Play Champions League with Heineken Star Player (iPhone)

To kick off, let me just say that I think this is brilliant - it’s not perfect and there are some niggling elements to it, but as an original, engaging idea for an iPhone app this is great.

Heineken have released Star Player, a game that you play during every UEFA Champions League match whilst watching the game live on TV. 

It’s basically in-game gambling, but for points not cash. The idea is you prove your football instincts by anticipating/predicting live match moments - corner kicks, free kicks, penalties, when goals might be scored - e.g. will a corner kick be saved, scored, cleared or missed, or predict a goal will be scored in the next 30 sec (with more points being earned the earlier you predict).

It’s good fun to play and adds some excitement to a game, particularly for those ‘not so exciting’ second leg games, but there are some slightly frustrating points to it - like the actual football game often seeming to ‘move on too fast’ for Star Player to keep up with which voids your prediction for that moment, and occasionally the match moments just don’t register on the app. As stated earlier though, it’s new and original so I guess teething problems are to be expected and hopefully improved on quickly.

I’d like to see better Facebook integration. You can set up leagues via Facebook connect, but it’s a little clunky and seems like it was a bit of an afterthought. How about simply being able to see which of your other friends are using the app too? I think they’ve also missed a trick in not having any way you can use the app outside of when the Champions League games are being played.

All in all though it’s really clever, taps into the trend of multi-screen watching, looks good and is well done.

Heineken Star Player is free for iPhone on App Store.