Dino Dini’s Kick Off Revival: 1.3 Update
SHORT REVIEW UPDATE: PS4 VERSION
Kick Off Revival received a much needed update. Wait, has anyone played it since release? I haven’t. I wonder if they included any bloody game modes? Who knows, it might even be alright.
Hey, do you know when the game media becomes a gibbering wreck for certain games and can’t shut the fuck up about it. Lets see how one of those follow up articles looks when the games without any hype and the game is, in fact, quite shit.
Let’s talk about the forgotten Kick Off Revival. That’s a thing to do, right?
So what’s new? Is the game better? Does my hair look nice today?
We have extra options! CALL LOVED ONES! TELL THEM NOW!
You can play, you can practice. That is all.
Behold the new glorious options!
So a desperately needed tutorial is a very fine addition to a menu. Although it does highlight how batshit insane the controls are in the first place. I’m not overly bad at the game and I still struggle with corners and free kicks. Oh and passing, shooting, tackling and controlling the ball.
I’m happy to report the strange glitches and bugs have been removed and we see fun additions, such as nice little goal celebrations.
The exciting beginning to a fierce contest. Maybe.
We have been blessed with actual improvements in-game. Well, they added tackle animations when holding down X. Defenders seem to close down space, kinda. I think. I’m not sure. The brutal slide tackle is a little more viable, especially in 50/50 challenges.
Now we’ve reached the best addition. Red and Yellow cards! I know! In a football game. Referees come with different names, but no, that’s not all. They all have character. The unseeable cthulhu entities known as “refs” are sometimes quick to dish out yellow or red cards for your leg breaking tackles… other refs, not so much. I won’t ever play the game enough to know the difference between referees.
Lastly the matches have a bit more atmosphere as there’s chanting and noise an’ that. Good.
I still struggle with leaving the left stick centred whilst kicking the ball, which in turn makes the ball fly 2 miles in the air. I do this by habit as leaving the left stick centred also has a player auto retrieve the ball. Feels like I’ve been conditioned to balls this right up.
Oh, how I long for a change of player button, or even a dedicated pass button or to play that PES 2017 demo again.
Goallllll
Why doesn’t cramming all your controls onto a single button work in this day and age? Have I changed? It’s me isn’t it? After playing a few games of 1993’s Dino Dini’s Goal, I came to the brave conclusion of “Nah”. The answer must be Kick Off Revival’s wonky and unintuitive.
In 20 or so attempts I found a brave soul lingering on the servers and I’m happy to report I’ve still not lost a game online. Mostly because I’ve barely played online. At half time you have to wait around 40 seconds with your new online best friend for.. erm, no reason wotsoever. It’s not like you have any tactical screens to mess with. Anyway, none of the above additions matter. The servers are mostly dead. Must be a little distressing for all the work that went into the patches.
I made the mistake of leaving the menu music running whilst writing this… That might have been a contributed to a poor mood as when I did play another game against the CPU, I found myself screaming “fuck you game, why are you so shit”.
I guess this is why people don’t review patches to unhyped, critically savaged games. Oh well.