New Star Soccer (iOS)

After 5 games and numerous iterations it’s often easy toforget that the New Star Soccer series is basically made by a single person;Simon Read. For those who haven’t heard of the series, it’s a top-down soccergame in the vein of Kick Off and Sensible Soccer. The hook is that you controla single player through the course of his career from a young nobody warmingthe bench at a non-league team to, hopefully, an international super starplaying for a top club team and also your national team. You improve yourskills and attributes by playing more games and by completing trainingchallenges (which take the form of numerous tiers of mini-games such asdribbling through cones, heading in crosses, etc).

What really draws you into the game is are the numerousoff-field activities which are just as important as the on-field ones. Theoff-field activities can be divided into financial and inter-personal.Depending upon the level you’re playing at, and your negotiating skill, you geta per-game salary. This can be supplemented, once you become more successfuland well-known, by various sponsorship deals. The money you earn can then beused to buy things such as property, vehicles and various other goods andservices. These things aren’t just for show – they have a direct effect uponyour match performance! The more nice things you have the higher your happinessrating and this acts as bonus for your attributes. Furthermore, differentproperties have varying bonuses upon your ability to recover from fatigue aftermatches!

Interpersonal relationships are also very important. As aplayer you have relationships with your teammates, your boss/manager,  the fans and (if you get one) yourgirlfriend. The more you improve these relationships (by selecting to spendtime with each and then playing a match-three mini game) the better you do onthe field. For example, the better your relationship with your teammates, themore likely they are to pass to you! You have a finite amount of time betweenmatches to for interpersonal activities and the more you spend doing these themore it fatigues you prior to a match so it’s a balancing act between somethinglike spending time with the fans at a photo-shoot to butter them up but notfatiguing yourself so much that you end up playing poorly in the next match andthen having the fans on your back!

I’m a huge fan of the PC NSS games – the sense of immersionand pure addictiveness is incredible – but I was wary as to how Simon Readwould bring the top-down action to an iOS device as I’m not a big fan ofvirtual thumb-sticks. The solution is ingenious and absolutely perfect for bite-sized, on-the-gomobile gaming. Instead of letting you control the moment to moment action, yousee Football Manager-style text commentary and interspersed are certain keymoments where you take control via little mini-games for passing, shooting, setpieces and tackling/intercepting passes. The passing and shooting mini-gamesare simple (move an arrow, touch a moving/bouncing/still ball where you’d liketo strike it) but have quite a bit of depth under the surface. Importantly,there’s a good balance between user skill and also an accurate reflection ofyour avatar’s abilities.

I’ve played close to a 75 different iOS games but New StarSoccer is easily the most addictive.  Thecombination of addictive gameplay, quick matches, and the RPG aspect of carvingout the individual career of your player. My player started off in the BlueSquare South division playing for Boreham Wood before moving to AccringtonStanley, then Brighton, before moving to France with Evian in the French seconddivision. After successfully winning promotion with Evian I earned a move toLille and ended up winning the league in my second season there – scoring theleague title clinching goal with a thunderous 30 yard volley in the 89^thminute against Marseille! I had also helped Canada qualify through CONCACAF tothe 2014 World Cup Finals! My third season with Lille didn’t result in a titlebut ‘we’ did manage to get to the Champions League semi-finals before losing toBarcelona.  The following season I earnedmy dream move to Liverpool and I find myself fighting for the EPL title goinginto the last few weeks (I didn’t say the game was necessarily realistic)! 

If you’re a fan of football/soccer I think you owe it toyourself to check out NSS. You can play a limited trial for free but can unlockthe game for just 99 cents. It’s a no-brainer and easily my favourite iOS game.

Lavan