Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe
Imagine football and hockey crossed with American football, set in a dystopian future where armoured players slam against metal walls and points are scored equally for goals and for knocking an opponent out of the arena. This is Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe, one of the most addictive sports titles ever created on home computers. The game's slogan was clear: Ice cream, ice cream!
Behind the game stands the British studio The Bitmap Brothers, a legendary team famous for its stylish, polished metallic graphics and top-tier gameplay. Speedball 2 came out in 1990 and followed up on the original Speedball from 1988, which it significantly improved and expanded. The Atari ST version was among the platform's flagships and showed what 16-bit hardware could do in the right hands.
The core of the fun is fast, aggressive arcade action in a split arena. You control a team of robotic gladiators, you pass, shoot at the goal and at the same time physically eliminate the opposing players. Points fall from bonus targets, ramps and from sending an opponent to the ground. Between matches you buy upgrades and strengthen your players, so besides the immediate action the game also offers a light managerial layer and a long career mode in a league.
A huge draw was the two-player mode, one of the best of its kind on the ST and Amiga. A duel of two people at a single keyboard or on joysticks could keep players glued to the screen for hours. The metallic, industrial visuals and the raw soundtrack created an unmistakable atmosphere that fans remember to this day.
Speedball 2 collected enthusiastic reviews and repeatedly appeared among the best games for 16-bit computers in the polls of the day. It saw a number of ports as well as later remakes and remasters, thereby confirming that its gameplay aged far better than that of many a more modern sport.
Why play: For the two-player mayhem that never ages, and for a perfect mix of arcade action, violence and team building.
Game 8 of 72 for Atari ST
The same title elsewhere (3)
The Commodore Amiga version is generally regarded by fans as the best — it benefited from a rich colour palette, smooth animation, and the Paula sound chip, which brought the game to life with sampled voice clips and a roaring crowd ('Ice Cream!') that added to the brutal arena atmosphere. The Atari ST had weaker colours and harsher, thinner sound from its YM2149 chip, giving the game a starker, less atmospheric feel. The PC/DOS version depended entirely on the graphics and sound card a player owned — with a sound card and VGA it came close to the Amiga, but without them both the music and the colours stayed noticeably poorer.
