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Metro
06-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Metro
Everyone should play Rematch: the best new football game in years
A reader enjoys Rematch on Game Pass and insists that while it's not trying to compete with EA Sports FC it is the best arcade style game in a long time. If Rocket League ditched the cars, took International Superstar Soccer and mashed them together, the result would be Rematch! This new Xbox Game Pass title from Sloclap – the minds behind Sifu – is a wild, stylish, and surprisingly strategic take on football, that's less about realism and more about flair, chaos, and pure arcade joy. Forget everything you know about traditional football sims. Rematch throws out the rulebook, literally. No offsides, no fouls, no referees. Here, you control a single player in third person view, trying to out-dribble, out-pass, and out-style your opponents in six minute matches that feel like a cross between a street tournament and a martial arts showdown. If you love a good sliding tackle without the consequences of a red card, you will be right at home here. The controls are tight but demanding. Shooting feels like aiming in a third person shooter and passing requires finesse and timing. It's not pick-up and play easy, but once you get the hang of it, the satisfaction of threading a perfect through ball or pulling off a last-ditch sliding tackle is immense. Every player has the same stats, so it's all about skill, positioning, and teamwork. You will need patience, but if you have it, it will pay off in the end. Teamwork is where Rematch really shines – or stumbles, depending on your squad. Because you only control one player, communication is key. A well-timed 'Pass!' shout or a humble 'Sorry!' after a botched shot can make or break your team's chemistry. But when your teammate decides to go full Messi, and dribble through everyone (and fails), expect a flurry of sarcastic emotes and a few rage quits. I have rage quit more than once and probably caused others to do the same. If you think you can win at this game alone, think again. Still, when it clicks – when your team moves like a unit, covering space, calling for crosses, and pulling off slick one-twos – it's magic. You'll find yourself grinning like a kid playing five-a-side in the park, minus the scraped knees and need for TCP and plasters! Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for a unique take on the week in gaming, alongside the latest reviews and more. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning. Visually, Rematch is a treat. The anime-inspired graphics give it a vibrant, kinetic energy. Players move with exaggerated swagger, and the arenas are compact, colourful, and designed for wall-bouncing trick shots and last-second saves. It's like playing football inside a neon-lit skate park. It's similarities to Rocket League are evident throughout. The game's Season Zero is already live, with ranked play and seasonal content promising fresh modes and cosmetics. While there's no real-world team licensing the customisation options are still fun, and more are on the way so hopefully we will get more variety with updates as they arrive. Also, the learning curve might scare off casual players. The controls are intuitive once mastered, but the early hours can feel like trying to juggle a football while blindfolded. And while the lack of commentary adds to the street football vibe, a bit more audio flair wouldn't hurt – it can feel very quiet and a pumping soundtrack would be most welcome. Despite its quirks, Rematch is a bold, refreshing spin on the football genre. It's not trying to be EA Sports FC, but rather it is carving its own lane, and doing so with style, swagger, and a whole lot of slide tackles. Whether you're a football fanatic or just looking for a new multiplayer obsession, this one's worth lacing up for. Grab your mates, stretch those thumbs, and get ready to shout 'One more game!' until the sun comes up. Rematch is here and it's a beautiful mess – in the best way possible. More Trending Score: 8/10 By reader BaldB3lper The reader's features do not necessarily represent the views of GameCentral or Metro. You can submit your own 500 to 600-word reader feature at any time, which if used will be published in the next appropriate weekend slot. Just contact us at gamecentral@ or use our Submit Stuff page and you won't need to send an email. MORE: As an Xbox fan all I can say is that Microsoft betrayed us - Reader's Feature MORE: Gaming peaked with the PS4 and I want the PS6 to recognise that – Reader's Feature MORE: After 24 years of wasted potential the Xbox dream is finally dead - Reader's Feature
Daily Mail
03-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
PETER HOSKIN reviews Rematch: Part cartoon, part fashion shoot, it's blissfully free of sponsorship deals, extra credit card payments... and best of all, there's no Cristiano Ronaldo
