Lacrosse, Canada’s national sport. Most people think it’s hockey but that would be wrong. Instead our winterized country instead has a sport designed for a grassy field under a blue and sunny sky. Releasing for 2018, Casey Powell’s Lacrosse is back and which it sports a good time of rough ball throwing action that I haven’t physically played since college about a decade ago. Good thing this is digitally because I’m getting old...
Before even getting into the rough grassy field action there is one aspect to the Casey Powell’s Lacrosse that I want to highlight above all else. The developers willingness to receive and incorporate feedback for its players. While I was super excited to load this up and take it for a spin, as I hadn’t actually played any in about a decade physically or otherwise, I would get crashes anywhere from thirty seconds in trying to choose what I wanted to do up to five minutes where I was on the field and for once, winning. Or at least not horribly losing at any rate. These issues, along with several others, have been fixed and taking back to the field aftwards was a quite enjoyable experience.
Because Lacrosse at least over here in North America isn’t a big sport good luck finding it on a non-paid television broadcast. So because of this, you may not even know what it’s about. In the simplest terms, it’s grass hockey. I did say simplest terms. Instead of a puck or a ball that glides and rolls across the ground, the ball is held in a netted basket at the end of a stick in which if you’re playing in real life you have to rotate the basket around or you’ll lose the ball just from your running around and trying to avoid the other players. Taking things just a notch you’re allowed to get rough with the other players, to a certain extent, in order to get them to drop the ball so that your team can pick it up and try to score a point. Rinse and repeat for four quarters and go into overtime if you have to. Just try not to lose 13-1. That team was scary.
Generally within a sports game, to my limited enough experience, you pick either a career mode or an exhibition, the team you want to play and then try your hardest to win. What I really appreciated about Casey Powell’s Lacrosse is that while there is a career mode alongside the exhibition, there are different ways of going about this. Starting off with the self explanatory of the three, you have your exhibition games. You pick two teams, who you want to play as, and you play. It’s pretty simple and great to have if you have a few friends over.
Moving into the career mode this is where things really get interesting. For a career you can pick either to play through a season as a player or play through it as a manager. In either case there are choices to be made such as the team you want to play as and in the case of following a player, whether you want to play the match as yourself or as the entire team.
There’s a vast difference in the type of experience that can be had simply between this choice. Playing as an entire team offers a quick and fast paced game in which more often than not the clock hitting zero on a quarter will come as a surprise. This lets you move up and down the field passing the ball and shooting on the net as you see fit. You really get to utilize your team at its maximum potential.
Playing as a specific player, you’ll often be stuck on one side of the field awaiting your chance to shine as you see the rest of the team trying to do its best under the AI control. You can move around but you are limited to the position that is assigned to you which offers a different perspective on the overall match. Now just because you’re up up by the opposing team’s net for example doesn’t mean that there’s nothing you can’t do. Compared to playing as a team in which you can pass the ball, playing as a single player gives you the option to either shout at a team member to take the shot or pass you the ball so that you can do it yourself. It changes the style of gameplay and its interesting to experience, however, more often than not you’ll be seeing the clock tick slowly down to the end of a quarter because it’s not as fast paced as if you were playing with the whole team.
Finally there’s management mode! While not exactly my cup of team to pour over character stats, who’s better than who and where they should be placed, you do get to spiffy yourself up to look like you own the place. More than this however, the team that you manage you can choose to either sit on the sidelines and watch the matches unfold or you can take control of the team and play them yourself. This means that even if you’re someone like me who would rather be playing than managing, you can still experience one without the loss of the other.
In terms of actual gameplay Casey Powell’s Lacrosse is solid. Shooting on the net, passing the ball over or checking / slashing another player to make them drop the ball so that you can pick it up, it’s all very responsive. There are a few tiny moments where you have to wonder what is going on because hitting another player won’t do much but they are so few and far between that it’s honestly a non-issue as whenever it happened I was by the opposing team’s net having just lose the ball off of a blocked shot on the net.
While like all sports, Lacrosse may not be for everyone but you should really look into it. Especially if you like Hockey. With multiple modes and solid fast paced gameplay, Casey Powell’s Lacrosse will keep you occupied for either hours at a time or simply for a few quick exhibition matches with friends before heading off to do something else for the evening.
Game Information
Sony PlayStation 4
Developer(s):
Big Ant Studios
Publisher(s):
Big Ant Studios
Genre(s):
Sports
Mode(s):
Single Player
Multiplayer
Other Platform(s):
NA
Source:
Provided by Publisher
Article by Pierre-Yves
0 comments:
Post a Comment