Football Kicks: Title Race Review

Combining the sensibilities of New Star Soccer and Flick Kick Football sounds like a match made in heaven for soccer fans. Unfortunately, while Football Kicks: Title Race might share some of those basic similarities, it does so with clunky graphics and an infuriating set of energy bars.

Players set up their own soccer team, naming it however they wish and customizing the team's looks and badge. It's a promising touch giving players ownership of a side the game clearly wants one to invest time and money into. It falters significantly after that though. For one thing, there are a series of clunky menus to navigate associated with training of the squad as well as stadium upgrades.

In each case, there's a lot of waiting around. A timer bar controls how long it takes for each upgrade or training session to complete. There's even a timer that affects when one can play the next match of the game. Unless one is willing to spend money to speed things up, it soon makes for a sluggish game to play.

Once participating in a match, Football Kicks: Title Race switches to a Football Manager style layout, providing text for non-vital moments of the game before switching to a more interactive interface when a goal, corner, or free kick is possible. That's where Flick Kick Football comes into affect, requiring players to drag a finger to fling the ball to another player or towards the goal. It's functional enough but hardly attractive or varied in nature.

Crucially, it's not enough to make all those potential in-app purchases worth it. Football Kicks: Title Race is a title that fights back against its players rather than encouraging them to play more. On the surface a combination of such great titles sounds great, but one would be far better off sticking to those inspirations.