I’ll be brutally honest…I’m addicted to New Star Soccer on my mobile phone. The mix of sports RPG with easy to pick up and play football has become my go to mobile game when I need to kill a few minutes, which lead me to wonder exactly what the ‘proper’ game would be like when played on a laptop with a controller.

Already my constant “oooohs” and “aaahhhs” have caused my girlfiend to scornfully tell me to “pipe down” on more than a couple of occasions.

New Star Soccer 5 is a mind-boggling evolution of the simply formula I knew, with you actually able to control players directly thanks to the new Sensible Soccer-like match engine that actually does a decent job of emulating Britain’s favourite professional sport containing almost exclusively big heads and bell ends.

Where the RPG aspects comes in is the ability to train your player, buy them special equipment like ergonomically designed shin-pads, so they can tackle better, or more obtusely a games console so they don’t find the journey to an away game so arduous securing more energy for when they’re out on the field. There’s a bunch of mini-games chucked in there as well revolving around the casino, horse racing and relationship improving match-3 challenges, and these actually have a bearing on how you perform on pitch with a high happiness rating drastically reducing the chances of you miss-kicking a ball at a vital moment.

Fluff your lines and chuck in every cliche under the sun, just like the real thing.

It all gets a bit ridiculously when you find yourself bartering over wages with your chosen team so you can secure a new sports car or train up a new horse for the track, especially when you realise you’ve become what you’ve always feared – a money hungry, fan hating ball-kicking monster, but hey this is the modern game.

Having briefly jumped in with my created avatar playing for the almighty Hereford United in only my first season, it would be easy to say I’ve barely scratched the surface of what makes New Star Soccer 5 tick, but already I’m impressed. The whole game just comes across as very polished and bursting with lots of different options both associated with putting your own stamp on the game, but also surprisingly multiplayer as well.

Your player can make the headlines for both good and scandalous reasons.

Each player creation is registered on the official New Star Soccer online database, and these avatars populate other people’s games adding another sense of kooky enjoyment to the game. Already I’ve come across rather ridiculous/offensive names, but that’s really all part of the fun.

I think I’ve found a new pick-up-and-play time waster, the only problem is I do a lot of my ‘actual’ work on a laptop – here’s hoping I haven’t swapped an old obsession for a new one…

Oh one more thing, I also put together a quick little ‘indie’ feature on GamerZines today as well, so be a doll and go have a looksie. If you want to be really helpful, be sure to refresh half a dozen times – preferably from multiple IP addresses.

Expect to hear more about New Star Soccer 5 soon – it isn’t a new game but it certainly seems to be a good one.