Fans of Mat Dickie won't have a lick of disappointment with his latest soccer title, Grass Roots. Like other over-the-top titles by MDickie, Grass Roots doesn't lie still without kicking. There's plenty of story orientation filled with equal amounts of the world's favorite foot sport. With the same visual consistency from prior games, a fitting soundtrack, and the controversial story approach that MDickie games are known for, there's a lot of content residing in Grass Roots.

The bread and butter of Grass Roots lies in its campaign. Players will start the campaign by creating their own character. With some familiar faces and clothes from Wrestling Encore. Still, there's been an inclusion of new outfits, and new customizable features that extends the life of Grass Roots to appropriate measures. After creating a character, players will see a small clip of their newly created star in a sequence that sets up the rest of the game. The story in Grass Roots is much like other games by Mat; players will start off at the bottom of the barrel in the world of soccer, coming straight out of school. From there, players will venture about the world; players will take on all challenges, training to increase the team's stats, and working their way up the ladder of success.

Progressing through Grass Roots is much like the tree-branch story outline in THQ's WWF No Mercy. After completing a game of soccer in a designated country, players can go to the next country, connected via branching lines. Before and after each game, though, players participate in behind-the-scenes events that involve recruiting new members, engaging in menacing banter, or sometimes hear where your teammates would like to travel to next. While Grass Roots has more story-orientation than Wrestling Encore, Grass Roots takes a slightly more linear approach to character development. Some gamers, though, might prefer the more non-linear approach with Wrestling Encore, and the open-ended way storylines could evolve. Grass Roots' character development allows for a much different experience than that of Wrestling Encore, as things unfold from the ground up with alliances and rivalries.

One of the biggest differences between Grass Roots and Wrestling Encore, is that Grass Roots has more of a relaxed tone for players. There's no time restriction on developing the team, or training their stats and no one is forcing you out of the business at the start of the game. More than anything, the tension only derives from players interacting with teammates and other teams.

Rivals will come and go, and so will teammates based on player decisions. Sometimes telling off a fellow teammate about his idea of a new outfit can stir up some bad blood. Sometimes this can eventually lead to the departure of a squad mate. Sometimes injuries or playing styles can even insult a teammate enough to warrant their departure. And in the same way that players can pick up new members for the team with clean victories or winning streaks, it's also possible to lose members just as quickly. In one particular case, everyone on my team had left for one reason or another (sometimes due to sexism or racism) except for one other member, which forced us to only compete in various 2-on-2 bouts.

Sometimes players will even have to come across former members of the team, only to battle it out in a gimmick match to deflate the ego of the player's rival. Some soccer fans might be questioning "gimmick match?" and getting the wrong impression. Keeping the tension high between players keeps the gameplay interesting. The "gimmick matches" in Grass Roots are actually soccer matches with various options turned on or off. For instance, some characters might not want to actually battle you on the field, and will instead force you to compete in a penalty shoot-out until a winner is declared. In another case, a team from Germany refused to play against my team because I had an Asian player. Hence, we were forced to play with only three members of the team because the German team thought we were "unworthy" of their full squad.

Like Wrestling Encore, while traveling across the globe to different territories, players will be confronted with various controversial issues. Via comparison, I still say that Grass Roots is much more tame than MDickie's other projects. Nevertheless, there's still bigots, racists, sexists, and malevolence that must be confronted during your character's travels in Grass Roots. Likewise, not every scenario is made to inflict the player with shock or gasps. Some situations are quite mild, where players will take on challengers to help the community, or engage in a friendly game to determine who gets to wear the hometown soccer kit during a game. Mdickie manages to create a fun and exciting experience for players. This experience that Mdickie creates journeys beyond the simple simulation achievements that other companies are still desperately trying to master.

When not participating in the campaign mode, there's the exhibition mode. This lets players choose a team, modify the team tactics, formations, how many players will be on the field, the rules, the pitch, and even gimmicks. After choosing through the options players can then enter the match where up to two players (or CPU opponents) can compete head-to-head. The actual gameplay of Grass Roots is more arcadish than simulation. So, players can easily pull off a couple of tricks or use chip shots, power strikes, lobs and more to out-score or out-maneuver opponents.

Another aspect of the game, worthy of mention, is the venues. Normally sports games have indoor and outdoor recreation centers, sports arenas, and meeting halls that makeup for the playable areas. However, MDickie manages to do something a bit different with this concept. Instead of there just being generic play-centers there's also original venues other soccer games fail to include. Aside from playing in the street with garbage cans or road cones as goal posts (and yes varying goal posts do play a factor in scoring) there's actually an outdoor field where the goals are composed of palmettos! Some venues will also have players taking the action to the beach, with other stages having players duke it out in actual stadiums. Added to this, there's a day and night shift between outdoor stages, which adds a bit of flavor to the overall atmosphere of the game.

Yet the one thing that really plays a factor into actual soccer matches (kicking and passing included) is the way the ball handles and reacts. Players will have little control over a nearly flat ball, while other times the ball may be over-inflated. It's a cool feature, which plays a significant role in the outcome of each match. All the different balls, with their shapes and sizes, and the venues with their varying field geometry, adds up to easily replayable experiences that are almost never the same.

Graphics:
The terrain textures are probably the first notable thing when it comes to the visual aspects of Grass Roots. The venues and the backgrounds are highly acceptable and while some may argue that this looks like early adoptions of the WCW Revenge engine. I can at least attest that the characters are solidly designed, feature facial expressions, and offer more quality characteristics than some 10,000 polygon characters from other mainstream games.

Sound:
The music isn't as plentiful in this game as some of MDickie's other projects. However the available audio in the game is well worth mentioning. The sound effects are as good ever and the crowd responses reflect exactly what's going on in the game. On the pitch players will even grunt and moan from being hit, or beaten, kicked, or pushed over.

Gameplay:
While I enjoyed the rough antics that could be employed during a match. Or injuring an opponent by constantly checking them, there were some things I thought needed a bit of work. Such as ball-handling--it was difficult at times to run the ball around without losing it completely. Still, the small in-game flaws are more than made up for with all the gimmick options and simple control schemes.

Concept:
Soccer doesn't require re-thinking or re-working. The sport is fun and enjoyable. Mdickie takes that very same fun and enjoyable concept from real life, and implements it into Grass Roots. What makes his concept so good and different, is that everything that people love about the sport, on the field and off, is what fuels the originality in Grass Roots. This is the very thing that keeps the game interesting, and the character development fresh.

Value:
More than two dozen customizable jersey kits, more than a hundred different faces, dozens of hair combinations and lots of different apparel options will keep players busy for a while, and that's just the create-a-character. From the abundance of venues, to the customizable teams, and the hour-eating campaign mode, Grass Roots manages to pile it on thick when it comes to valued content.

Recommendation:
Unless you download the 33MB demo of Grass Roots (with the option to purchase it), don't bother with the 6MB demo. It doesn't do the game half the amount of justice it should. Also, the complete experience takes more than just three short trials of play, because there's so much more to the game than what's offered in three trial sessions. And this is only because MDickie's Grass Roots is the sort of game (just like his Wrestling MPre series) where I'm genuinely encouraged to say, "don't try it, just buy it".