GREAT SHOT
Written: Jun 12 '04 (Updated Jun 12 '04)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Excellent gameplay,good graphics,challenging
Cons: a bit too challenging,fake players
The Bottom Line: Football fans not put off by 2D should own it.One of the best titles in the genre's history.
|
|
|
| flash-hammer's Full Review: International Superstar Soccer Deluxe for Super Ni... |
With Euro 2004 about to kick off this weekend, I thought I would celebrate with a review of one of the most forgotten footballing titles of the 16-Bit era, International Superstar Soccer: Deluxe(ISS for short). The series became a big player on the Sony Playstation with ISS:Pro and the N64 with ISS64, but people often seem to be shocked that there was a 16-Bit version.
Having never actually played the original SNES ISS, I can’t comment on what is new to Deluxe.
Seeing as we are talking about a football game, needless to say the purpose of the game is just to play the sport. ISS Deluxe features a variety of modes to take your team of choice through, including International(think the World Cup),League,shoot-out, open game, which allows you to play either a one off match or host a small league or cup, and scenario, which is interesting and a mode I have only ever seen in Konami’s football titles. In which you are given a scenario, such as being a goal down to Italy with England late in the second half, and you must turn the scenario around and win.
The graphics in the game are all really quite excellent for 1995, with the players, despite all having the same basic body frame, looking really good, and the stadiums all well created, the crowd aren’t even that badly rendered. The animation is all smoothly done, making for one of the best looking SNES football, if not full stop, titles.
The players all moved much quicker than in any other football title, so keeping up the excellent animation here earns Konami much kudos from me.
The game also features some really nice graphical touches like linesm… sorry, Referee’s assistants and nice attempts at re-creating some of the teams strips, such as Scotlands diabolical Purple tartan thing they wore at Euro 96.
The sound is a bit more mixed, the music is only in the menu’s and is passable, but the SFX are a bit muffled and rubbish sounding. Credit does go to Konami for making the first, to my knowledge, attempt at putting a commentator into a 16-Bit footy title. Even if he does just say stuff like ‘GOAL KICK’ and ‘HE SHOOTS’, its nice to have.
The controls go like this, Y is run fast/skills, X is shoot, A is lob/cross and B is pass while on the ball. While off, A is a slide tackle, T is sprint, R trigger is change player ,B is conservative tackle,X+A is foul and L changes tactics.
The controls, for the most part respond well, although I have to say the player does seem to take too long to shoot, although this is more down to the animation than the control not responding.
The gameplay is where the game goes from good to awesome though. The game provides a fluid and fast footballing experience that leaves the majority of its competition in the dust. The heading system in this game is probably the best one seen for years to come, and that includes some Xbox/PS2 footy titles.
The game is also amazingly tough for a 16 –Bit title. No other football game from any era pre-Xbox has ever really challenged me when playing the computer, but this game actually seems too hard at some points. The defenders seem too tough to beat at points, but all this just goes to actually making the act of scoring something to actually get excited about.
However, footy games were never meant to be played solo, and if you have a Multitap, ISS can let you and up to 3 pals go at it. Naturally this is where the game shines, as it is still challenging to score, seeing as there doesn’t seem to be an always score spot, but mistakes are made by humans, leading to some of the most fiercely contested football matches my TV has ever witnessed.
There are a few downsides apart from the extreme difficulty though, but they aren’t anything that actually takes much away from the gameplay. Because the game has no licence, the player names are fake. All, strangely except Laudrup of Denmark. It isn’t clear if it is Michael or Brian, but I still found it strange.
There are also no club teams on offer, only a selection of International sides. But like I say, these really don’t take away from the gameplay.
So, if you have a liking to the beautiful game, and a few friends willing to go retro, I would greatly recommend ISS Deluxe. Believe it or not, it is actually better than the PlayStation’s shambolic ISS Pro, and most of the other football titles on that system.
Given that sports titles are the games that age far worse than any other, the fact that this almost decade old title can still holds its own, and beat some more modern and technologically advanced rivals is something that Konami should be proud of.
After all, all you can ask for from a good football game is a good game of football.
Other Football Related Reviews
Olympic Soccer for Sega Saturn
FIFA 2003 for Microsoft XBox
AC Milan Home Shirt 02/03 by Adidas
France Home Shirt 02/03 by Adidas
Italia Home Shirt 00/02 by Kappa
AS Roma Third Shirt 01/02 by Kappa
Escape to Victory
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
flash-hammer
|
 - Top 500 |
|
Reviews written: 728
Trusted by: 107 members
About Me:
NICE!
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.