Rematch (PlayStation, Xbox, PC, £20.99) Verdict: Golazzo! Video games have conspired to make the beautiful game ugly. They've reduced football to sponsorship deals, big spreadsheets and, worst of all, hundreds of additional credit card payments so that you might get a limited-edition version of Cristiano Ronaldo in a fluorescent green kit designed by a YouTube streamer. But now comes Rematch, a game by Sloclap, the creators of the martial arts classic Sifu, which goes some way to making football beautiful again. Some of this is down to its look. Much like Sifu, Rematch has a pleasing animated style — part cartoon, part fashion shoot — that eschews the photorealism of other football games and is much better for it. But mostly it's down to the gameplay. Rather than controlling an entire team, here you're given control of a single player in brief, frenetic matches where other people are controlling both your teammates and the opposition. It's you taking the ball, weaving around tackles and aiming into the top corner... goal! Or rather, as in my case, it's you spooning yet another shot skywards. The potential for madness, as various players do their own things, is limited by the team-sizes — from three-a-side to five-a-side. Picture a human version of Rocket League, the fantastic game of car-based football, and you're not far off. Unlike Rocket League, however, Rematch's control system doesn't quite come naturally. After a perfunctory introduction to its various button presses for different types of shot, pass, tackle and feint, it took me a few more hours to be even acquainted with the game's demands. Hence the spooning. Still, when you do cross that skill threshold — and intentionally volley the ball past a flailing keeper — it's one of the most satisfying feelings in recent sports gaming. And, what's more, there's no Ronaldo in sight. Pipistrello And The Cursed Yoyo (PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, PC, £16.75) Verdict: Delightfully batty Rating: Bats are small and fast-moving. They're easy to miss. But please don't make the mistake of missing this particular bat, as I almost did back in May. That's when Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo was released, just ahead of the new Nintendo Switch 2 and the brilliant Death Stranding 2 — but, even with such riches, I doubt I'll play many more enjoyable games this year. Much like the Legend Of Zelda games from which it borrows, the main character of Pipistrello And The Cursed Yoyo isn't technically given top billing in the title. You play as Pippit, an endearingly oblivious teenage bat who's obsessed with his yoyo. When a bunch of mutant animals attack the energy company owned by his less-than-benevolent family, it's up to Pippit to save the day — or have his allowance rescinded. To be clear, though, this isn't a riff on modern Zelda games, with their vast open worlds and vaster ambitions. No, Pipistrello harkens back to the top-down Zelda games of the later Game Boy era. Its graphics are bright and pixelated. Its gameplay involves powering-up that yoyo to progress further in its dungeons. Except these dungeons aren't dungeons in the medieval-fantasy sense. They're locations such as shopping malls and football stadia. Pipistrello's modern urban world isn't just unusual for the genre, it's a joy to explore — full of weirdos, puzzles, secrets and genuinely funny gags. There are some moments when the game's difficulty spikes a little too vertiginously. But, otherwise, this is a wonderful throwback that also throws things forward. Pipistrello 2? A bat can dream.
Metro
27-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Metro
Rematch review - Rocket League without the cars
There's finally an alternative to EA Sports FC, with Sloclap's 5v5 street football game offering less serious and more arcade style action. Away from the ever-growing realism (and correspondingly rapacious commercialism) of EA Sports FC, there's clearly a desire among gamers for a more arcade style football gaming experience. That's lead to the venerable Sensible Soccer being reinvented as Sociable Soccer and now Sloclap – previously known for the beat 'em-up Sifu – has taken to the pitch with a clever and imaginative offering entitled Rematch. Rematch is basically what you would get if you stripped out the single-player options from EA Sports FC's Be A Pro mode and turned it into a standalone, online-only game. Or, if you prefer, it's Rocket League, except with footballers instead of cars. It lets you control just one player on a football pitch surrounded by glass walls, which the ball bounces off, in six minute matches which can be contested by two teams of three, four, or five players. It's online-only, with no local multiplayer and no way to play on your own except in practice and free play. Similarly to Sifu, it has a pretty distinctive and quite complex control system; shot direction, for example, is determined by the right stick (with the left stick controlling aftertouch), yet you set the direction of passes and lobs with the left stick. In Rematch, there are quite a few skills to master, among them dribbling tricks, nailing the timing of button stabs to intercept balls passing nearby (the ball acquires a diamond-shaped highlight to indicate when that's possible), timing and directing your dives if you're in goal, and even lobbing passes over incoming players – which requires a modifier rather than a single button press. Perhaps the easiest skill to perform in the game is a lunging tackle, which indicates the complexity