Game Review: Three Lions (PC, Sold Out Extreme)

Three Lions is certainly a PC game with an identity crisis.  It originally was planned to be released as Major League Soccer before BMG Interactive folded, with Take Two taking the publishing rights originally.  It then appeared to be officially licenced from the Football Association for the England football team, and in line with the 1998 World Cup coming soon.  It had a US release as Alexei Lalas International Soccer, a French release as Pro:Foot Contest 98, an Italian release as Bomba:98 All Champions Challenge, and in other regions as Golden Goal 98 and Mundial:98.  That of course meant customisations to the game and the footballers that were the featured names, including Didier Deschamps and Roberto di Matteo as well as the aforementioned USA player.  Naturally the UK title came from the well-known song by The Lightning Seeds with Frank Skinner and David Baddiel, which was getting a second release (as Three Lions 98) prior to the World Cup, but also the FA had also insisted it referred to the three lions on the badge too.

The re-release was on Sold Out’s Extreme label, supposedly their premier range, complete with their own custom installer and front end to help you get started.  Except on modern PCs, this will not run whatsoever.  Yes, you may be able to install it, but it seems the executables are 16-bit native in some cases which just will not run.  It is therefore time to either dig out an old Windows 98 PC with suitable graphics and sound card, or run virtually in some way.  Not an ideal start, but to be expected for a game of its age.

Everyone Seems to Know the Score

Once you do get the game up and running, before you start, you will be presented with a screen to set the controls that you want.  This can be useful to redefine the keys for each player, so that for example the four action buttons are mapped in a way to your liking, or that you can sensibly also assign on each side of the keyboard.  Gamepads are supported, and you would most likely need something natively supported such as the Gravis Gamepad Pro or similar, as USB controllers were in their infancy.  Once done, you can launch the game and from the title screen, there are options for the game’s difficulty level, graphics, sound, and what language you would like everything to be in.

So Many Jokes, So Many Sneers

Provided you have adjusted the controls to your liking, you can either start a tournament (based on the 1998 World Cup) or a friendly match.  You can select a team for each player or a computer opponent, which defaults of course to England for player one.  The player names at least seem realistic for its time with Alan Shearer and Teddy Sheringham being up front and David Seaman in net, along with the likes of David Beckham in midfield, so that is a positive.  Other nations seem to have the right names with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer up front for Norway and so on.  Of course, with any arcade type football game, the key is how it plays, so time for kick off and see what happens.

I Still See That Tackle by Moore

The game shows a multi-camera angle view by default, which you can change.  The players line up for the team photograph and you can see there is an attempt to try and get some resemblance graphically to the player itself, although often these are quite a mess and not really what you would expect for the time.   You can thankfully skip this part as both teams line up and go to kick off. And when you do, you will immediately notice that the action does appear to be reasonably fast, with some attempts at a three-dimensional view as well as the stands around the ground and some crowd noise to resemble it being an important game.

Bobby Belting the Ball

As you kick off, one thing to note is that you do not always feel in full control.  With the ball, your action buttons are to shoot, pass on the ground or in the air, and change the target of your pass.  You also have a turbo mode for a sprint but this never worked reliably under play.  Without the ball, the action buttons then become slide tackle, change player, poke tackle with switching pass target remaining as is.  And here lies the problem: the computer opponent, even on the easiest level, closes you down far too quickly so any pass is cut out, resulting in more tackling to get the ball back.  In addition, the switching player inevitably does not switch to the right one which means you can often press multiple times to try and get the right player selected.

I Know That Was Then, But It Could Be Again

Thankfully on both sides, the goalkeepers appear to be up to scratch with some impressive dives being made to stop the ball or have a fall at the feet of an attacker to claim the ball.  They can sometimes deflect the ball waywardly if a long shot comes in, or in fact appear to be playing an opposing player onside (even though the rule always catches you offside for some reason.)   The other thing is that the angle changes for view in certain situations, meaning that the controls get orientated based on that which can be confusing to say the least if you are attempting to take a throw and go up towards where the throw is, but the angle changes mean you have to direction change when you least expect it.  Proper fixed camera angles would have helped considerably here to enhance the gameplay.

Jules Rimet Still Gleaming

Either way, the difficulty level and the constant angle changes do not help whatsoever in terms of playability.  Inevitably, you will be looking for a pass that is not on or just resorting to hitting and hoping, which is not what a football game should be about.  There is also a bizarre thing: if you play golden goal extra time, all the rage then, the half indicator in the display does not show the period of extra time but the number 3, which is odd.  Indeed, I scored a winner in this period and as well as having the trademark Alan Shearer celebration, had a mess of graphics on screen to indicate the win – not very professional looking, it must be said.

Graphics and Sound

The graphics in Three Lions are okay, with for the time some reasonable attempts at three dimensions for the player and the pitch view, although the grandstands look a mess as backgrounds.  The title and selection screens are clear and serve their purpose, and the in-game graphics for the display and status are fine.  The sound does have an Ocean Colour Scene track in the opening video, and there are some reasonable pieces of music in the game select screens, but some awful sound effects during play.

Final Thoughts

Three Lions tries its hardest to do something different with the arcade style football genre. The problem is though that it does not do it that well.  The often confusing change of angle means having to adjust controls as needed, and you do not feel always in charge of the player you are supposed to be.  The tough opponents are a good challenge but it also seems unfair in that any tackles they make are unpunished as opposed to your yellow cards given away for free kicks.  This may be more enjoyable in two player mode to a degree, but it really does not play good enough to be worthy of too much consideration, even if you are a diehard England football fan.  There are much better games out there for this time that are better graphically, sonically, and crucially in the gameplay departments too.

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