Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe

aka: Speed Ball II, Speedball 2
Moby ID: 273
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Description official descriptions

Brutal Deluxe doesn't live up to their name - in fact they're the worst team Speedball has ever seen. As their manager, it is your job to transform their fortunes. As well as the league system, which consists of 2 8-team divisions and challenges you to advance to the top, there are also 2 cup tournaments, one of which is played out over 2 'legs' with the aggregate score deciding who progresses.

You can play the matches as well, which is the real meat of the game. They consist of 2 90-second periods, and the gameplay is futuristic, fast, and frantic, with heavy tackling encouraged to retrieve the ball. Power-ups and tokens appear on the pitch, including ones to make your players extra-tough or freeze the opponents.

The sides of the pitch each include a score multiplier, which you can run the ball through to increase the value of your scoring - the opposition can sometimes immediately grab the ball and nullify this. There are also 5 stars which are worth 2 points each if you hit them (more if you have the multiplier activated), but these can also be canceled out by the opposition hitting the same star, and their points values only become set after the half. Next to the stars, there are portals, which throw the ball out the opposite side of the pitch, in the direction it was going.

You get money for the results, and by collecting the silver tokens which appear on the pitch at random intervals. Between each match, you can spend these either on improving your existing players as far as they can go or on buying better ones and fitting them into the team. Your original players can only be improved to a certain extent, so remembering where your signed players are and making use of them is important.

A variety of tokens also appear during the match, some of which boost your team's power for a short period of time, and one freezes the opposition.

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Credits (Amiga version)

9 People

Design
Additional Design
Code
Additional Code
Graphic Design
Music
  • Nation 12
Music Code and FX
Cover Illustration (UK Release)

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 78% (based on 70 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.4 out of 5 (based on 185 ratings with 7 reviews)

The #1 future sports game!

The Good
It's fast, brutal and fun! I really can't wait until bitmap brothers get their act together and release speedball 2100. But until then, the speedball 2 map will always have a special place on my desktop.

The Bad
The league is a bit too short...

The Bottom Line
An excellent way to make time fly. Especially when playing against a friend.

DOS · by Vince (2) · 1999

Awesome futuristic sports game!

The Good
Great gameplay. Instead of making a computer adaption of a real-life sport Bitmap Brothers decided to design a sport of their own. In my opinion they succeeded tremendously. Speedball is a very intense sport. The pace of the game can be very high, there are four different ways to score points (one of them is taking out the players of the other team ^_^ ) and can play very aggressive without being punished for it. Each match consists of two halves of 90 seconds. You can't change the length of the games. But don't worry, this game is really action-packed; a lot can happen in 3 minutes (and of course the majority of the players wouldn't survive a 10 minute match). The presence of the points-multiplier bonus means the odds can change very rapidly, which helps to keep games exciting.

The graphics are OK. The game features the Bitmap Brothers' trademark steel style of graphics. I also like the sound effects; best of all is the snack salesman that starts yelling "Ice Cream, Ice Cream!" when one of the players needs to be carried of the pitch.

The Bad
Manager options are simplistic. The only things you can do are upgrading your current players and buying a new player on the market every now and then (these players seem to become available after a predefined match). You can't make any trades with other teams etc. As a result the manager-only mode (in which you only watch the matches) is not much fun.

Controls are not that good. You can't change the default keyboard lay-out. You can only move your players in 8 directions (north, north-west, west etc.), not anything in between. The controls should have been smoother. Finally the game automatically changes the player you control. You shift to the player who is the nearest to the ball. Combined with the high pace of the game this can be confusing. There should have been a "change player / pass" button.

On the court all players look alike, even the ones you buy on the market. It would have been better if there was a little more characterization (like mentioning the names of the players who scored).

The Bottom Line
I never owned an Amiga nor played Speedball 2 on an Amiga of a friend, so I don't know whether or not Tomer is right. But I do know that the DOS version is a really cool game in it's own right.

DOS · by Roedie (5239) · 2002

Yet to be bettered

The Good
An outrageously superb game, even now. Fast, furious and most importantly, fun! The most amazing thing about this game is that you REALLY can just pick it up again and enjoy it the same way you did when you first played it. The playability and difficulty curve are THAT good.

This game single-handedly cemented the Bitmaps Bros fame for all time (even if their other games didn't deserve it) and Eric Matthews is a sorely missed genius!

(I would LOVE to see this game updated, while NOT changing a single thing about the gameplay... just more beautiful graphics and sound.)

The Bad
Multi-player league and knockout are bizarrely missing and there's no good reason why! (Even the 256 color AGA 'Update' didn't include it!) If they'd had this then it would probably be still being played today!

The Bottom Line
Completely, truly and utterly perfect.

Amiga · by Johnny "ThunderPeel2001" Walker (476) · 2004

[ View all 7 player reviews ]

Trivia

1001 Video Games

The Amiga version of Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Ideas that were scrapped

According to Eric Matthews during development saving a team to disk in order to take it to a friend's house, as well as player-designed home courts were discussed, but both ideas didn't make it in the final game. (Source: Amiga Power #2, 1991/6).

Version differences

The Genesis port is a very quiet port, a lot of sound effects have been left out. The MegaDrive version that went out in Japan had silver and gold teams rather than red and blue.

Awards

  • Amiga Power
    • April 1991 - #3 Best Amiga Game of All Time
    • May 1992 - #3 Best Amiga Game of All Time
    • May 1993 - #4 Best Amiga Game of All Time
    • May 1994 - #3 Best Amiga Game of All Time
  • EMAP Image's Golden Joystick 1991
    • April 1991: Best Soundtrack - 16 Bit
  • Retro Gamer
    • October 2004 (Issue #9) – #43 Best Game Of All Time (Readers' Vote)
  • ST Format
    • January 1993 (issue #42) - #31 in '50 finest Atari ST games of all time' list

Information also contributed by Graeme Boxall and Martin Smith

Analytics

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  • MobyGames ID: 273
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Tomer Gabel.

Antstream added by firefang9212. Amiga added by necronom. Commodore 64, J2ME, Windows Mobile, Xbox 360 added by Kabushi. Atari ST, SEGA Master System, Amiga CD32, Game Boy, Game Boy Advance added by Martin Smith. Genesis added by Roedie. Acorn 32-bit added by Terok Nor. BlackBerry added by MAT.

Additional contributors: Roedie, Jeanne, Apogee IV, kametyken, Martin Smith, formercontrib, Patrick Bregger, Jo ST, FatherJack.

Game added September 15, 1999. Last modified March 26, 2024.