Personally, I wouldn't say so, but it is very close behind!

I'm a fan of Speedball 2, from the good old days when the Megadrive was the market leading console, so I had high hopes for this new game. The project was a beset by lots of delays, and the game was originally due to come out in may, ended up turning up much later in the year.

In fact, I downloaded Speedball 2 on a megadrive emultaor, to get myself back into the style of the game, and was surprised at how closely the new game follows the old one. This isn't a major problem, but may annoy some older gamers, but why mess with perfection?

The graphics have finally been made 3D, and it shows, the camera angle is a sort of behind and slightly above the level of play, but it works well. Colours have now been implemented, and you can change your team's colours at regular intervals. This is a useful tool when you play teams with similar strips, otherwise you get extremely confused.

The game optons remain the same as the other games, you can play leagues, cups or choose to just be a manager. There are now more games to be p;layed in the cup and league structures, and when you win, you get put up into the next league and have to start from scratch again.

The game seems to have slowed down a little bit to begin with, but this is just an illusion. When you get faster players, it's back to the adrenaline burst that Speedball 2 enjoyed.

Overall, a worthy sucessor to the classic game of the 90s!