International Superstar Soccer 3 – review

Game: International Superstar Soccer 3 (PS2)

Release date: March 2003

The family of football games

International Superstar Soccer 3 (ISS3) was Konami’s last iteration of the highly acclaimed ISS series, one that helped catapulting the Pro Evolution Soccer series onto stardom: after the release of ISS Pro Evolution 2 for the PSOne, the series split in two (ISS and PES) and while PES went on to develop the most successful football simulation of the PS2 era, ISS kept developing its own game. However, his brother’s fame was well beyond what the contemporary ISS versions were able to achieve, which led many to question the logic behind the fact that Konami still held on to the decision of releasing two football games of their own – even if it was developed by a different branch than the one responsible for the development of PES. In an age where only FIFA and PES rule the football gaming scene, it’s interesting to look back to the PS2 days where not only there were many more competitors on the market, but even the same producer kept betting on two football game series of its own.

From the moment you turn on your PS2 to play ISS3 until the very last match you’ll ever play on it, I guarantee you won’t find an acceptable answer to the following question: what was exactly the purpose of ISS, bearing in mind what PES brought to the table back then? Given how lifelike and realistic the PES series’ iterations of the PS2 were – particularly when compared with its main rival FIFA and other football games – I was always expecting to find in ISS a fully-dedicated arcade game, one that had all the room to push for unrealism and, perhaps, mindless fun as a complement to the other Konami game. While ISS3 – and its predecessors – clearly integrates a few arcade-ish elements on its game, it still gives the overall impression that it wants to be taken seriously as a football game, unlike titles such as Lego’s Football Mania which embodied the arcade way unapologetically.

ISS3 suffers from an obvious lack of content even when compared to contemporary PES. Unlike previous ISS versions that at least added a few under-23 National Teams, on this one you’ll be left with a plethora of regular National Teams from all over the world, but the fact that there are no playable club teams at all is very disappointing – even if you do get an editable group of “Original” club teams with fake players to play around with. You can still meet the likes of “Cataluña” (FC Barcelona) and some other real clubs on the game’s Mission Mode – though all players have fake names -, which contains a series of challenges for the player to enjoy.

Besides Mission Mode, you’re able to play (unlicensed) World, European and American Cups, and you can even play a simplistic version of a regional qualifier before the actual final tournament. There’s also a rather limiting Custom League mode. Sadly, this pretty much sums it up content-wise. There’s no such thing as a career mode – perhaps the Mission Mode is the closest thing you’ll get. Most players will spend the vast majority of their time on the game on National Team competitions, since the challenges of MM are not that many to keep one hooked on long-term.

The Jekyll and Hyde of football games?

On the pitch, ISS3 shines as much as it disappoints. Most of the time, it comes down to whether you’re a glass-half-full kind of man or not. Some player animations are so much ahead of its time, it’s hard to believe it’s a PS2 game. Try a long pass or watch your keeper make a tremendous save, shoot from long-range or perform a sliding tackle and watch the realistic motion of the player’s body attempting it. Often I have to pause the game just to see these moments in detail. However, some movements just appear too cartoonish, and the transition between animations is rather poorly done, which leads to some pretty awkward moments on the pitch (be it on the CPU or player’s side). Also, there’s a clear shortage of available animations, and because of that you often won’t be able to perform the action you want.

Yep, there's a coin toss before the match!

The ball physics are at times interesting to watch, particularly on long passes and shots which all have a nice weighty feeling to it, still you get the impression that you’re not fully in control of what happens to the ball. Unlike on PES, dribbling is much more free as you have more than the usual 8 directions in which a player can run with the ball. If it went along with a free-er ball and a better animation system, ISS3’s gameplay would’ve been able to compete with PES or FIFA.

The arcade element of the game is the most obvious when you’re running with the ball down the wing on either side; as you approach the opponent’s area, the game shows a flashing L1 icon, press it and you’ll enter a 1vs1 mode. The camera zooms in, and you can use either a combination of special moves or just a simple turn to fake your defender. Depending on the coloring of the frame, you’ll be successful or not, and that’ll affect the odds of getting past your defender. However, and here’s the simulation aspect of it, even with a favorable ending to this little minigame-within-the-game, it doesn’t mean you’ll effectively get free of the defender’s marking, less than a second later he can at times get back on his feet and block the offensive route you’ve just opened; as well as the fact that you don’t necessarily need this minigame to get past an opponent, sometimes a simple turn or special move triggered anywhere on the pitch will do the trick.

Don't be fooled, ISS3's goalkeepers are (usually) much better than this!

Then, the oddities begin making its grand entrance. The referee’s behavior is completely illogical as you’ll almost always collect yellow cards for the most simple fouls (as in, 99% of the time every single foul will be awarded a card…) and yet, one of the most obvious red-card-worthy instances in football that is chopping a player’s legs when he’s about to go 1vs1 with the keeper…gets you a yellow card as well. His criteria is completely flawed to the point it often just looks random, and it very often the CPU’s actions are not as crudely punished by the match official as the player’s. The lack of a competent player animation system creates an often chaotic, clunky and frustrating game of football. Most of the times the game just does what it wants and you become just a guy with a privileged view, hoping for the best.

I’ve found the CPU’s AI to be challenging on the hardest mode, it usually makes good decisions on the pitch – offensively and defensively. A reckless defender will be absolutely destroyed by even a mediocre dribbler, so you’re conditioned early on to be cautious and only attempt a tackle when you’re absolutely sure you’ll win the ball.

When it comes to the graphics, again it’s a mix of two worlds. If often the lighting is realistic on most venues, the players look too cartoonish; and if a certain player doesn’t have a trademark hairstyle like Beckham’s – or a trademark, unmatched ugly face such as Oliver Kahn’s, you’ll hardly be able to recognize him. Both PES and FIFA were far more advanced in this area of the game at the time, which demonstrates how mediocre ISS3’s effort here was.

The match commentary is rather simplistic, doesn’t add any depth to the game at all. You can hear the stadium speaker yell the name of the goalscorer after a goal, a nice little detail, which makes it up for a rather boring match atmosphere overall. Still, it earns points for a fantastic intro song, probably one of the best of any football game ever.

The Good

• It is sometimes able to provide you with spectacular moments of football
• A few player animations are some of the best I’ve seen in the PS2 era

The Meh

• Combines brief moments of brilliance with poorly done elements that often ruin the experience
• Has a good collection of National Teams
• If you don’t look too close, the graphics will surprise you positively

The Ugly

• No playable club teams
• Lack of depth on-pitch makes it a robotized experience

Score: 6.5

While it certainly has a few good ideas of its own, ISS3 feels like an application letter from the KCEO branch of Konami that created the game to be able to work on PES instead, as it introduces valuable items here and there on a platform that content and gameplay-wise, is just too bare-boned to be taken seriously as a standalone game. It lacks identity and purpose. It’s not surprising it got cancelled after this iteration; however one can’t help but think that this game could be a serious competitor to FIFA and PES if it had been given more attention by its own developers. In the end, ISS3 is just a football game worthy of playing once in a blue moon, perhaps when you’re fatigued of other retro-football games, not good enough to become a regular on anyone’s rotation: regardless of whether you’re a casual player or not.