Actua Soccer is a football video game series that was developed by Gremlin Interactive as part of their Actua Sports series, and was the first football game to use full 3D graphics.
The series comprises four titles released from 1995 to 1999, not including the official video game of the Euro 96 tournament, which was also published by Gremlin and based on the Actua Soccer game engine. Barry Davies provided in-game commentary for all games in the series.
The first title's biggest claim to fame was its full 3D graphics engine, used for the first time in a football game, although other games had used a 3D field, players were commonly still 2D sprites but in Actua Soccer players were polygonal. The game was developed with close ties to a local football club Sheffield Wednesday their players provided hints to the programmers and three players Chris Woods, Graham Hyde and Andy Sinton also served as motion capture models
Actua soccer featureed only national teams, with squads of 22 players from each of 44 national sides, However a follow up version with English Premier League teams named Actua Soccer: Club Edition was released in 1996 using 20 players from the 20 Premier League teams from 1996/97. The Actual Soccer match engine was also used to display matches in Premier Manager 64.
Actua Soccer 3 comes to PlayStation with a huge array of enhancements over its predecessors. If you've been dismayed by the quality of defending in this season's football, then Actua Soccer 3 will give you a solid back four to launch counter-attacks from. With significant improvements to the AI, the players now have a much greater awareness of what's going on around them, as well as improved positional sense which should make for free-flowing football . . . that's as long as they don't decide to play the offside trap.
The graphics are impressive too. With over 50 different player heads, 200 motion captures and 30 of the world's most famous stadia (including Wembley, Nou Camp, the Amsterdam ArenA and Old Trafford), Actua Soccer 3 is graphically one of the richest and deepest football games ever. In addition, there are over 450 teams from all over the world, and some special and custom teams.
For the free-kick specialists, you can perfect your technique on both set pieces and penalties without the tension of a real-match situation. The question is: come Saturday afternoon, will you be able to bend the ball around a four-man wall in your away strip?
In Actua Soccer 3 the arcade football action is recreated using motion captured graphics. As well as creating a custom tournament, you can play any of 25 leagues, with a total of 450 teams and 10,000 players featured. You can create your own squad, or customise the existing ones by trading and editing players. Tactics can be refined based on formation, defensive style and attacking approach. Realistic weather effects are incorporated into both appearance and gameplay. Barry Davies and former Celtic manager Martin O'Neill are the commentators.
Manufacturer's description:
Actua Soccer 3 perfectly recreates the beautiful game of combining high definition graphics and stunning audio. Over 450+ national and international teams. Over 10.000 accurately researched players to choose from. 25 leagues around the world. Interactive crowd and commentary by Barry Davies and Martin O'Neill. Create your own World beaters using the team editor option. Unbelievably realistic gameplay. The most realistic 3D motion capture system used within any computer game.
Features:
- Third person perspective.
- 3D graphics
- Cartoon graphics
- Soccer theme.
|
|
