Reviewed: 14 February 1998
November 1995 saw the arrival of ISSD; only 5 months after I got ISS, but over a year after it was originally released. Konami games still do not have a publisher in Australia much to my disappointment. One day, I notice the game sitting on a shelf in a video store and started freaking out. I am there on a College research assignment. We are to develop a computer system for them but I all I ask is, 'Where did you get it?' and 'Can you get me one?'. RoadShow Interactive had started distributing European snes games that had no publisher in this country, to video stores only. I get my copy for$109, completely unaware if it was different enough to warrant a purchase.

This time I was one of the first to get the western version of 'Fighting 11' and I went straight to my friends place with my snes (we play every Friday to 6am) and plugged it in. Firstly I notice the cheesy intro. 'We love Soccer'. What a load of garbage. Although I did like the 'raining' soccer balls. There is an extra 12 teams too.

Immediately I noticed the speed increase and the fact that my teammates no longer tackled the attackers. They just marked them and it was left up to me to select and tackle myself. This was strange indeed and took a hell of while to get used to. Initially, the CPU would pass the ball around for ages, whilst my teammates just marked the ball player, and me just watching on. I eventually had to sum up the courage and go in for a tackle myself. I immediately knew this new defensive system was the way to go. After all, the player should be in control of everything, something Konami seem to put a premium on in all their games.

There was decent commentary, extra animations (guys signalling they are free to receive the ball) and an all-round feeling of improvement. The game was much harder and I got beat too. My friend asked me what was happening (he had seen me whip teams on the original), but this a completely new ball game. My first goal was a free kick, headed on, and followed with a diving header into the corner. This just proves how simply ISS is to play. All moves are intuitive.

Next step is to invite my ISS pal and get down to some serious play and provide an in-depth analysis of why ISS Deluxe is nearly twice as good as the original.

Gameplay: The game is quicker. I timed the players again and it takes 14 seconds to run the field. This is at the normal speed of the PAL version. Flicking to NTSC speed and the game is too fast and unrealistic.

The game is much harder. The default level (3) is the same as the hardest on the original; and there are two extra difficulty levels! The defences are incredibly hard to penetrate, and near impossible on L5. Luckily the CPU does not cheat and are easy to keep at bay themselves. This time you will find a lot of nil-nils. The goalkeepers are incredibly hard to beat as well, you really have to try and catch them off guard. They come out much quicker and will grab all but the most perfect crosses. And now the goalie ability has 5 adjustable levels! The most realistic would be the level 4 goalies. The level 5's are superhuman. The level 3's are about the same as the level 4's except they are inferior on crosses and occasionally make mistakes.

The defending is completely different. As I said earlier, your teammates do not tackle for you. They will only get the ball if the attacker runs right into them or via interceptions. They will mark both zonely and man-to-man and will not let people by. You must take the responsibility to select the defender and tackle yourself. This is an outstanding feature and is so realistic it is not funny. Sliding tackles will now win the ball too. You can even intercept balls with sliding tackles. There is also the dirty, last-ditch tackle. I can not fault the defensive structure of this game at all.

In offence there is now a 'jig' feature (tapping 'run' twice). With the improved defence, this is the weapon to use to beat them. Players now 'lead' to accept passes. At first this in disconcerting but is quite realistic. Normally you want to run the opposite direction and trying to turn results in the player doing a big arc. This is where you use the jig to quickly change directions, even whilst running. Successfully done you can be one-on-one with the goalie and leaving the defence in despair. When sprinting, you can jig, hoping the chasing defender will stop, release it, and now you have a created some extra room for your cross. Taking on the defence is the same. Approaching a defender, you jig, pick you direction (left,right or even straight) and hope the defender goes the other way. This is superb. The battle of wits within this individualistic contest results in 50-50 chance of succeeding. Konami have successfully incorporated this and is worth the money alone.

Two welcome additions are the through-ball and the one-two. The through-ball is performed by holding 'R' and 'pass' or 'lob'. Essentially this sends the ball directly in the direction you are pointing to. It is more of a straight-pass. With the lob, it is much flatter than the standard lob, and quite lethal when used for crossing. Naturally you need a bit of time to launch them, but they are very accurate when you do. Your normal pass will pass to players even if they are not in the exact direction you are facing. Of course if there is no one remotely close, your pass will go straight ahead, just like the straight-pass. The players do run onto the through-balls but they need to be fairly accurate.

The one-two is performed by holding 'run' and 'pass'. They are really effective on the wings and I use them extensively to make space to get good crosses in. In congested areas, they are a more likely to be intercepted than to send you through the defensive line. Never the less, they do add to the game and are great for quick flowing counter attacks.

Shooting is much the same, except you can now chip the goalies. This is done by holding 'backwards' on the directional-pad; and good timing. It is quite hard to do it head-on compared to approaching on an angle, but is the most satisfying way of scoring and it really humbles your opponent.

Gameplaying options: Where do we start? Firstly, you can adjust all sorts of parameters in 'open' games. From the goalie difficulty, numbers of players per team, form of players, weather (day/night), and referee leniency to four cursor change set-ups, options of marking players, assigning players to attack or re-positioning them, ability to select 1 of 4 strategies on the fly and button configuration. You can also have manual, auto or semi-manual goalies. Semi-manual has the goalies auto, but by hitting both shoulder buttons, you are in control! Great for charging way out of the box and tackling the unaware striker. And believe me, nothing will piss your opponent off more than this.

