Speedball 2 -- Brutal Deluxe: Mobile mayhem

By Andrew Lim on 24 May 2006, 12:06pm

While Crave was lost in a storm of products, an email was sent to us regarding somebody's love of a mobile phone game. At first we ignored it and continued to partake in our 'outrageous consumer electronics diagnosis' (see the latest Crave Podcast). Then the email flashed up again and we noticed that the subject line had the word 'Speedball' in it.

The game our Crave reader was referring to was Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe and for those of you unfamiliar with the ultra-violent, futuristic world of Speedball, it's a cross between rugby and ice hockey. You're in command of a five-player team called 'Brutal Deluxe'. In order to win the game you have to play matches against other teams in a metal arena with a metal ball. Win games and you win money to cybernetically improve your players.

However, unlike games in which fouling is punished, this game encourages you to beat up and fight your opponents in a bid to take the ball off them. The game started out on an Amiga 500 and we have to say that the Bitmap Brothers and glu have done a good job of porting the game to a mobile. It only works on selected mobiles and you can see which ones are supported on the glu Web site. You can download the game through the site or through your phone's browser and it costs around £4 (excluding download charges). -AL