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Dom Robinson reviews
Sony
- Price: £39.99
- Players: 1-2
You know the drill. It’s football. And it’s a game I can’t stand to watch in real life but I do enjoy the odd game or three on a console and have done since the days of Kick Off and Sensible Soccer on the Atari ST.
The options available to you here are like any other footy game – the Exhibition mode (one-off match), Cup and League matches, as well as a Penalty Shoot-Out mode. Replays are also available.
Take your pick of 36 countries to play with, adjust the time length of the match, the CPU skill level and the match rules which toggle whether to include extra time, golden goal and penalties.
Choose one of six stadiums in which to play, the kick-off time and the weather from perfectly fine to pissing down. Decide who will take the kicks, the team formation, team tactics and defence, the kit they’ll wear and change their names since you want the real deal playing for you, not “D.Seamen” or “D.Backham”.
So where does it all go wrong? When you actually start playing the game itself. Shown only from a side-on view, at three selectable distances, I was left longing for a top-down version like the two 1980s games I referred to earlier. The players are motion-captured but they just go in the direction you point them in, like any other football game.
The sound of the crowd is repeated every few seconds and the far-from-impressive commentary chat which is dropped in with terrible inserts such as:
- (Normal voice): “Today’s referee is…..”
(bored voice) “Mr. Ulrich from Germany”
My first match featured commentators Peter Parker and Steven Bailey, but when I heard the introduction of the second as “…and me, Steven Bailey”, the “and me” part was in a completely different voice(!)
One of my favourite soccer games released in the last few years has been Sega Worldwide Soccer 2000: Euro Edition and ILS makes no attempt to steal its crown. The players run round like robots in treacle and just won’t get the ball when you need them to. Also, it’s not always as instant as you’d like when the ball nears any particular player when it comes to allowing their control.
I could be sad and say that this game deserves relegation to the fourth division, or I could cut straight to the quick and say that it’s crap.
SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC
PLAYABILITY
ORIGINALITY
ENJOYMENT
0
OVERALL 
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.