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jp's Sam Power: Footballer (DS)

[June 7, 2022 06:57:30 PM]

This is the last(?) (not sure if it's the last in a chronological release sense, but it's the last for me) game in the ": Job" series. The other three (policeman, fireman, handyman) are all very similar to each other - differences in presentation, but game structure is the same and most of the minigames are, again, the same.

This game is really the odd duck in that sense - the character looks different in the game - and, the structure is completely different. There's no driving a vehicle to get to a location, nor does a vehicle get upgrades and updates. Rather, here you play a bunch of mini-games, all football related, as you pursue your goal of winning the world cup. You start at the bottom - you need to impress the coach during training/practice drills, and so on...

So, in spirit - this game is definitely part of the series (there's no dinosaur sidekick though, what happened) in that it's a (gameplay-wise) collection of mini-games that are short and simple, that it's related to a job/occupation and that it starts a young kid (Sam/Jake/Tim - depending on where you bought the game).

The minigames were fun, there's some subtle (or not so subtle, to be fair) interface design choices. For example, there's a free kick game where the ball does curve to go in - but this results from a simple sliding motion on the touch pad. It does make you feel "good" at kicking the ball. So, you sort of slide in the right direction and the ball mostly goes where you want and, more often than not, it goes even better! The only exception to this was a penalty kickg mini-game where depending on the speed of the swipe the ball would go up or stay at (mostly) ground level. This one was pretty inexact in my experience - I had a hard time consistently getting the higher kicks to work.

Oh, like the other games in the series this one also prioritizes the use of the touch pad - really making use of the hardware to special effect.

Failure was also an option here - I never ran into it in the other games, not saying it wasn't a possibility though. Here, there were a few mini-games I had to try a couple of times before getting them down.

The game, I'm sure it's a different dev team, also has an art style that is distinctly unlike the other games in the series. There are no cute, round, simple 3D objects - it's all 2D cartoons for the cut-scenes (yes, there are cut-scenes) and simple sprite-based (or at least looking) art.

For personal enjoyment, this one is my favorite - but I also think it's the most interesting in terms of interface - I wonder if "cloning" games like these would make for a good student exercise? The challenge would like in getting the game feel just right!