It’s not easy to make a freeware soccer title. What with the competition on the commercial side with the successful FIFA series from EA. Yet in this case, Slam Soccer 2006 manages to do an excellent job of not only creating a fantastic soccer title, it offers plenty of options and customizable features that will please fans who wish to play the game to their exact liking. Not only is the game very easy to get into, it offers plenty of teams (although not the exact teams or players) and many more options such as playing a quick game, or even going into a full blown career mode, it’s all here in this game.

When you load up the game, get yourself accustomed with the different controls.  There is only 3 main buttons you have to worry about. Once that is finished, you have different modes you can choose from. If you wish to just start right away, select 'Quick Play', otherwise you have other choices to pick from. You can play a Friendly Match where you compete against the computer, choose your team, stadium, weather conditions and even which referee you wish to have officiating the game.  It’s all selectable in this mode. Your other choices are Career Mode where you take your team from humble beginnings playing in a mud filled and desolate area. As you win matches, you gain more money that will allow you to upgrade the look of your playing field and compete against other top teams. Its great to see this idea of having to start from the bottom and working your way up bing used.  It just motivates you more to really work hard to make your team one of the best. Finally, there is the World Cup Mode, where you take your international team, from the beginning of the tournament, and onto the round of 16, the quarter finals, semi finals and finally the finals where you are one step closer to winning the grand prize of Soccer: the World Cup.

Graphically the game looks really nice. While it may not seem to be all that special, the soccer players, fans, and even the referee just have a little charm to them, having that sort of cartoony look. You have many different teams to choose from, with the exception of club teams, which have been rebranded with different names.  However, it is still easy to differentiate what their original names are. The international teams are also included.  Not all nations however, but a good proportion of them are selectable. Of course, if you’re expecting to find players from your favorite teams, think again. Since EA has an exclusive license with FIFA on both team names and player’s names, the cost of trying to use such a license would be pretty high, so you get fictionalized names. 

While there is no music in the game, all the sounds you would expect at a soccer game are all present. From the thunk of hitting the ball, to the noise you would hear from tackling, it’s all present and accounted for.

The only real fault from the game that I found was that the announcer that is used for the game, tends to repeat himself quite often on many plays. While it is a nice feature to include in the game, either use some more lines, or at least present some variety with some of the lines, like getting tackled, or the goalie saving the ball.

Nevertheless, this was a stellar soccer game and I highly recommend you check it out. It’s called Slam Soccer 2006, see it for yourself.