Commodore Amiga

Kick Off 3

Finally, after literally months of hype and guesswork, Kick Off 3 itself is finally available, and I can honestly tell you that a lot of people are going to be very, very surprised. Gone is the top view. Gone is the scanner. Gone are the extremely fiddly ball handling controls, and in comes a game that is far more traditional in terms of soccer gameplay than the previous two Kick Off games. From the outside in, the first thing you are confronted with is the choice of games to play. You can either work through the standard friendly or league matches, or take part in The Challenge where you go against 30 other teams, one by one, until you reach the Anco All Stars at the end of the game. Plus, just to be a little topical, you can take part in the World Cup, from the qualifying rounds onward. The game is viewed in the classic ‘side-on’ view – a view that was previously dropped, if you can remember that far back, because it didn’t give the player enough information about where their players actually were on the pitch. A step backwards perhaps? Maybe, but then if the game was viewed from the top you wouldn’t have the stylish animation this game possesses. Although the view might be dated, the game looks great, with large, well-drawn players and animations for every occasion. The question is, of course, how does it all play? The answer, I’m afraid to say, isn’t a positive one and the controls are just too sluggish and the actual movement of the players too slow to make the game really playable. It looks great, sure, but it just doesn’t have the responsiveness needed for a really frantic soccer game. Kick Off 3, you seem to spend most of your time fighting the controls rather than flowing with them, and that just takes all the fun out of it.