Demo Review 5: Soccer Bashi

The title might lead you to believe that Soccer Bashi is a sports game... But you'd be wrong. It's an arcade game who barely uses the idea of playing soccer as a basis for the real game. That is, block-breaking. Some kind of Arkanoid. I think I already mentioned this type of game.

When it starts, you select the number of players. You can play a two-player game in this demo! Hurray! After that, you select a zone; all zones are represented by planets of the Solar System, for a reason I can't explain because there is not really any plot hinted at in this demo. Also, only the first zone is unlocked. When you select it, you're immediately brought to the first level.

You know how a block breaker game works, right? You control a bar at the bottom of the screen and a ball bumps on all nearby walls and blocks. He ball must not fall beyond your bar or you lose a life. When the ball hits a brick, the brick disappears; all the bricks must be gone from the level to beat it. Also, in this WiiWare game, you don't control the bar with Left and Right, but by moving the Wiimote. This way of playing can be a little difficult, but the cursor is shown on the screen so you have an easier time knowing where your bar is gonna go. Finally, when your ball hits a block, a power-up might come out, which you can then use to break more blocks, or break them more easily. You can play a few levels in the demo, and these give you the feeling you should get all the way through the game.

The graphics (or the little there are) are nice, the soccer field is well-designed, and there are some nice touches here and there. Of course, you can't put a ton of details on rectangular blocks, but I guess it's a problem we have with every block-breaker gamer out there anyway. Some detail hint at a plot, but it's hard to tell whether there's one or not... Th controls are not that much of a problem, but if you don't like controlling things with the Wii's movement detection, you might not like it.

The game itself can still be very fun. It has all the challenges you'd expect from a block-breaker. Also, I think I must mention this: Even in the Demo version, yo can access a Level Editor in which you can create your own Soccer Bashi levels! Now that's what I call a good demo. It has sparked in me an interest for this game, and if I had any Wii Points left I might have bought it. If anything, THIS is how a good demo is done. Did you understand that, 3D Pixel Racing?