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ISS3 Review
Chris Leyton
28/03/2003
In the light of Pro Evo dominance and the resurgance of FIFA; can ISS still cut it???
You have to feel sorry for Konami Osaka; despite the success of the FIFA series, Major A had widely built up a reputation for creating the finest football titles in the legendary ISS series on the SNES and Nintendo64. Little did members of the team count on a new title from sister division Konami Tokyo, causing such uproar with its debut on the PSOne; rapidly gaining the limelight with its depth and pushing the ISS series into almost obscurity.
The latest title in the series comes after two disappointing forays onto the next-generation consoles; whilst previous games havenāt been atrocious theyāve lacked the spirit of ISS, which made matches so enjoyable, reducing the experience to a mere shadow of its former self. In the meanwhile the Pro Evolution/Winning Eleven series has gone from strength-to-strength, whilst the latest FIFA has surprised everybody with its overall quality and improvement; certainly ISS3 comes at a very risky time for KCEO.
Perhaps wisely recognising that theyāll never be able to compete with KCET on the realism grounds, ISS3 keeps its roots firmly located in the arcade side of the pitch; however taking on the FIFA series is no easy option either.
ISS3 features a number of new ideas and welcomes back the excellent āMission Modeā which featured heavily in the SNES titles; unfortunately a number of fundamental issues have been poorly implemented, resulting in a title that shines in few places but ultimately frustrates.
The big new introduction is the āClose-Camā, which has come about because of the move to FIFA styled ācinematicsā to build up the match atmosphere. Key events such as goals, bookings and offside decisions are now greeted by cut-scenes of the players and managers response; We were impressed by how much this added to the game and helps to heighten the experience, certainly seeing your manager jump around the dug-out like a headless chicken is one of the games few high-points.
Unfortunately KCEO have ignored the fundamentals that create a good football game; perhaps the worst example of this is the sluggish control system and unresponsive passing system. Passing feels like you have no control over the power and pace of a pass, let alone the direction; whilst this isnāt particularly bad when it comes to passes along the ground, aerial passes are often āhit-or-missā as to whether they land in the location you intended. The result is a passing system thatās virtually impossible to string passes together or produce any variety, ultimately slowing the overall pace down to a sluggish portrayal of the beautiful game.
With no passing system to speak of, emphasis is placed on runs and dribbles with the ball; however as soon as you hit that run button you can forget about dribbling it between two defenders or any other eloquent moves, as the sluggish control system makes it impossible to turn lightly or have any control over the direction when you sprint.
This balance has obviously been designed to bring out the āClose-Camā feature, which zooms the camera in close to your player whenever you hit the L1 button. Fortunately this feature isnāt the disastrous idea that we were first led to believe, as it does make those one-on-one situations more tense and almost gives them a ācinematicā nature. But unfortunately thereās not a lot of depth to the system; an icon will flash above your players head whenever he runs towards the penalty area, allowing the player a brief moment to make the correct decision as to how to get past the defender. It doesnāt obstruct the flow of the game as we thought it might, but it doesnāt necessarily add anything to the game and soon feels little more then a gimmick.
Making matters worse is the AI of your computer controlled team-mates; literally we stood in awe, watching as none of our team-mates made no attempt to find space or the opposition unwillingness to tackle a stationary player with the ball! Whilst weāre at it, the automatic switching between players is nowhere near to the speed it should be; the result of these two issues is the opposition ghosting through your defence as if theyāre all blind geriatrics, whilst you go mad trying to select the correct player!!!
Being such a fan of the pre-Playstation2 titles in the series, itās almost upsetting to see the series fall to such a low, especially when this game shows some good ideas and touches.
The animation throughout the game is of excellent quality and features a wonderful clip for when players get caught and end up on the floor, whilst players collecting a pass will pull off a range of animations to trap the ball and bring it under control. The overall player models are adequate at best and lack the quality of those seen in FIFA2003, whilst the stadium has the same āoutdatedā look that has featured in both in the Pro Evo/ISS series ā“ although weād did like the effect of individual blades of grass in the various cut-scenes that follow the action and the way that slide tackles carve up the grass.
The return of the āMission Modeā put a smile on our faces, challenging players to complete a range of increasingly difficult objectives such as coming back to win from a 3-0 score line. Unfortunately the game doesnāt make use of real-life situations, but uses fictional players and teams; developers should know by now, that a license and authenticity is crucial to a football game, who cares about when you could be guiding Man Utd to glory in that classic 1999 European Cup Final???
To try and add some depth to the game, youāll collect points from the āMission Modeā and gambling with other players to open up a wide range of new content, ranging from new stadiums to new kits; whilst itās a good attempt to increase the longevity of a flawed title, we canāt help but feel that a football game isnāt best suited to the unlock mechanic ā“ who wants to open up extra kits for a fictional team after all?
As a final insult, Jon Champion and Mark Lawrenson return to drive us insane with their atrocious commentary, and greet us with such delights as āIf you level early on, you can start your game-plan againā; comments repeat in no time at all, whilst thereās a complete lack of emotion to anything they say. After the delights shown in the Sega Sports series, itās hard to understand why nobody has been able to create a football commentary system to the same standards!!!
