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Google has a sweet FIFA World Cup mini-game that you should definitely try
Building up some team spirit
The 2022 FIFA World Cup kicks off today in Qatar amidst plenty of controversy. Regardless, millions of soccer lovers and football fans around the globe will tune in to catch all the action live. Google usually cashes in on major global events like this one with a doodle or a special animation or even a game on the homepage. This time around, the company is opening the field up for multiplayer skirmishes, allowing hooligans to score goals against each other.
Google makes it simpler to keep track of the 2022 FIFA World Cup
Keep tabs on everything from win probabilities to match highlights across Google services
If you aren’t subscribed to a broadcaster to catch a game in session, Google usually has all the current scores readily available. With the 2022 FIFA World Cup just around the corner, starting on November 20, Google Search has a new hub for all soccer fans where they can view detailed information about matches and sign up for alerts for when their favorite teams take on one of the 31 other competing nations.
Here's the fix if you can't play Rocket League Sideswipe on the Pixel 6
Don't worry, it's an easy solution
Earlier in the month, we learned that Psyonix was planning to release its mobile sidescrolling interpretation of Rocket League on mobile across the globe. This rollout started with a few territories and has finally expanded to the US and EU, completing the worldwide launch for Rocket League Sideswipe. Amazingly, the game is great. I went hands-on with the title back in March when it was still in testing and came away pretty impressed, and I'm a diehard Rocket League player that plays on PC every night, so I'm not easily swayed. Not only does the core gameplay of hitting giant soccer balls into goals with cars hold up in its sidescrolling form, there's no monetization yet, which means the only way to earn in-game cosmetics is by playing the game. No matter how you slice it, Psyonix has hit this one out of the park.
Konami finally decides to cash in on Pro Evolution Soccer — the series is going free-to-play
Slated for release on consoles/PC next month, and mobile will arrive at a later date
Konami has just announced that the developers behind Pro Evolution Soccer and Winning Eleven will soon be launching a new soccer simulation game called eFootball. It would seem this new series will replace PES across all platforms, and it will be free-to-play, which also means it will be digital-only. The thing is, Konami already offers a F2P soccer game on mobile called eFootball, though it's easy enough to assume it will be replaced by the new cross-platform eFootball whenever it lands.
FIFA 21 may be an underwhelming entry to the long-standing series, but for those of us who use Stadia, it couldn't be more exciting — it's the first game in EA Sport's football (okay, soccer) franchise to make the jump to Google's game streaming service, hot on the heels of Madden NFL 21. Following the initial announcement in early February, FIFA 21 is finally available on Stadia for $24.59 (£25.19) today.
You don't mess with soccer hooligans, so YouTube TV is looking to make it right after an outage during the World Cup earlier this week. Many of those affected by the outage say they've received emails from YouTube that promise a week of free service as compensation. That's not bad for a rather brief interruption.
Yes, you read that right: YouTube TV has gone down amidst a major sports game yet again. This last happened during Game 2 of the NBA's Eastern Conference Finals, and it seems like Google's streaming service just isn't built to handle all of the World Cup fans either.
Viber is getting into the World Cup spirit. The popular instant messaging platform has announced a feature that will allow users to make predictions about the outcomes of World Cup matches, along with a specially-made soccer-themed sticker pack and prizes for accurate predictions.
Historically, sports aren't really our emphasis here at Android Police. As the name implies, we more go for phones and technology. But with the 2018 World Cup approaching, the coming matches are on many of our reader's minds—as well as our own. So we're curious, do you plan on following the games in any way on your Android phone?
The Football Manager series (formally Championship Manager) is one of the most enduring video game franchises around. The management sim is entrenched in football culture (soccer, if you're on the other side of the pond). You can't talk about a promising young footballer in the pub without one of your friends claiming, "I knew he was going to be good; I bought him on Football Manager a couple of years ago."
Straight out of a soft launch, PES2017 Pro Evolution Soccer is finally here. If you are looking for a soccer game that is as close to the console version as we will ever get, this is probably going to be your best choice. Sure the touch controls may not lend themselves well to such a highly strategic game, but hey, who cares when you can now play soccer on the go.
One of the core principles of video games is that they're aspirational: we beat the invincible bad guy and drive hovercraft race cars in lavish fantasy worlds because we can't ever do it in real life. Video games are now so amazing that they're intersecting with the real world in the form of VR, but our aspirations have softened a bit as we've gotten older - now some of those impossible dreams include "owning a really nice house." FOX Sports VR has embraced the death of the American dream by virtualizing that nice house and letting you watch football in it.
Another year, another round of soccer manager games. The first up for Android this fall is Square-Enix's franchise Championship Manager, or as it's more entertainingly known to players, "Champ Man." This one is named 17, because that's one more than the year we're in right now. As is tradition.
The summer of soccer football competitions is almost upon us, with both Copa América and Euro 2016 starting this month. Google's showing its support by asking users to select which teams they'd like to follow within Google Now.
Just last week SEGA published Football Manager Mobile 2016, a version of its long-running soccer management sim that skips out on fancy graphics in order to make it play nice with older hardware. Now Football Manager Touch 2016, a more high-powered version with full 3D simulated football matches, has joined it. SEGA's naming scheme is a little convoluted: Touch is more of a high-end game than Mobile, though both of them support mobile hardware and touch controls.
Considering the last year of events in the NFL, my usual cheeky poking of soccer fans would probably be in bad taste. After all, when one of the most visible "managers" in America's version of football is Jerry Jones, a man who would probably punch a baby in the face while he ate a puppy sandwich if it meant he could win a Superbowl, I'm in no position to take jabs at The Beautiful Game.* So, for all you football fans who dream about managing a World Cup team, SEGA is back with another entry in its endless Football Manger series.
How hard am I kicking a soccer ball? Not hard at all. I don't play soccer, or football as you folks living in most other countries call it. But if I did kick soccer balls—and by kick, I mean apply enough force to quickly send them in a straight direction, rather than nudge them awkwardly and accidentally off to the side—the Adidas Snapshot app might just pique my interest.
[Bonus Round] HoPiKo, Beacon 38, Hypersurf, Rage Quit Racer, HALOS, Champ Man 16, And PewDiePie: Legend of Brofist
HoPiKo, Beacon 38, Hypersurf, Rage Quit Racer, HALOS, Champ Man 16, And PewDiePie: Legend of Brofist
Welcome to the latest entry in our Bonus Round series, wherein we tell you all about the new Android games of the day that we couldn't get to during our regular news rounds. Consider this a quick update for the dedicated gamers who can't wait for our bi-weekly roundups, and don't want to wade through a whole day's worth of news just to get their pixelated fix. Today we've got a super-fast platformer, a unique 2D exploration game, two tunnel runners, a minimal twitch game, yet another soccer manager, and (sigh) a game from a bunch of Let's Play "stars." Without further ado:
We don't see too much enthusiasm for soccer in the US. In fact, we call it soccer instead of football just to show how much we don't care what the rest of the world thinks. Classic America, right? At any rate, FIFA 16 Ultimate Team is out on Android, and I'm going to do my best to explain what it's all about.
Soccer games and tower defense games seem to have reached their design peak - while you see a new idea every once in a while, both genres are relatively static. That's probably what makes FootLOL so interesting: it mixes both genres, and a bunch of other random insanity, to make something wholly unique. And also insane. Just have a gander at the trailer below and see if you can scrape together the few bits of coherence in the gameplay.