Sega Soccer Slam

Are you tough enough?

As I’ve been playing through N64 and GameCube games, I’ve played plenty of over the top arcade style sports games – but it’s surprising that this is the first Football one I’ve covered. Sega Soccer Slam gives is a very small amount of 3 player teams (although there is a cheat for some fun costumes) for you to launch into each other.

One big problem with Sega Soccer Slam is that tackling is far too easy, so you can get the ball off your opponent with zero problems. The CPU is nowhere near as aggressive, so you’ll end up having high scoring one side games with no issue. The flashy effects also don’t feel like they have much weight to them, the super special shots (down by shooting while in a spotlight) seem to be saved more than regular goals, and the crazy glowing special moves don’t seem to change gameplay much.

After the GameCube version game out, Sega Soccer Slam was then ported to PS2 and Xbox with upgrades, which were then included in the European version of the game. One significant addition is the challenge mode. Here, you can mix and match characters from any team, along with a colour so they still all match. Complete a few matches and you’ll win a new character to build up three additional teams. It’s a fun mode and it’s a shame the “pick any three characters” mode isn’t an option for multiplayer matches.

Another addition are a couple of minigames, one is a “hot potato” where you have to dribble the ball as long as possible, but get rid of it before it exposes, and the other is a surprisingly fun fighting game using the mechanics of the main game. It’s’ far better than some licensed arena fighters I’ve played, and a fun little addition. These extra things give you something to work for while on your own, and some nice extra modes to play between matches.

Another neat idea that Sega Soccer Slam is a way to team up: instead of controlling a team, you can control individual players, so you and two friends can take on the quest as a squad, or it can be used to spice up a four player match, making this something great for multiplayer. I definitely know that there are at least two much better arcade-like football games on GameCube.

Fun

Midway’s Red Card would appear to already have sewn the market up – it might have laugh-out-loud, wince-inducing tackles but it’s also a darn good football game in its own right. Sega Soccer Slam, on the other hand, is played purely for laughs, with grotesque cartoon characters, tiny pitches and three-a-side teams. Is it worth getting if you’ve already got Red Card? On balance, we’d say… maybe.

Jes Bickham, NGC Magazine #74

Remake or remaster?

Mario did this much better.

Official Ways to get the game

There is no official way to get Sega Soccer Slam.

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