Speedball 2 HD

 PC
User Score
3.8

Generally unfavorable reviews- based on 21 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3 out of 21
  2. Mixed: 6 out of 21
  3. Negative: 12 out of 21

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  1. LaterDaze
    Jan 9, 2014
    2
    A good remake will make the user want to play the old game again, for nostalgia's sake. Unfortunately the same can be said for a bad remake. Once you play Speedball 2 HD for an hour, you'll never want to touch it again. For the same price as Speedball 2 HD you can purchase the "value" version of Amiga Forever 2013, which will allow you to emulate the original Speedball and many otherA good remake will make the user want to play the old game again, for nostalgia's sake. Unfortunately the same can be said for a bad remake. Once you play Speedball 2 HD for an hour, you'll never want to touch it again. For the same price as Speedball 2 HD you can purchase the "value" version of Amiga Forever 2013, which will allow you to emulate the original Speedball and many other classic titles with ease.… Expand
  2. Fourdee
    Dec 22, 2013
    0
    Biggest insult to anyone with half a brain.
    - Controls have been written by a 8 year old who likes to code, but doesnt really know how.
    - Frame rate. How the hell can a few sprites cause my system to render below 30fps? Mastertronic are just throwing out broken/half-arsed remakes of old epic titles for some quick cash. When the original is better in EVERY area, its time to go    Biggest insult to anyone with half a brain.
    - Controls have been written by a 8 year old who likes to code, but doesnt really know how.
    - Frame rate. How the hell can a few sprites cause my system to render below 30fps?

    Mastertronic are just throwing out broken/half-arsed remakes of old epic titles for some quick cash.
    When the original is better in EVERY area, its time to go bankrupt. This is far from a HD remake, its a HD fk up.
    The game is a money making pile of    … Expand
  3. ZigiSamblak
    Dec 21, 2013
    1
    I loved the original game and was so excited when I saw this was released I didn't research it, big mistake. This is a horrible port of the iOS game "Speedball Evolution" and relabelled "HD". You don't fool anybody. This has the looks and playability of a cheap mobile knock off. They even forgot to change the "Evolution" logo on some of the stadium graphics. That is the general lack ofI loved the original game and was so excited when I saw this was released I didn't research it, big mistake. This is a horrible port of the iOS game "Speedball Evolution" and relabelled "HD". You don't fool anybody. This has the looks and playability of a cheap mobile knock off. They even forgot to change the "Evolution" logo on some of the stadium graphics. That is the general lack of attention to detail you can expect in this game.

    Graphics: Absolutely terrible. Old sprites redrawn by somebody with very limited artistic talent. Appart from being in a higher resolution the graphics are a step down on every level. The animation feels really bad with slowed down gameplay and low FPS (more on that later)

    Sound: Also worse than the original. They got rid of the great intro music, replaced it with a very generic sounding mod tune that gets grating after 10 seconds and there is still no in game music. Also seems like there are actually less sound effects than the original.

    Playability: How could they possibly mess this up? Well easy, halve the frame rate, now locked at 29FPS and the game seems to run at half speed as well. The AI seems weaker than it was in the original so the computer is a complete walkover. Winning with 200-0 is rule rather than exception. Also no online multiplayer is inexcusable, that would be the main reason for people to buy a remake.

    Presentation: Menu's are unintuitive and looked more polished in the original. The intro "animation" is just one very badly drawn player scaled and rotated to give the illusion of a team, and those are then moved about the screen a bit to give the illusion of an animation. Just don't bother if this is the effort you are going to put into it because it WILL show.

    And to top it all off there are TONS of bugs. The crash to desktop bug at launch that many people experienced was fixed, but I wonder if they will ever get round to fixing any of the awful in game bugs that cause crashes, save file corruption and a loss of sanity.    … Expand
  4. Evanescence
    Dec 20, 2013
    0
    no manager mode.
    non-working controls.
    the game look uglier than previous one
    difficulty curve is too much for those who never played speedball.

    Avoid!
  5. hermanJnr
    Aug 4, 2014
    5
    In some respects this remake is actually good. The menu music is reasonably fitting (though repetitive over the course of the campaign), the character portraits, team designs and menus keep the gritty future-cyberpunk feel of the original and the gameplay itself is very similar (I.E. mostly fast-paced and pretty fun).

    However, I could never really 100% enjoy the campaign experience, and    In some respects this remake is actually good. The menu music is reasonably fitting (though repetitive over the course of the campaign), the character portraits, team designs and menus keep the gritty future-cyberpunk feel of the original and the gameplay itself is very similar (I.E. mostly fast-paced and pretty fun).

    However, I could never really 100% enjoy the campaign experience, and in fact the game has really disappointing omissions both from the perspective of a modern game and even when compared to the original (which is some 23 years old!)

