Reader Review: Pure Football

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This review was submitted by Michael Pannunzio. If you’ve played Pure Football, or just want to ask Michael more about it, leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Pure Football (PS3)

Published by Ubisoft, Pure Football offers an alternative to EA and Konami’s dominance of the football game genre. With a style similar to that of FIFA Street, Pure Football delivers a 5-on-5 matchup that is… interesting, to say the least.

Loved

The Concept: Whilst Pure Football has many flaws, you have to give Ubisoft credit for trying to enter the football market. Campaign mode sees you start off with four little known players (including your own created player as captain) progressively taking on better teams. You can then transfer these players into your team, if you fulfill specific objectives in the match, to ultimately take on a team of legends after 28 days. It at least has a decent number of official players and licenses so you can recognise the best players.

Pure Shots: Similar to FIFA Street’s gamebreaker, Pure Football implements this by offering a perfect shot, once you have had enough shots on goal to fill your Pure Meter. The Pure Shot offered, though, still requires the player to be in a decent position to work successfully, which makes it significantly better than FIFA Street’s alternative.

Hated

The Gameplay: Unfortunately for Ubisoft, the concept is the only thing that works well. The gameplay is horrible to say the least. The camera is too far away, showing too much of the stadia background, and often you will lose sight of the ball. The way the ball moves on the pitch feels like it’s being played on the snow, and you will notice this especially with lob passes that stop dead on the third bounce.

The Penalty: Unlike any football game that springs to mind, Pure Football has a unique system for penalising fouls. You get a Foul Meter which allows you to foul the opposition multiple times depending on the severity of the foul. However, once this meter reaches its limit, the next foul you concede anywhere on the pitch is an automatic penalty to the opposition. This wouldn’t be so bad if it didn’t penalise you for slide tackles that cleanly get the ball.

The Audio: For the first (in-game) week of campaign mode, eerie Halo-like music plays throughout the menus and matches that doesn’t seem suited to the game whatsoever. It changes after that depending on the venue you play in, but it gets boring quickly. Also, whilst there is no commentary, occasionally voices (either a substitute or a coach) will yell encouragement.

Pure Football? The best way to obtain Pure Points (to upgrade your created player) and to score is to get the ball out wide and cross the ball in for a striker to head or volley in. With the World Cup concluding, and the focus being on Johan Cruyff’s “beautiful game”, it is hard to see how the developers made such an unattractive tactic rewarding.

I’m halfway through the campaign mode, and despite all its flaws I still want to finish it. If you are awaiting the European and domestic league to kickoff and are sick of FIFA, PES, or Football Manager, this game can tide you over whilst you’re waiting for news of your team signing the next David Villa.

Reviewed by: Michael Pannunzio

You can have your Reader Review published on Kotaku. Send your review to us at the usual address. Make sure it’s written in the same format as above and in under 500 words – yes, we’ve upped the word limit. We’ll publish the best ones we get and the best of the month will win a Madman DVD prize pack.

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