Red Card Soccer (GameCube) - GameCube

Yet whilst this could easily turn out to be short-lived fun, Midway have injected Red Card with a few extra goodies to ensure a longer play life. The World Conquest mode, for instance, allows you to take control of a national side and quite literally beat off the best of the world, while cup tournaments and the simply essential multiplayer mode further enhance the entertainment. Throw in extra teamss to unlock and there’s a fair challenge packed onto the disc. So don’t be fooled by the seemingly over-the-top approach of the game. In the arcade football genre, it easily beats Sega’s tepid Virtua Striker series, and it also gives more mainstream titles a real run for their money. In short, it is a really quite surprising, and irresistible, hybrid of sporting and fighting games. --Simon Brew