    First of all, the animation seems distinctly lazy for a 2013 remake. The sprites are passable but nothing special, and the effects on pick ups around the arena are pretty underwhelming. The "victory animation" played during goals and injuries looks jarringly stupid, with your players doing silly pelvic thrusts and jiggling about like kids.

    The injury animation is actually WORSE than the original, with the cool little "zoom windows" showing players up close lying on the floor bloodied or celebrating goals actually gone completely. Instead you just get the old med-bots (cool) and your guy doing the stupid thrusting animation (lame).

    The team balance is atrocious, though, which is what really killed the fun for me. You're either matched against teams with awful players who you steamroll 400-0 in a really boring fashion...or your 2 star team is up against a 5 star team of completely maxed out players who proceed to score 18 goals while knocking your whole team unconscious.

    You can't even tackle these players in a match up like this to get the ball even if you've been maxing your Power/Tackle stats with a newer team, so you just sit there for the whole game getting a massive beatdown: really, really lame.

    Eventually your players also develop to 5 stars after you've played enough of the easy tournaments, at which point these games also become too easy and there is no challenge at all...

    Management mode is bare-bones, being practically identical to the old game. You can slowly increase stats of your guys in the gym, or buy new players. However, to get a 5-star guy you have to play about 3 tournaments, saving the whole time, while your opponents can have 9+ 5-star guys right from the start, and their team make-ups never change. Again, LAME.

    All in all, fun if you want a quick taste on Steam of what Speedball 2 was like, but fails completely as a modernisation and even detracts from some of the cool features of the original.    … Expand
  6. S-J-Miller
    Jun 18, 2020
    2
    The original Speedball 2 was a crazy, energetic, frenetic challenge. I remember getting blisters and bruises on my hands, sweat pouring down my chest and screaming so hard my throat hurt. That was almost 30 years ago. How sad that something of the present day fails so miserably to revive the gameplay. The flow, speed and physics of the original game has not been recreated. It feels like aThe original Speedball 2 was a crazy, energetic, frenetic challenge. I remember getting blisters and bruises on my hands, sweat pouring down my chest and screaming so hard my throat hurt. That was almost 30 years ago. How sad that something of the present day fails so miserably to revive the gameplay. The flow, speed and physics of the original game has not been recreated. It feels like a cheap flash version you'd play for 10 minutes in your lunch break. The curve ball that was such a perfect reflection of your joystick movements back in the day has been replaced by an inexplicable punt that bears no resemblance to anything you do with your controller. Simply tackle the easily-tackled opposing line to get knockdowns. Who needs goals? It should be called 'Punchball 2'
    I can't even say the 'HD' aspect of the name lives up to scruting. HD of what? So much of the game seems like badly airbrushed clones of the original graphics. Even the sound is cheap and repetitive; so repetitive and chuggy you may as well play with the sound turned off.
    So anything new, or better? Well... sort of. Much more to unlock, more teams, more competitions and more players to buy. Oh how I enjoyed spending my hard-earned cash on star players, but in this version... what's the point? Star players such as Quaid and Jensen have been crudely remodelled as your starting players with names like Barry and Robin. When you do get to buy a star player he looks as crude and vulgar as the rookie you replaced on the transfer. Ok, so you get some improved stats, but nothing of the novelty of acquiring a star player who really LOOKS different and actually FEELS different. Worse still, many of the players (predominantly male) are given girls' names such as Alice or Aphrodite. In fact the allocation of names to other players is so lame it's obvious there was no thought put into it at all. For example, you can face an entire team named after Greek gods. Another team will have no such consistency, but you can pick up on the lazy train of thought of the developer who churned out the names when you see the roster: John, Paul, George, Ringo, Sebastian, Bach, etc.
    It's cheap, but it's not cheerful. Even for the seven quid I departed with in hope of a good Speedball experience I feel like I've been ripped off. As for the developers, why did they even bother?    … Expand

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
53

Mixed or average reviews - based on 10 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 0 out of 10
  2. Mixed: 7 out of 10
  3. Negative: 3 out of 10
  1. Eurogamer Italy
    Feb 20, 2014
    40
    Speedball 2 HD has a lot of minor quirks that could be forgiven if only the game had some multiplayer mode to make it up for them. As it is, this remake is not better than the original in any way.
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  2. Gaming Nexus
    Jan 21, 2014
    74
    Fast paced and hard hitting, Speedball 2 HD combines full contact sports with association football and comes out pretty well. Since this title has some flaws and lacks online multiplayer, it isn't going to win the top division, but it holds its own and is certainly fun to play.
    Read full review
  3. Eurogamer Germany
    Jan 16, 2014
    50
    Ice cream was just so much sweeter in the nineties. Sometimes it hurts seeing your old favorites not having aged that well at all.
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