Real Soccer 2010 HD is an ambitious iPad football game that challenges you to achieve glory in a range of competitions and game modes.
Graphically, Real Soccer 2010 HD certainly looks the part, and the transition to high definition from the iPhone version has been a success. The motion of the players is realistic, the stadiums look great and the game menus are generally well designed.
The best thing about Real Soccer 2010 HD is the amount of different game modes it has. You can choose a full season (including management and player transfer options); international and domestic league and cup competitions; penalty shootouts; and an Enter the Legend mode in which you just control one player on a team. Real Soccer 2010 HD also includes multiplayer modes, where you can play against your buddies over WiFi or Bluetooth.
Real Soccer 2010 HD boasts a large database of different teams and players to choose from. Most of the player names in the game are real, thanks to a licensing deal with FIFPro. There's even an editor that lets you alter team and player names, so you can ensure that all the data is up-to-date and correct.
Gameplay gripes
Despite all this choice of teams, players and game modes, Real Soccer 2010 HD disappoints when it comes to the most important aspect of any football sim - the gameplay. The on-screen joystick and two-button control system is very clunky, and performing accurate passes and shots is very difficult.
You can customize the layout of controls in Real Soccer 2010 HD, but it does nothing to improve the responsiveness, and the fact that many moves need to be done using finger gestures. Even the gimmicky throw-in system in Real Soccer 2010 HD - where you flick the iPad to launch the ball into play - gets boring after a while. We also noticed some bugs and gameplay glitches in testing. For instance, players often get stuck running into thin air.
Crackpot commentary
On top of being very difficult, Real Soccer 2010 HD is made more irritating by the awful in-game commentary. Rather than get a well-known commentator to lend their voice, Gameloft seems to have picked an old man off the street and got him to record himself mispronouncing scores of names, and getting ridiculously over-excited about a good pass or a tackle.
Real Soccer 2010 HD looks great on the big screen, but ultimately it's let down by cumbersome controls, glitchy gameplay and corny commentary.