of the rest of the control system; although once you dive in for one of those, it takes your player a while to get back to their feet. At least you don't have to worry about being sent off for taking out the opposition, though: there are no referees or fouls in Rematch and a street or cage football vibe very much prevails. That's telegraphed by the cartoon style visuals, which by default are pastel-ish but are often more luridly coloured and reminiscent of Fortnite or Overwatch. Which is something of a giveaway, since Rematch is obviously an attempt to make the next big online team game, as opposed to anything resembling a traditional arcade style football game. The whole football aspect can be viewed as something of a Trojan horse, similar to how Rocket League never really acknowledges it's actually just football with cars. Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for a unique take on the week in gaming, alongside the latest reviews and more. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning. When you play it, Rematch very much feels like a wheel-less version of Rocket League. In that context, Rematch's unusual control system works brilliantly. It's easy enough to learn but definitely hard to master and when you do get to grips with it, and make it into the big leagues, you'll find entire matches hinging on perfectly executed moves, made at precisely the right moment, which is classic esports fodder. In terms of achieving that mastery, Rematch – despite being about as minimal as it's possible to be in terms of game modes and general structure – gives you all that you need. There's a basic tutorial, called the Prologue, plus other tutorials that focus more closely on honing specific skills and putting them all together. Then it lets you jump into quick matches; it's wise to start with the 3v3 ones, which are frenetic, unstructured and can be navigated with a mastery of the basics. Whoever is nearest to your goal, for example, becomes the keeper, but in 3v3, a lot of goals tend to be scored from way out, with whoever was in goal having gone for a jaunt upfield. Jumping up to 4v4 requires a bit more teamwork and discipline. In all modes, every time a goal is scored Rematch puts you in another position on the pitch from the kick-off, which you can adhere to or ignore. Although if you abandon goalkeeping duties and concede cheaply, you might receive some opprobrium as by default, Rematch keeps its players' microphones live. Thankfully, you can respond to in-game events by picking from a small number of text phrases – mostly encouraging, although 'Sorry' is also included. The 5v5 mode feels like it will become the default for gamers who are serious about playing Rematch. It's the most structured and rewards discipline and positional sense more than the 3v3 and 4v4 modes. Matchmaking, at least in the early stages of the game, feels pretty impressive; we did occasionally encounter the odd player with better skills than us, but not to an annoying degree. Sensibly, Rematch forces you to work through quick matches in order to reach level 5 status, before letting you loose in its pre-season. That stratification should help enormously with matchmaking. Beyond the global league, you can set up one-off custom matches with a bunch of friends (generating a code allowing other invitees to join) and that's about it. Structurally, it's early days for Rematch, which will undoubtedly add features as it becomes more established, and a call for feedback from players when you boot it up emphasises that. More Trending As with its rival online games, Rematch contains a vast array of cosmetic items and skins which can be purchased using real money (somewhat expensively, in our opinion, especially given that it's not a free game), although as you progress you do slowly earn currency with which to buy them. That will probably annoy some, but it's an inevitability in a modern game of this nature. Patches already appear to have fixed some stability problems, that were reported in the game's early stages, at least for the PC version. It seems the PC is the lead platform at this stage, with no console cross-play at the moment – although hopefully it'll be added later. Rematch is a fun, thoroughly playable and cleverly constructed online team game, that has a great chance of becoming an esports staple. However, it currently feels very much half-finished, so it will be fascinating to see how quickly Sloclap can convert its potential into something that becomes a pillar of the gaming world. Just don't be fooled into believing that it's the future of arcade football games: it's a Rocket League competitor dressed in a football kit. In Short: A clever and hugely enjoyable online team game, even at this early stage in its career -although it feels more like a rival to Rocket League than EA Sports FC. Pros: Arcane but inspired control system, that's easy to learn but hard to master. Great street football vibe and working your way up from 3v3 to 5v5 is a satisfying journey. Cons: Currently missing a lot of options and features. Initially more stable on PC than consoles. Paying for cosmetic items is as gross as ever and the potential for in-game verbal abuse is high. Score: 7/10 Formats: PC (reviewed), Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5Price: £20.99Publisher: SloclapDeveloper: SloclapRelease Date: 19th June 2025 Age Rating: 3 Email gamecentral@ leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader's Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. MORE: Call Of Duty: Black Ops 7 leak reveals new modes and screenshots via Xbox app MORE: Resident Evil Requiem gameplay footage – watch the new trailer here MORE: Jurassic World Rebirth DLC gives you a reason to revisit Funko Fusion
