by Kind of Soccer is true to its name. You fling a ball from one player to another, hoping to line up a shot—not at the goal, however, but the referee, who runs about like a headless chicken desperate to avoid becoming dinner. Goals don’t matter at all, in fact, nor do offside rulings, corner kicks, or any of the complexities of the beautiful game that bewilder non-believers. This is the kind of silliness that anyone can get behind.
You’ll drag your finger in the opposite direction of where you want the ball to go, with an arrow appearing to give an approximation of its direction. Your players don’t move, so you lose possession if a pass is off base. Opponents do move, however—at least above the bottom few difficulty levels. They amble around the field, always making a beeline toward the ball. Lose possession and you lose a point. Hit the referee and you gain one. First to five wins.
It’s incredibly simple, but also super tough. Your room for error starts small and gets smaller with each advancement through the 10 difficulty levels on offer. Time and space to line up a pass or shot both slip away quickly when players from the other team are bearing down on the man in possession. A series of zany power-ups help here, as well as add to the light-hearted fun—with highlights including one that temporarily turns all opposing players into trees, and another that puts a second referee onto the pitch.
Time Mode provides a semblance of longevity. It lets you set a countdown timer at any of a few intervals between 30 seconds and five minutes, and places you on a random pitch in a battle to outscore your opponent and to maximize a separate points tally. But Kind of Soccer’s quirky referee-pelting antics only hold appeal for so long, and there’s not much depth to the strategy once you master the initially tricky core mechanic.
The bottom line. Kind of Soccer’s quirky and ridiculous hit-the-referee hook is backed by fun-yet-challenging gameplay and a cool lo-fi aesthetic, though its ultimately shallow nature shows through sooner or later.
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