At best, the gameplay teased me with what could have been. At its worst, it was a frustrating and laborious mess.
Let’s not mince words, Street Power Football is just not up to scratch. Sure I love the representation and I love that recognition of actual members of the sport. But that doesn’t really sway me if the game isn’t up to par. Every element of this game has at least one major flaw that makes the game frustrating to wrestle with and takes the fun out of a certain moment. This game has a real arcadey feel to it. It’s cartoonish and colourful. But it’s also arcadey in how cheap and disposable the experience feels.
While the characters and the story might be good enough for a music video, it's not good enough for a video game. It is clear these are music video characters, sometimes in great emotional scenes, but often feeling two dimensional. The gameplay is sometimes nice, but often lacking in a discernable thread of logic, and is undercut when you see how little influence you have on what is clearly a prescribed set of events.
The Occupation is so many things I have wanted to see in a game, but I can't give it the love and adoration I want to.