Certainally a STAR game!! (FA Premier League Stars (PC))

Member Name: saintsfanuk

Product:	FA Premier League Stars (PC)
Date:	22/10/01 (274 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good grpahics, great sound, enjoyable to play

Disadvantages: old, players faces don't look very good

I purchased this game about a month ago and I have to say it is much better than I had originally thought. The reason I have this game is because it game in a special pack called play the games. This pack cost me £20 and had 12 games within it. This was a real bargain as there are some top quality games in the pack. Although when looking at the pack I originally thought that this was going to be one of the not so good games in the pack. After playing on the other games I thought I would try this one out as I love football games. To my surprise I loved this one.

I have been playing it for over 2 weeks non-stop it is that good. Although it does have its downside I do enjoy playing on it. Football games have their habit of being the same no matter who takes them or what they are called, they usually all have the same idea. This game takes football to a new level, as you have to collect stars (More about these later in my opinion).

GRAPHICS
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For a game made in 1999 these graphics are rather good. The players and referee’s faces are all the same just with different skin colour, hair, facial hair etc. The one thing that I love the most about his game is the amazing details of the stadiums. They have the proper stadiums from all around the country, including valley parade (Bradford) and the now demolished Dell (Southampton). The detail on the stadiums when you are playing is brilliant. A good example of the detail can be found when playing at old Trafford as on the hoardings on the higher tiers it has the number for Manchester united club call. As I live in Southampton and used to go to the dell often, playing at it properly on this game is a great benefit and it adds a realistic feel to the game. The only bad thing about the graphics you could say is the crowd as they just look like cardboard as usual but as you get with most games made around this time it doesn’t make a great deal of difference.

SOUND
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The sound on this game is excellent. Firstly the music supplied with the game is fantastic the most known song being ATB with (9 pm) Till I Come. The commentary with this game is better than I have experienced on most. The introduction to the game is from Richard Keys; this is then followed by match commentary from Martin Tyler and Andy Gray. The commentary is as usual on most games this one just being a bit more interesting, especially at half time when Andy Gray is saying how he was hoping for more goals. The only problem I have had with the commentary is when I was taken out in the box given the penalty; the commentators said I had a penalty and all the usual talk that follows it. Once I had scored and the other side kicked off again they suddenly decided to say that I had a penalty. It has done this a few times so far but as usual it didn’t really bother me much. The crowd noise on this game is very realistic as 9 times out of 10 you can here what they are chanting, one example of what they chant is ‘come on you Hammers’, this is one the noises which sounds most effective, with other football games you don’t generally get to here many different chants which makes this game more realistic.

GAMEPLAY
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As usual with any game you have the start menu, this has different options for you to choose from.
Season Play – This is where you can choose to play ONE full premiership season, including star allocation, league matches and cup matches. You can choose any of the 20 premiership teams to play as. No matter what team you play as you are automatically put into the European Super Cup. If you win this cup you are then put into the World Club Cup. These are not the only cups available; if your team wins the league then you get put into the World Super Cup. Also available in season is the star allocation. Now when you play league or cup matches you are awarded stars at the end. You get the following amo
unt of stars for each thing:

50 stars for wining the match,
25 stars for a draw,
0 stars for a win,
10 stars per goal scored,
25 stars per star goal,
N.B. if the goal is scored outside the area it is a star goal.
25 stars for fair play,
N.B. if you are sent of you don’t get these stars.
50 stars for one of your players being the man of the match.

Star allocation is where you put your hard earned stars into one of your players to improve his attributes e.g. shooting. Your players have 3 coloured sets of stars, these contain 5 stars of one colour. It takes a certain amount of stars to move each star up and the amount it costs depends on the colour of the star. Confused? I’ll show you.

Example
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There are 5 bronze stars. ***** (ok they look different on the game). Now some player’s say for shooting might have 1 bronze star. To move this up to 2 it costs five of your stars. Once you have 5 bronze stars though it will then take 10 of your stars to turn your 5 bronzes into 1 silver. Then once you have 5 silver stars it then takes 15 of your stars to turn 5 silver stars into one gold star. Ok I guess what I am trying to say is that it involves a whole lot of stars. It is much clearer on the game honest. If you are totally lost then forget what I said and read on.

Custom League – This is where you make up your own league consisting of a minimum of 2 teams and a maximum of 20. In this league you can play as any of your created teams (see below), any premiership side or if you somehow managed to make them available, the European sides in the game. I said that because so far I haven’t figured out how to but I read somewhere that you can, so I’ll just have to keep trying. This custom league unfortunately does not have the star allocation option available but it is still worth making your own league.

Custom Teams – This is another example o
f what a good game this is. Once this option is chosen you then have the choice of choosing which team you want to make your custom team. I recommend Manchester United or another good side so that your team doesn’t keep getting beaten. Once you have chosen you then need to change the name of your side. Not only ca you do this but you can choose your own team badge from the selection available so that you don’t have the same badge as the team you have changed. Once all the player names are changed you can then finish you creation and start playing some games with them. Just in case you were thinking, ‘but won’t that get rid of the team I have changed’ the answer is no. You are just using that team as a sort of template for your own one.

One thing I find annoying about this game is that there is only 2 save slots which means you can only have to seasons going on at the same time. Although there are 4 spaces for different users. This is so that you can have 4 people watch with there own user and different statistics, as the computer saves all the games you have had and all the other vital statistics so that you can show your friends how much better you are than them.

So do I like this game?
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Well this game is certainly realistic, the sound and graphics are fantastic, the controls are easy to use and the pitch looks fantastic. So why doesn’t it get 5 stars? Well I guess its because firstly it is old, the players faces do not look very good and there are a few other bad parts to the game which I have already underlines. I certainly recommend this to people who want a good cheap football game with a bit of originality to it. I would just like to add that I thoroughly enjoyed playing this game.

I hope you enjoyed reading my opinion and that it was of some use to you. :O)

Summary: