Download Speedball 2 - Brutal Deluxe

Way back in the year 2095 the Speedball-league was unregulated and ungoverned due to corruption and violence. Five years later in an attempt to regain public interest the sport was reorganised: Speedball 2 was born. Another five years pass till a new team emerges. The name of this team is Brutal Deluxe.

Speedball is some kind of a rugby-soccer-handball-mix plus NO penalties for fouls. In fact one of the things you do most of the time is to beat the crap out of the other team. While doing so you try to hit the opponents goal (after you tried to get rid the keeper), collecting coins for extra money, beamers or speed-ups and hitting the extra-point-goals at the sides of the court. The metal-ball you play with is held in the hand and you can pass it to your team mates if you are oppressed too much. Each game has two halfs of 90 seconds. Before a game starts you can upgrade your players by buying power ups and training units.

The gameplay itself is very fast and that is marvelous! You really get into it.
The only two bad things are that you never know the name of your current character which would be fine to know when buy the upgrades and the second is that it‘s quite confusing which player will be yours when your current player disappears from the screen. The computer switches to the player that is nearest to the ball. But sometimes you run in the wrong direction for a time.

There are different game modes that can be played in single player mode: Tournament, League and Manager Mode. When playing the latter you just buy and sell players and get them upgraded and equipped. The computer makes the hard work and controls all of your players during the match.

Maybe the best thing in this game is the multiplayer mode. It is great to play against your friends.

If you decide to play the Tournament be sure to do some practising rounds first. Well at the beginning your team Brutal Deluxe is nothing more than a bunch of losers and you have to fight quite hard to earn your money. But by the time it gets more and more brutal. I bet you‘ll love it!

The graphics are not superb but very nice for a sports game. Everything is done is the typical Bitmap Brothers metal-look. The sounds could have been better but it‘s OK because the gameplay compensates everything. If sounds and graphics are more important to you, you probably should try the Amiga version or get the PlayStation version Speedball 2100 which was released autumn 2000.

Due to the confusing player-switch-habit Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe gets 4 out of 5 points from me.

The game is most fun when you play fullscreen and with a joystick - that really beams you back to the late 80s/early 90s.