Ok, I'm not trying to make a political statement here, but 3dfx modes are a must. I read that something like 65% of pc gamers have 3dfx accelerated cards. Not including hardware acceleration means a couple things. One, that the game won't benefit from acceleration (i.e. Starcraft.) And the other is that the lazy game designers just didn't add the code needed for 3dfx modes. I guess Z Axis decided that poorly rendered software was all the game would need to compete with other soccer games.

This was the first soccer game I had ever played. I purposely held off playing World Cup 98 so I wouldn't be constantly comparing the two. During my first game I realized that this game was sub par. I liked the way the teams came out to warmed up and do the line up. The player line up was a bit scary actually, the digitized players faces were... disturbing. (see screen shots) The field was extremely pixilated though not as bad as the crowd effects. The stadium crowd is basically made up of alternating white and black squares that bloat to simulate the wave or something. The "bloat" reminds me of the mode-7 effects Snes used that Nintendo fooled people into thinking were 3d.

The sound effects are mostly good. The menu music is catchy, and the options let you choose from different languages for your players. On the field the players yell at each other things like "man on" and "clear it." The speech is fairly helpful of the most part and is pretty frequent. The crowd noise level will change depending on the play and they will chant various things at times.

Gameplay was what saved this game. The action is fast and furious. There is always a couple players around, so expect to move the ball around a lot. Slide tackles and rough play will get the whistle blown every time, the ref is a total tight ass. The AI players are pretty tough too. Maybe it is my lack of experience in the strategies of soccer but even on Youth difficulty I rarely got more than 1 or 2 goals ahead. Controls weren't a problem at all.

Though I am not a hardcore soccer fan I could easily play this game for a couple hours. It is fairly fast paced and keeps you interested in the match. Though again I mention that if it were 3d accelerated it would really improve my interest. There is no multiplayer options, which furthers my theory that Z-Axis just tossed this game out. After playing this game I tried world cup 98 in software mode. Don't waste your time or money on Three Lions; go for the real deal. Pick up World Cup 98 instead.

At first I thought it was a Lion King game! Nope, it's a soccer game. Well that's awesome but... the game is bad. Here we are again for another soccer review by the world famous soccer reviewer... me! Three Lions from Take 2 Interactive is, at least for me, an unexpected title. I played it all day and I will try to be clear and direct in my review.

Graphics:

The graphics are very bad but the face of the players are funny. The faces are more real then the faces in FIFA 98 but like I said before the graphics are bad. VGA graphics, bad colors but a good framerate. The details are bad, the atmosphere is bad but the animations are smooth. Conclusion, why do we want a good animation and smooth framerate if we have bad graphics?

Sound:

Another negative aspect of this game is the sound. Bad sound along with a bad crowd atmosphere and like in FIFA, the music before the game is the best in the matter of sound. You don't have commentaries or crowd chants but you have one thing that any other game had till today, the coach giving instructions to the players while we play the game. I will not give a negative score to the sound cause of this improvement in the game atmosphere.

Gameplay:

Well in my opinion and I'm here to give it, the gameplay is good. You control the ball at your taste, nothing is pre-defined, but then the shots and the passes are like World Cup 98, meaning they are pre-defined. Euro Soccer (TM) from the Actua Series (TM) still gets the best gameplay ever made in soccer games. This game, with some WC98 graphics and sound, would be better then the original WC98. The ball control is the best we can get in the game playability. Some other aspects are good like when we score a goal with Batistuta (Club - Fiorentina, National Team - Argentina) we get a screen saying Batigoal, like they say in Italy when he scores. This is only one of the good aspects of this game but there are other, not many but some and cool.

Fun Factor:

Like I said before, this game has some of the cool aspects like the faces of the players, the good players database (better then WC98, more real), the ball control and more. I think I'd actually play this game more then I did WC 98. When I played WC98, I was bored and this game makes me wanna play even more cause it's harder and has the cool aspects I said before. If you don't like soccer that much don't pick this up but if you are and you are 100% soccer fan maybe you should pick it up and have some fun. Like I said though, the graphics are bad.

Overall Impression:

My Overall Impression of this game: You like soccer then you should pick this game up and have fun. If you don't like soccer or you are just starting to like it don't pick it up.