Michael Owen's WLS 2000

It’s been two agonising months, but now we can relax and enjoy the pain and pleasures that lie ahead in England’s domestic season. You see, for the majority of fans, this barren patch, where knackered professionals jet off for a bit of R&R, before the rigmarole of pre-season training, is almost too much to tolerate. What else are we supposed to talk about, for flip’s sake? Okay, so there’s the small matter of Michael Owen. The young England prodigy may have only just returned from a long period of injury following a pulled hamstring against Leeds United last year, but that’s given him (or his agent) all the more time to sign a deal with THQ. It was going to be Eidos again, but at the eleventh hour, all that has changed for tedious reasons we won’t go into. All you need to know is Michael Owen’s World League Soccer 2000 (a long name, so we’ll refer to it as MOWLS) is fabulous. A jewel amongst dross and second only to Konami’s all-conquering ISS ’98. It even knocks Electronic Arts’ excellent FIFA ’99 into a cocked hat. No mean feat, we’re sure you’ll agree. So what is it that makes MOWLS so palatable?

Coming Home

The best slice of the gaming cake must go to the graphics engine. Although not quite as smooth as the impossibly-good ISS duo, it makes the N64’s processor sweat like a Turkish wrestler to ensure instantaneous camera changes, such as a sudden long hoof up the pitch, happen almost seamlessly. There are occasions where you notice the tiniest of interruptions, but for all intents and purposes, developer Silicon Dreams has implemented a beautifully crafted game engine. The programmers have certainly had plenty of practice to hone the gameplay, however; just look at the success they’ve had on PlayStation if you need proof. More astoundingly, MOWLS runs in hi-res and without the requirement of an Expansion Pak. Each player is stunningly well rendered, and to be honest the motion captured players look better than those in ISS ’98 and FIFA ’99. The only niggle is with the motion capture system. As we all know, it can limit the speed at which instantaneous moves can be pulled off and doesn’t work as well as the laborious (to create, not use) ‘key framing’ technique used to such wonderful effect in the ISS series.

Can You Kick It?

That aside, the animation and motion capture in MOWLS is excellent. There’s only the briefest of pauses between interplay and a glut of standard and extended moves (the right shoulder button is used for skill moves) to master. Another bonus is in the use of real names. Unlike ISS ’98, MOWLS features the names of Alan Shearer instead of ‘Alunn Sheepdip’ and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink rather than ‘Jimmi Floored AgroBarcaly’. So it looks better than Salma Hayek in a bikini, but what about the all-important features? Once again, Silicon Dreams has done its homework.

There are in excess of 200 teams to choose from, featuring English, French, German, Italian and even American leagues. Virtually every international team has been squeezed in, too, making MOWLS one of the most comprehensive going. Various leagues, cups and one-off competitions have been added to guarantee sore thumbs for weeks and there’s even an option to customise your own competitions. Weather, real-time lighting and the first decent representation of crowd activity add further to the atmosphere, not forgetting the chance to play at ten gorgeously-realised stadia. The final trump card is the in-game AI of the players.

Cheese 'n' Owen

Take defending, for example. Each player can be assigned a specific position, whether it’s zone or man marking. You rarely get caught out, but even if your strategy is lacking, the computer can compensate for you. The wealth of options is staggering, as it needs to be with the next best footie game perpetually knocking at the door!

Players are welcome to dive straight into the action via the ‘Quick Start’ option (usually a ludicrous mismatch between a Premier League side and a third-rate American squad), but we suggest you hone your dribbling, shooting and passing at the pressure-free training ground. Free kicks, penalties, corners, special skills and crosses must be mastered if you want to knock the wind out of Brazil’s sails. It’s terrific fun putting your players through their paces though. We are extremely impressed with MOWLS and when four players join in (two on each side), it’s even better. Slick, well-animated graphics, a welter of nicely-presented options and the kind of instantaneous gratification when you pick up and play for the first time, combined with the subtlety that keeps experts coming back again and again, make it a welcome alternative to Konami’s gem. Recommended for all football fans!

Football fanatics are no longer just limited to ISS and FIFA. Michael Owen's World League Soccer has the potential to kick Konami's ISS '98 off the top of the videogame football league. Eidos has announced that the game will run in hi-res -- and you won't need an Expansion Pak to take advantage of it!

Featuring over 200 teams, both national and international, Michael Owen's World League Soccer makes the boast that it will have the best visuals I and the best player intelligence of any football game, and it certainly seems that Eidos isn't kidding about the first part of the claim. The players themselves are highly detailed, and they run through stadia with crowds that react to events on the pitch and dynamic lighting that changes in the course of a match.

Unlike ASS '98, Michael Owen's World League Soccer has real team and player names, so there's no more of that spending hours laboriously entering the names of all the players in the Premier League. Player and team statistics are also based on the real thing. Although numerous leagues from around the world are included in the game, you can also create your own to pit the best international teams against each other.

Commentary is provided by Peter Brackley and Ray Wilkins, who will doubtless be praising Michael Owen to the skies every time he gets the ball. After all, it's his game!

Michael Owen's World League Soccer has been delayed slightly until the summer, but this means more time to perfect the playability and get those hi-res graphics sparkling. See you on the pitch...

Boy Wonder

We all love Michael Owen, and not simply because he looks exactly like Tim. We love him because he's the best footballer in the country, despite his slightly bulbous skull, and he represents England's only (slim) chance of ever making it past the second round of another world cup. But how will he cope with the pressure of taking on the all-conquering ISS '98 in the heated atmosphere of the N64 football game market?

Fortunately Michael Owen's World League Soccer comes with as big a reputation as the man himself, with the PlayStation version being widely hailed as the best football game on the system. The competition is a tad tougher on the N64, mind, but WLS99 is far from being a straight conversion of the original. For starters, the graphics have been tarted up beyond all recognition, and the game runs in pin-sharp hi-res mode, with player models much more realistic than the PlayStation version, in terms of animation and detail. The players are all coated with soft-skinned texture maps, a technique previously used to make Acclaim's WWF Warzone and All Star Baseball, amongst others, so convincingly solid.

Apart from the graphics, the fact that WLS 2000 will include an almost FIFAesque array of real teams and players is a good reason to look forward to this - there are more than 200 different teams from the top European leagues, including most of the national sides, all with up-to-date squads. The leagues can be customised, so Spurs fans can finally see what would happen if their team ever qualified for the Champions' League (a 6-0 home tonking the hands of Brondby, no doubt).

To make sure the gameplay is up to the ISS '99 test, the development team at Silicon Dreams have included a new set of skills and special moves - a total of 23 of them, in fact - and the artificial intelligence has been revamped to take advantage of the extra processing power offered by the N64.

Commentary is supplied by Peter Brackley and Ray Wilkins, so the mute button on TV remote controls around the nation looks set to be pressed into heavy action when World League Soccer 99 is released next April.