Digital Trends
22-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Digital Trends
In a sea of giant games, Rematch's simplicity is a gift
There are a lot of words I'd use to describe Rematch, the new multiplayer soccer game from Sifu developer Sloclap. It's fun, it's approachable, it's elegant. But there's one word I wouldn't use: ambitious. I don't mean that in a derogatory way; in fact, that's exactly what I love about it. Rematch needs little setup or explanation to get across what it is, which separates it from so many modern, formula-twisting video games. It's an online multiplayer soccer game where teams of three to five, depending on the playlist, compete in six minute matches. The teams are dropped on a basic pitch, the only notable twist of which is that all the sides are walled off. Players pass, block, and shoot and the team with the most points at the end wins. There are no gimmicks, no tricks, and no flourishes like flying cars that make for a cool sales pitch. It's just soccer. Recommended Videos With such an elementary premise on paper, you may be surprised to hear that I'm absolutely loving my time with Rematch so far. At a time where I could be playing the more involved FBC: Firebreak or Splitgate 2, I'm simply opting to kick the ball around. So what is it about Rematch that's grabbing me despite the fact that there's seemingly so little to it? For one, there's a lot more to it than what I've described. Rematch may look shallow at first glance, but there's a lot of depth hidden beneath its surface. As I play, I learn lots of small nuances that beg to be mastered. I can kick the ball away from me if I know a rival is planning to slide kick it from me, forfeiting control for a brief moment only to regain it quickly. I can perform a rainbow flick to fake opponents out, or bounce the ball off a wall to set a teammate up for a goal. These aren't flashy maneuvers by any means, but each one raises the skill ceiling in subtle ways that push me to keep learning. Even with those extra techniques, Rematch's strength lies in simplicity. Those who don't learn how to do any of that can still just pick up a controller and enjoy the simple thrill of kicking a ball into a goal or jumping to block a goal shot. In that way, Rematch is the closest I've felt a modern sports game has come to reaching the ethos of NES classics like Golf and Baseball. Throughout the 1980s, Nintendo loaded its home console up with very fundamental sports simulations that were easy to pick up and play. It would follow up on that philosophy decades later with Wii Sports (and eventually Nintendo Switch Sports), a game that would boil a game as complex as physically Tennis down to its essence. It understood that the joy of hitting a ball with a racket is powerful enough to fuel a video game, no further tricks attached. Rematch carries that same torch; Sloclap could have just called it Soccer had Nintendo not already taken the name in 1985. As I've repeatedly queued up for another round, I've found myself thinking about other games I appreciate and how they relate to Rematch. See, I've spent a long time this year thinking about what I value in video games. It started around the time Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 came out. Like many, I very much enjoyed Sandfall Interactive's impressive debut, but I simply wasn't as high on it as others. For every bit I liked, there was something else that I didn't. I found the whole thing messy, filled with clutter that didn't always work for me. I had conversations with fans at the time where I expressed that critique and would even find some advocates who agreed. However, the refrain I kept hearing was that the RPG's ambition made up for the flaws. I started thinking about that word: ambition. It's something I've heard to describe a lot of critically acclaimed games over the past few years. It was inseparable from Elden Ring and Baldur's Gate 3 during their respective Game of the Year runs. It's being used right now to describe Mario Kart World's divisive open-world component. More and more, 'ambitious' has become a synonym for 'exemplary,' showing that there's a large contingent of players out there who value massive creative swings over functional ones. It's perhaps why Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is one of the year's best reviewed games, while Avowed was received like a disappointment for not living up to The Elder Scrolls' scale. Avowed, as it turns out, is one of my favorite games of the year. The pieces that its loudest critics see as thin are what I see as focused. It tells a clear story and does not waste a single one of its RPG systems. Everything is in its right place, a design philosophy that allowed Obsidian to create an