To Future Gamer,

I think it is very easy to say that the quality of football games is getting better, but it now seems to be turning far too much into real life! All football games are dominated by the FIFA and Actua Soccer series as everyone knows, but if a competitor now rises to try to beat these two, the ratings are always dropped because FIFA and Actua Soccer are 'better'.

Graphically, admittedly, there is absolutely no contest, but where gameplay and longevity are concerned, both games feel a little too much like business for EA and Gremlin and not like a game for the rest of us! Long gone are games like (yes you've guessed it!) Sensible Soccer for which the game looked okay but you could play it for hours and not get bored. It got easy after a while, but then again that happens with FIFA and Actua Soccer!

The major criticism I have is that there are too many football games out there that are basically the same as previous incarnations. FIFA '98, World Cup '98 and FIFA '99 only had minor tweaks between each. It is easy to assume that FIFA 2000 and Road to Euro 2000 (if not the same game!) will be more or less identical and yet the public will still buy them as FIFA and Actua are now household names.

This must STOP! There should be a lower rating on FIFA 2000 if it is the same game as FIFA '99 in a new package. It will still be bought by the million, but those who read PC/console mags will at least be persuaded to buy something worth their money (like Civ III if it's out!).

Great mag, keep up the good work!

John

FG: A game can always be bettered. EA and Gremlin, I believe, do actually want to improve each subsequent version of their games - if nothing else, for the commercial reasons that people who own the previous versions will still buy the later version. Actua 3 is vastly superior to Actua 2, for example, and it's got all of us at FG waiting for Actua 4. You may think they're a waste of money but there's many a gamer out there thinking the same thing about Civ III, for example.