England International Football (Xbox)

Quite alot of the players look realistic (although shirts etc of other countries are pretty plain). Germany and Holland have made up names, however all the others are real.

The main reason I bought the game was to play on Xbox Live. However there are major disconnection problems. Probably more than half your games disconnect from your opponents. This is a common problem and codemasters are aware of it. Thats just hope they get it fixed.

The automatic player selection is non-existent - you'll be left with a midfielder trailing an attacker by 25 yards, instead of being automatically given control of someone in front of the ball - and when you try to manually change, you'll still be given the most inappropiate man in defense.

Scoring is a matter of total and utter non-skill, and the delay in controls actually doing their job is so frustrating it drives you nuts - you'll hammer the pass button wondering why your player hasn't done what you've told him to, only for the ball to be passed three times in succession into blank space.

The computer will reguarly take short corners that it just passes straight off for a goal kick (quality) - and the commentary will make great remarks such as "thats off for a thrown in".....which are actually goal kicks.

I've now made two good saves with the goalie, which for no reason at all (with no announcement from the commentary, no ref shots, nothing) - resulted in the opposition being able to take a penalty. In one of the penalties, the guy missed the net, but was given a goal anyways.

On Live!, you'll be disconnected 1/4 games, for no reason - everyone is complaining about it, and protocol is to apologise to your opposition the moment the match starts, to assuree them you don't keep quiting out - its just the game - to which they repeat the same and you both wonder how long it'll be before a patch is released to sort the crap out.

I really wanted to enjoy this game - I've been waiting for some online soccer, pretty much since Live came out. It's total rubbish unfortunately. had to load up Fifa 2003, just to remind myself there is at least a fun footer game on the xbox, even if it isn't pro evo.

Pro Evolution is coming...my advice, wait for it.

The previous installment, club football I found sluggish, aggravating and really frustrating. Codemasters have ironed these faults out making this game ALMOST as playable as Pro Evo 3. The passing is good and the long passing is actually better than the forementioned title. Yeah and fun is the operative word.

Game modes are a bit short on the ground with exhibition league's, cups and the euro championship as well as custom leagues and cups it still feels a bit less than it could be but the emphasis lays firmly on gameeplay and again it excels.

The online mode makes this game better than it's parts. I've also played this is football 2004 on ps2 and getting online games going is ok but a bit awkward, the gameplay lagging all the time. This game has none of this it's lag free and as with all Xbox live titles getting online is almost instant. I've played 7 or 8 games so far and only won once but all the people I've played have been added to my friends list because they were decent people. This really works on Xbox live. The only things missing are online leaderboards and stats but this could be updated later hopefully.

All in all this is another nail in the PS2 coffin, Pro Evo and Music 3000 were the only reasons left for me to keep the sony machine and Music 3000 is coming out on Xbox in June woohoo bye bye Sony.