International Superstar Soccer - N64

Isn’t it reassuring to know that Konami still believe enough in the N64 to put out another version of ISS? Can ISS 2000 live up to the pre-match hype? Will the latest update of this hugely successful series blow away the competition? Konami have seen fit to put out a game with the millennial suffix and hope the punters will buy the shelf as well as the game. They haven’t yet garnered an official licence for their successful series, so while you have real teams from club and country, you also have the motley crew of almost familiar player names. You know the kind of thing, players swapping vowels instead of shirts, and before kick off too. But no matter, it’s from Konami, it has the ISS imprint and that can mean only one thing: hours of your life wasted in pursuit of the ultimate goal.

ISS 2000 for the N64 is in the great Konami tradition of demanding but highly playable footy games. Graphically it’s a bit woolly, this is the Nintendo 64 after all, and as for the control system…the N64 controller is a clumsy article anyway. Get past these minor quibbles and the game’s infuriatingly gaudy and all-over-the-place menu and you finally land in the thick of the action, the beautiful game itself. All the familiar options are here, custom leagues, knock-out tournaments and the like, and the action and game-play are just as much of a challenge as they always were.

If for some bizarre reason you are still in possession of an N64 rather than a PSX or Dreamcast, there’s no excuse for not getting hold of a copy of this, the best football title on the console so far.
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