By Simon Wright – Follow
me on Twitter @Siwri88
Football has
become one of the most popular simulations available for video game
addicts. There have been a range of
different titles over the years, and in a new regular series for Simon’s
Football Zone, I will be reviewing some of these games. They will range from excellent playable
games, to titles that were probably best being left on the shelf.
For the first
time in this series, I will be edging away from the FIFA series and look at
another football game that first appeared on the shelves of game stores in the
late 20th century. The first version of This is Football was SCEE Studio
Soho’s effort at trying to take on the masters of the football simulation in EA
and Konami. They made a good fist of it.
THIS IS FOOTBALL
Released: 10 December 1999
Systems: PlayStation, PS2, PSP
Cover Stars: None
Authentic License
This is
Football made its debut on PlayStation consoles at the backend of 1999. The
developers worked very hard to win an official FIFPro license, immediately
gaining an important edge over Konami who’ve never been the best when it comes
to securing individual competition and club licenses.
 |
| Motion captured player animations made TIF a strong rival to FIFA 2000 |
230 authentic
teams and 20 authentic tournaments came within the first game and it meant it
was able to take on FIFA 2000, which was not one of EA’s finest creations
within the franchise.
FIFA 2000 was
the first time where computer-generated graphics were used to get a better
player likeness as in real-life and This is Football was able to do this too.
Motion captured player animations meant the game itself was quite smooth to
play, even if some of the graphics away from the player faces were behind its
rivals.
Cover Star missing
No major
cover star appeared on the first version – just the back of a goalkeeper’s
shirt although in later editions, the likes of Robbie Keane and Rio Ferdinand
would appear on the front cover. As it didn’t have a big name on its first
edition, this is an area where TIF lost out to FIFA, who had Sol Campbell on
the 2000 version and also David Beckham on its 1998 Road to World Cup edition.
TIF fans
could also save replays to the PlayStation memory cards. This is now a common
asset on today’s next-gen consoles. However back in 1999, it wasn’t as
frequent. TIF also featured a raft of editing and creation features, so you
could create yourself on the game and create fake tournaments like the often
talked-about ‘European Super League’ or ‘International League.’
Commentator
on the first TIF edition was ITV’s Clive Tydlesey, competing against the BBC’s
main man on the FIFA series in John Motson. This would be the only version of
TIF that Tydlesey was on. He would be snapped up shortly afterwards by EA for
future FIFA franchises.
I only played
a demo of This is Football and whilst it wasn’t a bad gameplay experience, I
always felt you had to be a huge football fan to purchase the TIF series. At
the time, this was a very good game and a better play as a multiplayer
combination to FIFA 2000. This is Football had a raft of options but it still
was slightly behind its main rivals.
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