elegantly streamlined RPG that still sticks with me. Many of my favorite games this year share a similar strength. Despelote is a 90 minute game where not a second of its runtime feels superfluous. The Midnight Walk doesn't do anything new with the adventure genre, but it excels at feeling like a playable folktale. Rift of the NecroDancer is a fairly typical rhythm game, but one that is perfectly sharpened. All of these games rank far above Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 on my personal Game of the Year tracker. I'm not sure where Rematch will land on that list, but my current obsession with it is consistent with the other games currently topping my charts. I appreciate the fact that Sloclap walked into the project with a very clear vision and set out to fine tune that as much as possible rather than dress it up in flashy distractions. At this point in my artistic tastes, I just prefer something that executes on a clear creative vision. It's why Videoverse and Venba were in my top five favorite games of 2023, while Baldur's Gate 3 wasn't. I do respect ambition in games, but I've come to value restraint even more. Rematch doesn't take 100 free shots only to miss half of them. It winds up a few careful shots and puts them square in the goal each time. It only takes one point to win a game soccer if you play your cards right. Rematch is out now PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
Yahoo
22-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
REMATCH: An undeniably fun but flawed game with bags of potential
REMATCH, the football video game developed by French studio Sloclap, generated a huge amount of hype during its beta period earlier this year, but has it delivered on the hype upon full release? The online multiplayer game draws immediate comparisons with Rocket League but, despite its appearance, it's less arcade action and more of a pure football simulation. Advertisement You take full control of a single footballer and their actions during 3v3, 4v4 and 5v5 matches. Whereas in EA FC everything is almost automatic, the ball moving between players and darting towards the goal like a magnet, here it is completely up to you to put the ball in the right place. The skill bar is set very high. It's very easy to underhit a pass or send a shot totally waywards. That's because REMATCH plays a lot more like a third-person shooter than your traditional sports game, aiming your shots with a reticle as you would in Helldivers 2 or Grand Theft Auto. Confusingly, passes are instead aimed with the analog stick. Getting used to this takes a lot of practice and patience, but once you do it can lead to tonnes of fun and fluid gameplay. That said, the control scheme is not intuitive, although Sloclap say that button mapping is on the way. I can't say I've gotten particularly good at the game just yet and my struggles have been compounded by consistent glitching. During one of my turns in net I was ready to collect a harmless long punt up the field, only for the game to stutter momentarily and so the ball flew past me into the goal. Read – Wirtz explains why he chose Liverpool over Bayern and Man City Regardless, I've been coming back for more, eager to try more tricks and flicks, maybe finally pull off a bicycle kick after bouncing the ball off the wall, and get one of those sweet, sweet overtime wins at the end of a back-and-forth contest. Advertisement As enjoyable as REMATCH is, there is a distinct lack of content on offer. There's the online matches, practice mode, character customisation (and the monetisation that comes with that) and… that's it. Not even a single player mode. For the £20.99 price tag you might be forgiven in expecting there should be more available at launch. Its free-to-play equivalents provide a wider array of content, although they have obviously been around longer. Still, Sloclap could be in danger of losing the attention of their already large player base. One day after launch they revealed REMATCH attracted one million unique players across all platforms. On Steam it peaked at over 92,000 players on its first day, retaining the majority of them over the following days. How long before they crave something new and move on to the next thing? Another drawback is the fact there is no crossplay at the time of writing, meaning you can only play with players on your system of choice. Again Sloclap say that will be remedied in due course. Advertisement REMATCH is an undoubtedly entertaining game set against some wonderful artwork, with arenas ranging from your standard giant bowl stadium to the desert and, my personal favourite, a jungle (sometimes it even changes between goals). But it does come with its flaws. You will definitely be seeing viral clips of this game pop up on your feed over the next few weeks, and potentially months, maybe even years – if it can meet its vast potential. Rating: 7/10 Platforms: Xbox Series X|S (GamePass subscription required), PlayStation 5 (PS Plus subscription required), Windows PC. Read – Every footballer signed for £100m as Wirtz joins Liverpool See Also – The most expensive sales in Bundesliga history Follow The Football Faithful on Social Media: Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube | TikTok
