Flick Kick Field Goal

Sometimes it just seems odd that just a simple concept can be so much fun. Flick Kick Field Goal is one such game. I've been playing it all weekend trying to better my score, and trying to figure out what the draw is. Certainly football is part of the draw and releasing it during football season works in their favor. But why, when there's the similar (and free) Paper Toss that I've already played to death do I persist with just one more field goal attempt? It's gotten so bad that I even had a dream last night where I was the holder on a field goal. We missed.

The concept in Flick Kick Field Goal is simple. Drag your finger up the screen in a kicking motion and try to kick the ball between the field goal posts (or to 'split the uprights' in fancy, football lingo). Complexity is added to this task as your distance and angle will change with subsequent shots, and then there's the wind to deal with. The game claims it simulates real stadium wind, but I don't really know how to test that having never kicked a field goal in real stadium wind. The cool thing about the wind, and it took awhile for me to notice this, is that it's more than just a wind speed, but it also includes a direction. I think this is among a couple kick things that made this stand out from a game like Paper Toss. You could be kicking into the wind, or have to deal with the wind not being your friend. That's the game in a nutshell... drag your finger... did I score?... drag your finger... did I score? But it just doesn't sound as fun as it really is when I say it that way, does it?

The game includes four modes of play. First there's Practice Mode in which you'll be positioned at different points on the field until you make each kick. Next, there's Sudden Death in which you try and see how many you can kick in a row. Sudden Death is the mode I've been glued to. Next, there's Arcade mode in which you're given 3 kicks per ball placement and can earn bonuses by making 3 or more kicks in a row. Finally, there's Time Attack mode in which you have to make as many field goals as you can in two minutes and earn bonus time for every made field goal.

The graphics on this game are very nice and sharp. The 3D view of the stadium is pretty and the animation of the ball is smooth as it rotates end over end. When the ball crosses the plane of the goal posts you see that point and thus get feedback as to how on or off target you were. And, all throughout, there are positive reinforcement messages that are displayed and the crowd cheering you on. Speaking of cheering, the audio is also excellent from things such as the boot of the ball to the patriotic title screen music to the roar (or boos) of the crowd. And the controls? Nice and simple. Although I do feel that sometimes my kick should be straight when it hooks. I doubt that has anything to do with the game and I can't really tell if it's me or the Droid's hardware giving occasional bad data. Maybe it's just the translation of a finger touch to a single point on the screen. Am I over analyzing this enough?

This game is part of the bunch of Open Feint games that were released this past week and so it supports a complete online community of players to compete against. My high in Sudden Death mode stands at 17 and I haven't been able to come close in 36 hours of play.

In conclusion, probably the most amusing thing to me is how we now have a great punt return game, a nice little quarterbacking game, and now an excellent field goal kicking game, but cannot seem to attract a solid, full featured football game to Android. Maybe last week's announcement of Madden '11 coming will happen sooner than later. Maybe we'll figure out how to glue all three of these mini-games together into one rock solid football game. Until then, at $0.99 this should provide much more than a dollar's worth of entertainment to football fans everywhere and then some. 4.5/5 stars for a game that is up and IT'S GOOD. But please add App2SD support... that shouldn't even be an issue anymore.

Edit: This review was updated as it was published prematurely and was missing one of the modes of game play in the 3rd paragraph.