Red Card 20-03

For years now, Midway has been bringing their version of different sporting events to the market. Mixed with large amounts of adrenaline and caffeine, these products were able to give audiences hard hitting and high intensity gameplay that many became hooked on. With the last addition based around hockey, the NHL Hitz series proved the formula could work in other sports than basketball and football and have similar success. Attempting to recreate the same results, Midway is once again testing their blueprint for high impact sports, only this time it's on the soccer field.

RedCard 20-03 offers a fast and hard-core style of soccer loaded with a variety of kicks, jukes and full contact tackles. In addition, motion-captured animations such as bike, flip, and scissor-kicks are also included as well as expected features from a soccer game like footwork, dekes and passing. When it's compared to other soccer games on the market, most will be satisfied with its ability to give a decent game but where it falls short is in bringing the intensity and down-and-dirty style of play that NFL Blitz and NHL Hitz brought to the market.

Although cheap shots are still plentiful, the sense of impact and power isn't achieved and the hard-core style of play ends up playing a smaller role. In addition, Midway failed to change the game enough from a regular soccer game as they did in the past to create the energy and intensity this game is lacking.

RedCard 20-03 offers a marginal soccer game but misses on the extreme feel achieved from successes like NFL Blitz and NHL Hitz. Even the commentating doesn't draw much attention to the attempts at increasing the action and keeps the game uncharacteristically flat. It does a decent job with most of the other aspects of the game but with a number of great soccer games already on the market, the draw for this game will be small.

When compared to other soccer games on the market, most will be satisfied with RedCard 20-03's ability to give a solid game but where it falls short is in bringing the intensity and down-and-dirty style of play that NFL Blitz 20-02 and NHL Hitz 20-02 brought to the market. Although cheap shots are still plentiful, the sense of impact and power isn't achieved and the hard-core style of play ends up playing a smaller role. It does however still give a respectable performance as a soccer game with few areas that are sub par but few that are exceptional either.

As with most sports games out of Midway, although not loaded with options, there are enough different gameplay options for most to feel they got enough from their money and don't feel ripped off. This is also the case with RedCard 20-03 as there are a respectable amount of gameplay options including friendly play, world conquest, finals mode, and a tournament mode.

Few will be disappointed with the visual aspects of the game as the stadiums are massive and detailed, the players look solid although most of the time they are too small to notice any significant detail, and the slow motion extreme moves look fantastic. The crowd on the other hand could have been better as they hardly resembled an actual crowd but it's not distracting however and doesn't affect the game.

There are games on the market that have more impressive graphics but RedCard 20-03 meets any requirements one would expect for a next generation title.