Pros: Good graphics, decent engine
Cons: controls, lack of skills or speed, BORING
The bottom line: I dont recommend this game. Its the worst kind of game. Not at all good, but not bad enough to even laugh at.
When it comes to football titles, the Dreamcast didn’t half get screwed over. With no support from EA or Konami, all it was left with was what scrappy rubbish third parties provided and whatever Sega Sports could come up with. While there was two sequels to the Saturn’s excellent Sega Worldwide Soccer games for the DC, they were made by a different team, and to be honest, were nowhere near as good as the Saturn namesakes.
I always wondered why there wasn’t a Virtua Football to go along with Virtua Fighter, Virtua Tennis and so on, and then discovered there was.

But then there was Virtua Striker 2 ver.2000.1, an ‘update’ of the popular arcade title, this was Sega’s other card in the football game.

The game features a fairly generic list of options, such as league, Exhibition, Cup, shootout etc. and a roster of simply National sides, with the only one being licensed appearing to be Japan( a Japanese player in fully authentic strip graces the cover of the PAL version of the game) so nothing special, but this is an arcade football title.

Graphically, the game is actually very good, with the players all looking quite brilliant, and actually much better than the players in any other football game of the time. The pitch and stadiums also look great.
One thing that bothers me that seems to appear in all arcade football titles (well, this and ISS2 for the Xbox) is that on the back of the player’s shirts, where their name should be, is the country name. What? I remember the 96 Italy shirt had Italia written at the bottom of the top, and German club sides often have their name on the back of the shirt, but this is just silly.
The game was apparently licensed by Adidas no less (actually, they put their name to Power Soccer on the PlayStation, and compared to that this is awesome) seeing as the ball is like the one used in World Cup 98, but strangely few of the shirts, even for those nations made by Adidas, are remotely authentic looking.

The sound in the game isn’t much to shout about either. The crowd chants are generic, but acceptable enough. There is no commentary, only some berk who shouts “GOAL” in a really irritating manner.

The controls for the game, like all arcade games, are simple. While on the Ball:

A: Pass
B: Shoot
X: Long Pass
Y: Formation Change

Off the ball:

A: Slide Tackle

The only other way of winning the ball is to simply run into the player in possession. The these are ok, if extremely simplistic, but they respond well enough. The thing that really annoys me is the fact that the game forces you to use the D-Pad, and as I may have mentioned in other DC reviews, the Dreamcast pad has possibly the worst D-Pad this side of the PlayStation. Expect a sore thumb.

So, how does it play? In my reviews of Konami’s ISS games, I have looked favourably on the arcade football contained within. I like football, I like Sega games, I like arcade games…I don’t like this.

The game falls flat when it comes to gameplay. No sprinting means every game trudges along at a snail’s pace, and the lack of any variety of skill button helps make it nigh on impossible to actually beat players. Assigning Y to change formation is a ridiculous move, and is one that I have never seen in any football title previous or after this game, which is something I am glad of.
For some reason, Sega decided to alter the rules of a sport loved by the majority of the world, and done away with half time.
The thing that makes this even more frustrating is the fact that the game’s basic engine is actually not all that bad. The passing and shooting actually comes off very well, its just that getting into a good position to shoot is rock hard, and not through any great AI.

That is the thing that hurts the game the most, it actually had potential. When you start up, see the awesome graphics and kick off with a nicely weighted pass, you start to think, “hey, this is pretty good” and then you realise you cant sprint, you have no skills, and the only hope of a goal is to hump it up the park and hope it lands at the feet of your striker.

I actually remember the day I bought this game. My friend and I went into the city and I picked up it, along with some other reduced titles, close to the demise of the Dreamcast. We got back to my house, played it once and vowed never to again. It never left the box until yesterday when I played it for this review. We both love football, neither of us found anything to redeem it and play it. Not even for humour. It’s just dull. That’s all it is. You actually cannot have anything that even resembles an exciting game in Virtua Striker. And that condemns all the people who buy it to a fate worse than having their new game stolen. Actually playing it and discovering not a good game, not even a bad game they can laugh about to their mates. But a game that is so dull that it isn’t even really worth talking about.