With the cursor set-up, type 'c' is the way to go. This gives you the option to highlight players (in conjunction with the directional-pad) in any direction relative to the ball. With type 'd' the relation is to the current player. This allows you to select anyone on the pitch, but takes a lot of practice and quick thinking. Beware, occasionally, and more likely with type 'd', you will stuff up and lose who you are controlling, but overall the power of controlling any player in any situation far out-weighs the occasionally blunder in defence. Of course, you can just highlight the closet player by hitting 'R' only.

Type 'b' lets you select one of two closest defenders and is good for beginners, or even pros that don't want to stuff up. For me it denies the option of highlighting an attacker instantly; like when running onto a long-ball.

Now you can assign 4 strategies to the four main buttons and in conjunction with the 'L' button, select either of them during the game. They are displayed on the screen so you know which one is active. There is also the option to not display the messages and completely fool you opponent. The ability to call the offside at any time will greatly piss your opponent off. Hitting 'L' by itself with not set any strategy. You have all-defence/attack, which will drag/push everyone forward/back, counter attack, press-up, attack through the middle or out wide (both will push extra players forward) and zone press.

None of these options are superfluous and do have a real impact on the game. There is also the standard 20 odd formations to select and World Cup style tournament and league. Again these are only single player but at least this time there is a 'short' tournament (1-8) and league (1-6)

Other options: There are now 36 teams, again with fake names, 6 stadia, sudden death goals, 1 to 4 players in any configuration (more than 2 per team is confusing) and more scenarios. These are based on World Cup games or qualifiers. Argentina are 3-1 down against Rumania. A mock of the 1/8th final at USA94.

Graphics: The graphics have improved marginally in quality (they were great anyway) but a lot in animations. There are more celebrations, injuries, remonstrations and goalie antics. Unfortunately the cameramen have disappeared.

Sound: Overall it has improved. There is decent commentary, though not as vast or excitable as the Japanese version, better chants, but less naturally music (no bongo drums). The sound seems a bit beefy, especially the dribbling sound. Each dribble sounds like a hit on a bongo-drum. Overall the sound certainly does enhance the perfect gameplay.

Faults: There are no real faults in the game, but a couple of minor niggles. The main one being that defences do not push-up quick enough after corners, even with the 'press-up' strategy on. They seem to push up if you have the ball or goes into the other half. You can clear a corner, or any attack for that matter, and if the ball is immediately rebounded into the penalty box, all your defence is still right back and causing a lot of congestion. Goalies are generally beaten when a defender gets in their way so you have to be careful.

There is no real low cross in the game either. Although, you can straight-pass a cross, these are slow and can be intercepted easily. In reality, you generally see low crosses only when the striker is free, but even in ISSD, if you pass to him he does not shoot instantly like he would on a high cross. In the original, you got control of the receiving-player as soon as a pass or cross was sent. This gave you the opportunity to shoot or pass instantly, but on the downside, to run inadvertently from the reception point. In Deluxe, with passing only, you get control only when the ball is received. This great for the passing game, but prevents instant shooting of passes. You can of course select the receiver manually while the ball is in transit, but for novices, this is a bit awkward; impossible if you play on auto-cursor changing. In a team game this situation does not apply because the receiver will be your team mate and naturally will be bashing away at the shoot button way before he gets the ball.

Although not effecting the gameplay at all, the lobs/crosses are still a bit too lobbish for my liking. I would also like to see a better range of teams: 24 from Europe is ridiculous, and no Australia! I want revenge on the Argies!

Overall: Konami have out done themselves again. I did not think the original could be improved at all. They have come up with the best sports game ever, better than even the recent 32bit offerings such as Fifa96. They may have next-gen graphics and sound but are miles behind in the gameplay ranks; and with any sports game, that is all that matters. Virtually faultless. 10/10, 100%, brilliant!!

In 1998: Two years later and in light of the N64 sequel (which many have described as the greatest football game ever), ISS, in my books, reigns supreme. It beats ISS64 because of the intelligence of your team mates in the marking of players, better goalie AI and that the passing game and jigging defenders is paramount in victories. ISS64 has the glorious through-balls and one-twos, great sound and brilliant visuals, but ISS Deluxe is the much tighter game. Level 5 is consistently beatable, but you will lose occasionally, especially in tournaments or leagues, even when using strong sides. Using weak teams is the ultimate challenge. Also, in 2 years, I have only scored about 10 long-range goals. This is in stark contrast to nearly all other soccer games at the moment where nearly all goals are like this.

It should be played with level 4 goalies, a strict referee, with 5-min halves and all players on good form. This, I believe, provides the most realistic situation. You should have a manual cursor change and semi-auto goalies (you never know when you need to cripple someone). The manual cursor change must be on 'area c' (the whole pitch) and personally I have 'type c' as well. With strategies, press-up should be on permanently. Also 'offside' and the two 'attacks'. These four give great versatility. If you need more men forward it is best to change the formation rather than go all-attack.
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