This game in our opinion stands as one of the best arcade games you could play on your Commodore Amiga. In fact let's just say it is in our opinion, one of the best Amiga games of all time.
Developed by the legendary Bitmap Brothers this classic game was released by Image Works in 1990 and was met with great enthusiasm.
Following on from the first Amiga game Speedball, the whole premise of the game was that this violent future sport was now the most popular for spectators world wide. The only rules were to score as many points as possible in each 90 second half of the game. The Bitmap Brothers no doubt took inspiration from the 70's movie Rollerball when they came up with this one.
Taking place in an arena with a metal ball (the Speedball) to play with, you had to earn those precious points by hurling the ball into the opposition goal or by lighting up the star emblems on the arena wall.
Ultra-violence was permitted and part of the game was beating up opposition team members - and injuring one of them (so they had to be carried out of the arena by robo-medbots and substituted) awarded your team yet more points.
Dotted around the playing arena were various powerups which included energy drinks, speed boots, body armour, a ball electrifier (really cool) and many more.On each wall there was also a score 'multiplier' which you could light up making each goal you scored worth fifteen or even twenty points as opposed to the standard score of ten.
The most important thing though to collect was the various 'coins' which would randomly appear on the playing surface. Collecting coins gave your team extra cold hard cash - and you could use this cash to buy permanent powerups for your players or to even transfer in better players. There was nothing better than buying a super strong and fast central attacker and being able to mow through your next opponents defence with ease!
There were various types of play such as knockout tournament and league campaign. If you played the league you had to take a new team (called Brutal Deluxe) from the bottom of division two to winners of division one - which was no mean feat.
As you piled up the cash you really could transfer in some great players and put together a formidable team. The transfer of players really added some depth to the game making single player mode far more interesting.
It was also great to play this against a friend in two player mode - knocking the crap out of each other, scoring goals and lighting up the multiplier was great fun.
The graphics within the game were superb; the Speedball arena really did feel like cold hard solid steel. These metallic graphics coupled with the excellent crunching sound effects meant you could almost feel the players pain as they were punched and tackled across the game area.
This classic arcade game for the Commodore Amiga has got to be worth another look after all these years. The only drawback I can find with it is the fact that your goalkeeper is not computer controlled - which can sometimes lead to confusion when defending your goal area. Do you use you outfield defender of your goalie?
This slight niggle aside I would say Speedball II is still playable even by todays standards - get a few friends round, order in the pizza and set up some two player tournaments. The time will fly by. You may even feel like having some ice cream, ice cream.
We recommend getting hold of the real Amiga hardware - but if not then download an Amiga emulator and download Speedball 2. Alternatively you could try and play it online.
Please see our other Amiga retro game reviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys
GENRE: Arcade game
RELEASE DATE: 1990
RELEASED BY: Image Works
DEVELOPER(S): Rob Trevellyan and Mike Montgomery. Graphics by Dan Malone.
PRICE: £24.99 - UK
Get some ice cream, ice cream and watch some classic arcade game action:
Classic Games, Arcade Games and Amiga Games
4 comments:
One of my favourite games of all time. Played this to death on both the Amiga and the Megadrive. It still gets a spin on Xbox Live every now and then.
Cheers MCT - it truly was (is) a great game.
I still play it on the Amiga from time to time
If I remember correctly, were you able to pick on a player then injure him enough to get stretchered off? That was sadistically satisfying. And heh, I like the subtle ice-cream, ice-cream reference - definitely a sign that you've played the game to death.
Big fan of Bitmap Brothers games here.
There are only a handul of games I played as much as Speedball II. I probably played Worms and Final Fantasy VII a bit more.
Great review!
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