Apple Arcade review #92: Sociable Soccer™

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I can only speak to the action bits of Sociable Soccer™ and not the management bits. I didn’t make it that far, and football club management is probably the last thing I want to spend my precious time on. I also found the collectible card bits to be distracting and uninteresting, but consider the source carefully.

As an action football game, this is pretty good — with some caveats. The controls are intuitive and smooth, the art is clean and good looking, and the pacing is solid. However: using the virtual buttons, it’s very difficult to play the game. I kept having to look down to see if my thumb was in the right place, and whether I was about to kick, pass or chip the ball, and by the time I’d figured that out, I’d either lost my window of opportunity or the ball. It’s just not possible to play this properly on an iPhone without an external controller.

With a controller — I tried this on the Apple TV — it’s so much better, and I had fun kicking the ball around. Again, I didn’t get around to the other bits of the game, but if they’re equally good, this is a solid package. It’s no FIFA, but it’s solid.

I’m just not convinced it’s possible to make a decent football game with touch controls. The way to do it is definitely not to try to emulate a controller, but rather come up with a fresh control scheme for touch.

Sociable Soccer™ stands miles above Arcade’s other football game, Charrua Soccer, and it might well be a great football game…as long as you’re playing with a controller.

Link: https://apps.apple.com/no/app/sociable-soccer/id1468314130