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[AMIGA] Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe

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[AMIGA] Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe

Unread postby lobote » 21 Nov 2011 07:11

This is an attempt at applying the action/reaction theory to game reviews. I haven't played the game for some time so it probably has errors and needs work. I wanted feedback whether this review was artfaggy despite denouncing artfags and thus self-defeating.


Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe *****

Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe simulates a violent, futuristic sport. On the Amiga platform, it features high quality music, sound and graphics - the story is not bad either.

In 2095 the old public sport dies due to corruption (fixed matches are unsatisfying as the audience cannot will success or failure) and unrestrained violence. Forced underground for five years, it is reborn as Speedball 2: larger, faster and more complicated. Kind of like soccer, except you can beat the shit out of each other. 5 years later again, enter the main character: a new, untested team - 'Brutal Deluxe'. The success or failure of the player completes the story, with the sport being renewed, or simply too tough for those lacking the right stuff. Much to the woe of FAGETS, the narrative structure associates organised violence with success. The fictional world the sport inhabits, shown to us through visuals and music, is built on this perspective, fashioned from congruent pieces of our world, such as Romanesque architecture, from times and places where glorifying violence was the height of civilization. This perspective carries the weight of a fictional public endorsement, which is actually a common rhetorical technique. Metal pervades the world of Speedball 2: it is the clash of steel on steel, hard on hard, to see what will break first, or become superheated. As such the sub-title 'Brutal Deluxe' is not something to smirk at - it is a branding iron across the faces of moralistic FAGETS which says "either you are with Speedball 2 or you are a FAGET". So suck it up FAGETS and deal.

The game mechanics are simple enough: eight directions of movement, the FIRE button results in a punch, slide tackle, midair catch or throw, depending on whether the character is still, running, beneath a high ball or carrying the ball respectively. Points are scored for scoring goals, hitting smaller targets, and injuring opposing team members. Successfully tackling a player requires you attack the space where your opponent will be, and as such, requires the strategic thought of combat games. Ultimately though, success depends on controlling the ball - it is enough to pass off the ball before being tackled. Besides the starting position, and the goalie's movement area being restricted, scoring, and game temporarily stopping after an injury, all rules in Speedball are physical. There isn't some chalk outline you must respect because there's a faggy umpire with colored cards, there's a big metal wall for a boundary. Yet even these physical rules can be modified, for example, heating the ball makes it uncatchable to opponents, or broken, such as using the warp gate. Long term strategy, such as relying on clever passing rather than running with the ball, must be made on the fly, to counter differences between the stats of the two teams competing, for example. In the beginning of learning to play Speedball 2 there is a lot of discovery, such as standing on a knocked over player means they can't get up. Even small differences in knowledge can be levered to a win (for example, knowing you can stand on players makes activating the 2x loop easier) in what is a otherwise symmetrical 2p game. Despite the apparent depth eventually you reach a point where you have discovered everything about the game. Play falls into connected discrete areas (such as center->electro-bounce->goal) each with associated moves and counter moves, like playing tic-tac-toe games in series. Who wins and loses in 2 player games depends on psychology, who is more confident, as well as randomness generated by tokens and sweaty hands. It's only those who have won the Grandfinal of the top league in 1 player league mode that can objectively claim they have mastered the game. You need to repeatedly overcome teams with greater stats than your maximum in order to achieve this (something I was not able to do).

The Bitmap Brothers built a reputation for high quality graphics and sound. The Amiga music in Speedball 2 for the opening sequence is a delightful combination of Roman sounding horns and techno. Sound effects are excellent and add to the atmosphere, such as the play dependent cheering of crowds. Graphics was limited to 16 colors (for ports of the game) and 320 by 200 pixels. Currently there is a fashion in some artfags circles to mimic such art, claiming the restrictions themselves make the artwork great (calling it Pixel Art or some such faggety nonsense), when in fact all they make are ugly pictures which draw attention to restrictions, degrading an artform which has been dead for some time. They are like someone who voluntarily incarcerates themselves to be made a bitch and then get a loudspeaker and say "I'm great and I love this" while covered in shit and manstink. In other words: FAGETS! None of the artfags can even approach art as good as those featured in Bitmap Brothers titles such as Speedball 2 and The Chaos Engine, even though all they have to do is reverse engineer it! If you look at preparatory pencil sketches by Dan Malone (http://danmalone.deviantart.com/) for The Chaos Engine, you see that the art style of these games works on it own ie. without the restrictions. It is blocky, and sometimes beautifully curved, it is smooth, and yet textures are exaggerated, it has focus on shading, and yet the design of line art without lines. These changes are harmonized by muted color schemes (which explains why in the AGA versions the look was destroyed). The Bitmap Brothers actively sought an artists who could draw in the style of 2000 AD comics. And yet we see the contradictions can be explained by what is missing - fine detail - exactly what you can't achieve with a CRT screen and low resolution. The style is at once impervious to restrictions and completely determined by them! This is what makes the graphics of Speedball 2 masterful and timeless.

If you want to fault Speedball 2 it's what happens after a team member is injured. Robots with sirens come out and stretcher him off, which takes probably 30 seconds, while the sound of an icecream salesman is played towards the end. Unlike action replays, you can't skip it. "So what?" you might think. Well, water torture is very simple, it involves repeatedly dripping water on someone in exactly the same spot. Despite not being painful, it is the repetition of sensation which works on a person's mind until he changes (or loses) it - unless of course he can somehow remain defiant through willpower. In games where there are mismatches (especially due to using money cheats) injuries can be common and those sounds, icecream, icecream, get beyond annoying. It's not just being punished for having lower stats, it's being punished for success and the weakness of others. It's brutalization - breaking will or building defiance and indifference to pain. I always thought that was a design fault but maybe I'm just a FAGET. Why shouldn't game designers use torture to make better players/sociopaths?

In sum, simple to learn, difficult to master, Speedball 2 should be considered a masterpiece of game art.
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Joined: 17 Nov 2011 13:44

Unread postby icycalm » 21 Nov 2011 11:58

I am not going to read this, but a quick skim reveals it's probably all full of dumb. THE GAME HAS EIGHT BUTTONS ART OF MASTERY GAME SIMPLICITY LOLOLOLOL!!!!, and you haven't even talked about the original, or REVIEWED it for that matter, you fucking retard.

I might decide to ban you for daring to even post this, as it is an insult to me and my website, so if you see your posting privileges removed at some point you'll know why.
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icycalm
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Unread postby icycalm » 21 Nov 2011 12:00

"AMIGA OS" lol. What a fucking shithead.
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icycalm
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