity contest of their fans, all of which sparked from a stupid comment Amie had to make on a public blog. Season 2 sees Sasha and her father through their differences about his loyalties to his team and why his daughter doesn't play there. Season 3 is spent on a reality show following your team around and starting drama just for TV ratings (the producer looks suspiciously like the Supernanny, AND her name is Mary Jo. Coincidence?). Season 4, the team owner dies and as his son takes hold of the reins, he wants to relocate the team. The local community barely scrapes up enough cash to keep them local. And then season 5, groundhogs have ruined the stadium grounds and a crazed groundskeeper blows everything to bits in an attempt to get rid of them. Seems like an odd place for the game to end, doesn't it?
The gameplay itself is less than incredible. In addition to the lousy graphics, the controls aren't up to snuff either. Your players don't turn on the stop of a dime (which makes navigation difficult, especially when the other team's players are surrounding your active player), can't aim worth a damn, and the methods for shooting and blocking are pretty lame. To shoot into the opposing team's goal, normally you'd have to aim, then are brought to a screen where you adjust the strength of your kick, and you have to line up the ball with a specific pre-determined point inside of the net. If you're off by a little bit, you will not get the goal. Even if you DO line it up, more often than not, the goalie will still block your kick. Your other option is a quick shot where you just aim and shoot while running, but it's virtually impossible to make this method work, so you may as well stick to the long way of doing things. To attempt to block a kick from going into your goal, you're brought to a screen with a grid of about 12 squares. They'll light up at random, and you have about 5 to 10 seconds to hit them all as they light. Miss some, and the team will probably make their goal. Get all of them, they still might make the goal. Somehow, this game is seeming VERY one-sided, doesn't it? Take into account the redundant quick tips that appear on the upper screen before each match, and you'll be frustrated with this thing in no time.
As you rank up through the different matches, you'll earn points for each win. Every time you wi the fan popularity meter, you'll unlock a new sponsorship. This seems pretty cool... until you find out that these sponsorships are just leading up to a game deal with Ubisoft, who RELEASE THIS VERY GAME. Um, excuse me....what?!
I can't imagine (pun intended) anybody going wild over this game. Soccer enthusiasts won't have their needed adrenaline rush that makes soccer a wonderful and exciting game for them in the first place, and non-sports buffs will quickly lose interest. Who was the target audience here, then? Once again, I will issue this open plea to Imagine: PLEASE, hear our cries to just slow down on trying to crank out as many games as quickly as you can, and focus on putting more emphasis into the QUALITY of your games! You'll get much further with fewer high quality games than many crappy ones. You're just shooting yourself in the foot. Thank you.
I'm giving this game a rating of 3 out of 10 soccer balls. Honestly, do yourself a favor and don't even waste your time.
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