If you want to compete in the genre that has been dominated for years by experienced contenders as PES and FIFA you’ll need balls with suicidal tendencies or a holy conviction that the game on your hands is pure gold. Konami and EA have been improving their respective titles for years and to get their fans to switch, some serious arguments will be necessary. However, in this review it will become clear that Ajax Club Football 2005 doesn’t have a lot of them!

For your information, I’ve been testing this game on a pc without a gamepad. This shouldn’t be a real problem since a lot of people reading this review and buying this game won’t have a gamepad either.

ACF2005 is basically a footie game like all the other ones we have seen before. But there is one major difference that sets this one apart: there are more than 20 different versions, each featuring and showcasing a different European top club. Ajax is one of those, as are Real Madrid, Bayern, Barcelona, AC and Inter Milan. There is something for everyone but you won’t find a copy with a Belgian club on the cover; therefore we reviewed the version featuring the Dutch Champions League contender.
With your favorite team you’ll be able to challenge more than 250 official clubs, all featuring the original player names. On the one hand, most top players can boast a realistic virtual counterpart but on the other hand: Koeman really looks like a 900 year old zombie, suffering from overexposure to the sun.

As in every soccer game the classic range of modes is included: training sessions, national competition, the super league (a copy of the Champion’s League but without the expensive licenses) and demonstration matches. Next to this you’re free to start a customized tournament, using a (customized) team, or you can start a ‘fantasy’ game in which you can adapt the starting condition (e.g. scores, time left, etc.). Using the automatically generated code your friend will be able to enter the same game on his computer and compare the outcome afterwards.

On top of those must-haves Codemasters added two relatively innovating modes. The first allows you to create your own player in a Sims2-like manner, without the fun and the attention for detail. After deciding on the appearance and the talents of your avatar you can train him and let him play in your team within all the other modes. A nice concept but in practice it doesn’t add to the gameplay nor is it worked out very well.

The second extra has everything to do with the featured team of your version. You’ll be treated with a club specific intro, information on the team and the history of the club, profiles of all the current players, a picture and movie album etc.
Without a doubt nice to have for the fans but for the objective player it doesn’t really add anything. The problem with this specific part of the game is the credit system. You won’t be able to access all these pictures, movies and data without using hard-earned credits, obtained by playing the game. Not only is this creditsystem very clumsy and ill-executed but if I pay for a game about my favourite team, I want this info to be available from the start! Certainly if the quality of the pics is only mediocre as is the case with this game.

I’m also very disappointed by the menus. In Dutch not only they contain spelling errors but their design is neither handy nor consistent. The two pop songs accompanying the choices are good but too low in number. The same clumsiness can be said of the in-game replays. A lot can be improved here!

The gameplay itself won’t give birth to a more positive story than what has been said until now. It’s all quite okay but we’ve experienced a lot better in the big titles which makes it difficult to really recommend this. The balls accelerate way too fast, tackles are really hard to execute, passes often don’t go in the direction you want them to go and players suddenly stop when you switch to them.
The artificial intelligence of your team members and opponents is sometimes weak. Some examples: the goalie who let’s a pass roll between his legs into the goal or the fact that a ball lying around is not picked up by the CPU. Instead the opponent just focuses on the player under my control. Additional physics problems were also apparent like balls bouncing in impossible directions.

The graphics on your screen won’t disappoint except for the hideous spectators. The same imbalance is present with the animations where the goalie has some good moves but at other times you won’t be able to ignore the unnatural stiffness of the players.
The same old song for the sound: after ten minutes the commentator already started repeating himself and the crowd couldn’t convince either. Scoring a goal won’t make them shout a harder.

Ajax Club Football 2005 certainly tries to add something to the genre with the career player option and the teamspecific extras. Despite the good intentions, the small and big errors in the execution and gameplay prevent this game from being recommendable, especially considering the strong competition (PES, FIFA,…). A die-hard fan of one of the featured teams will probably appreciate the game but chances are the frustrating gameplay will soon make him want to become a hooligan. Conclusion: only for the real afficionados!