From moment to moment, its matches are variable. Although ISSPE doesn't have the breakneck speed of FIFA 2000 or Actua 3, its comparatively sedate pace makes it more considered and absorbing. Sometimes you dominate a match, confining your opponents to their own half. On other occasions, a CPU side will run rings around you and your passing game will go to hell. Desperately hoofing the ball over the top of the midfield, you'll adopt direct tactics in the desperate hope of fashioning some sort of counter-attack. And, assuredly, nine times out of 10, the opposing defenders will nod each lofted ball back into midfield. ISSPE feels right - it genuinely looks and plays like its real-life equivalent.

Such excellence is not without an attendant cost, though. At times, Evolution's AI code steps in to give you a helping hand. This is, by and large, a pretty transparent procedure. At times, however, it can grab one of your players and go entirely against your wishes. You do become accustomed to this, though, and besides, it's not as if it happens all the time. Some players will find the brief moments where ISS is 'on rails' all too intrusive. It's just a shame that Konami didn't include an 'expert' mode, without the offending helping hand routines. Then again, perhaps it's those very pieces of code that make it as balanced as it is.

Konami UK have been 'sittng' on ISS Pro Evolution since before Christmas - a move, no doubt, to avoid a clash with the ultra-hyped commercial behemoth that is FIFA. As a consequence, we've had three months of play in order to evaluate it. The prognosis, as you have no doubt discerned, is that ISSPE is the most superbly-realised football game we've ever played. After hours of play too numerous to mention, its CPU teams are still performing new trick, and as for its multiplayer mode... well, it's pretty much everything you'd ever want from a football game.

"Magnificent!" warble we fat ladies here at Future Gamer. And on that concluding note...