PS3 Games Review

UK REVIEW--While FIFA and Pro Evolution Soccer have the simulation football market pretty much sewn up, the retirement of the FIFA Street series has left space for a new challenger in the arcade end of the genre. Sadly, Pure Football (or Pure Futbol, as it's known in North America) isn't up to the challenge of filling that gap. The game may be accessible and fun in short bursts, but it soon becomes frustrating and repetitive, with little in the way of depth. Though there is an online mode and a well-structured Campaign mode, the lack of Tournament or Cup mode affect the game's longevity, particularly for offline players.

Pure Football portrays an alternate universe where the world's best players get together to play jumpers-for-goalposts style football. These are unofficial, unmediated matches free of the constraints of the stadium--22 players are reduced to 10, there's no referee to halt the pace of the game, and there are no linesmen to call offside. The matches also take place in novel locations, including the port of Marseilles, the canals of Amsterdam, and even a factory in Milan. Because of this concept, the game adopts an exaggerated, cartoon look for its players and locations, but there are still a limited number of 17 international teams with real-world players, as well as three classic teams to unlock in the Campaign mode.

The control system is broadly similar to other football games. The face buttons perform passes, through balls, crosses, and shots on goal, and you hold the latter three buttons down to increase the power of the shot. However, Pure Football is based around various power bars and meters, which are key to performing well. When taking a shot, for example, you have to let go of the button as the arrow underneath your player hits the white area of the bar, which is approximately three-quarters of the way along. If you let go of the button any time before this, you'll land in the green area, which will still result in an accurate shot. However, if hold on for too long, you'll enter the red section of the bar, at which point the shot is pretty much guaranteed to go off target.

Sadly, this system doesn't feel responsive enough. There's a small but annoying lag between pressing the button and seeing the bar onscreen, and while you get used to it after a while, you're still frequently intercepted before you pull off the intended shot. The game pushes you into trying to score by crossing the ball into the box and then finishing up with a striker--the idea being to hit the pure zone on both the cross and the shot to score the goal. However, it's difficult to get both right, meaning that straight shots on goal provide a much greater chance of actually scoring, especially given the frequency with which keepers spill the ball. This results in repetitive end-to-end play, as each team goes back and forth making a few passes before taking a shot just outside the box. 

Along with the Exhibition and Training modes, Pure Football has an online mode. The online progression is separate from your single-player game--you rank up in the online divisions by beating other people, and there are separate online challenges, such as winning with each of the national teams or winning a match by a certain number of goals. The online game can be laggy, you have to sign up for Ubisoft's Uplay service, and it suffers the same problem as other football games in that players frequently quit matches. Thankfully, if that happens, you automatically win the game. The ability to share custom created players online and buy up to 10 using pure points is also a nice touch. That said, the option to set up your own leagues and tournaments--a well-established feature of every other game in the genre--is sorely lacking.

The game's presentation may be basic, but it possesses some style, with well-realised stadiums and real-world players that are exaggerated but still recognisable. The animation system is also capable of providing some spectacular goals, from volleys to overhead kicks, and scoring with an athletic finish is one of the best aspects of the game. However, the PS3 version suffers from noticeable slowdown when the action gets intense. On the audio side, the single piece of menu music tires quickly, but the real problem is the lack of match commentary, which is replaced with embarrassing banter from the players, such as "Nice hands keeps!"