Dead Ball Zone

• Release Date: March 10, 1998
• Genre: Sports
• Style: Futuristic
• Similar Games: Rugby World Cup 1995 (IBM PC Compatible), NFL Blitz (PlayStation), Extreme Sports (IBM PC Compatible), NFL Blitz (Nintendo 64), NFL Blitz (Arcade), NFL Blitz (Game Boy Color), NFL Blitz (IBM PC Compatible), FIFA 2000: Major League Soccer (IBM PC Compatible), FIFA 2000: Major League Soccer (PlayStation), NHL 2000 (Game Boy Color), NHL 2000 (IBM PC Compatible), NHL 2000 (PlayStation)

Game Description

Dead Ball Zone from GT Interactive Software is a futuristic game of "kill the ball carrier" where you are the manager of an eight-man team. Take control of various psychopathic players as you go for the score at all costs. You get to use grenades, guns and chainsaws to reach your opponents' goal with a small flaming ball.

The game features the Tussle mode where you have a single match with your choice of teams and 10 different arenas from around the world, including London, San Francisco, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Amazonia, Paris, India, Thailand and Hawaii. It also features a league game, wherein you take on the role of the player or manager for a Dead Ball Zone team.

Bring your team from the lowest local division up to the national division, and all the way through to the GeoSphere division. As you move through the league, your team's abilities change. So depending on your style of play, your team will become more suited to your game.

The game itself features eight players on each team passing around a small flaming ball. To score you must shoot the ball past your opponent. To get the ball away from your opponent in addition to weapons, you can perform different moves such as head-butting, pile-driving, checking or performing a rugby tackle against the player in possession of the ball.

Think you can dominate in the world of high-speed, futuristic sporting? Get ready to take on Dead Ball Zone for the PlayStation.

Review: Overall

If the future is like this, please don't take me there! Dead Ball Zone from GT Interactive Software presents a bleak view of the end of the 21st century. It suggests that the game of Dead Ball Zone would be created for the crime lords to enjoy themselves. Personally, I do not know how this game would entertain them for more than five minutes. The idea of Dead Ball Zone was a good one. Combine elements of soccer, hockey and football to make a new, futuristic game. Unfortunately, the game comes out as a mishmash of sorts, much like a "kill the ball carrier" clone.

Rage Software obviously thought that adding extra violence to a sports game would be its key to success, but how wrong they were! The focus on the violence in this game is exactly what makes it so bad. You never feel like you are actually playing a sports game. You just feel like you are moving around, going for some objective that you really are unaware of. Another problem with this game: it is extremely vague.

There is no real strategy here, just a bunch of players in the GeoSphere running around and shooting at their goals. Things like fatigue -- while they seem to fit here -- do not seem to matter. You can keep your best players (it's really next to impossible to tell who your best players are, however) on the floor at all times, and there will be no noticeable difference.

Another huge problem is the control. Moving the players around the floor is a chore. You never feel in control of any one player at any time, and there is a reason for it: the game randomly switches between players on defense, and there seems to be no rhyme or reason to it. One moment you are in control of the guy nearest the ball, and the next you do not know who you are in control of. This makes things quite annoying, and certainly takes away from the fun.

Dead Ball Zone features shoddy graphics, bad animation and deplorable gameplay. You can barely read the onscreen options and you hardly have any control over your team. You would think that the future would have allowed for better games than this one! Instant replays, which have been pretty much perfected by companies like EA Sports, takes a turn for the worse here; Dead Ball Zone overuses this feature. After every single goal, three different views are shown for the 10 or so seconds up to and including the goal. Somehow the graphics in this mode are even WORSE than the in-game graphics. The developers outdid themselves there, since I don't think that would have been possible.

The only good thing I can say about the game is that if you can somehow get through all of this, a good yet simple game is underneath. If you just concentrate on passing and scoring, utilizing different moves that GT Interactive Software and Rage Software chose to include (tackles, punching and taunting), you just might enjoy yourself. There are some fun moments, although they are far and few between. One-timers are particularly cool, although they are difficult to pull off.

Overall, Dead Ball Zone has an average concept that takes a turn for the worst when the developers took a risk by creating a "new" sport.

Review: Enjoyment

The concept is pretty good, but there's just too much stopping it from being any fun.

Review: Graphics

Graphics are very grainy. The players do not move well at all.

Review: Sound

Nothing to speak well of in this department.

Review: Replay Value

It's too boring and repetitive to play repeatedly.

Review: Documentation

The manual goes over what it's supposed to but it isn't anything spectacular.

Production Credits