Best ISS Games (Pre PES Era)

[Sephiroth81]

What with the World Cup in full swing, I feel its time to dig out the old classic International Superstar Soccer games to get justice and revenge for Englands dismal early exit!

What are your favourites from the series? PES doesn't count!

I only played the 16bit SNES original (and Deluxe) briefly. My first one I played in earnest was ISS Pro '98, then went on to arguably the best in the entire series ISS Pro Evolution (its sequel may have been slightly better). I feel these were the games that evolved into Pro Evolution Soccer.

What are the numerous N64 versions like? I might give them a try later. I remember being very envious of not owning an N64 at the time, and seeing ISS 64 in reviews out score the PS1's "ISS Pro".

[RodimusPrime]

What with the World Cup in full swing, I feel its time to dig out the old classic International Superstar Soccer games to get justice and revenge for Englands dismal early exit!

What are your favourites from the series? PES doesn't count!

I only played the 16bit SNES original (and Deluxe) briefly. My first one I played in earnest was ISS Pro '98, then went on to arguably the best in the entire series ISS Pro Evolution (its sequel may have been slightly better). I feel these were the games that evolved into Pro Evolution Soccer.

What are the numerous N64 versions like? I might give them a try later. I remember being very envious of not owning an N64 at the time, and seeing ISS 64 in reviews out score the PS1's "ISS Pro".

Me and my friends played nothing but ISS on the 64 for a while. It was brilliant, fast arcadey, and with brilliant animation. It also had depth, although it was arcadey it had the full rnage of moves that would carry on to the PES series.

[Sephiroth81]

Me and my friends played nothing but ISS on the 64 for a while. It was brilliant, fast arcadey, and with brilliant animation. It also had depth, although it was arcadey it had the full rnage of moves that would carry on to the PES series.

I remember FIFA 64 getting amusingly bad reviews at the time, and ISS 64 showed how it was done. Thats probably the time when the series had the biggest gulf in quality between them (Fifa Vs Konamis games). Now they all seem quite similarly matched.

Might give ISS 64 a go then - or is it worth going straight for ISS 98 or ISS 2000?

[resident paul]

My first play with ISS is ISS Pro on the PS1.
I like the game & the commentary on it like this:

"I'm glad I got out of bed today!"
"He was BORN to score!"
"He's got a head of steel!"
"SCORCHIO!"
"My grandmother could've saved that one!"

[Megamixer]

It doesn't carry the ISS name but Goalstorm on the PS1 is in the same family/timeline and is great fun as well as being ridiculous at the same time. Some classic examples:

- Why are the goals so huge?
- Why do defenders take goal kicks?
- What the hell is with the bizarre sound effects for run-ups and kicking of the ball?
- Why is it that yellow-carded players will (90% of the time) punch the ref and get sent off? It makes winning games very hard sometimes!

It's brilliant fun though, even if the game content is piddling, the graphics badly dated etc. The commentary is ace too with some particularly funny goal celebrations
"YEEEEEES!!! GOOOOAAAAL!!!"
"Goal, Goal GOAL!!"
"It's a rocket!"
"GOAL! SUPER GOAL!"

[crusto]

Iss pro 98 on the N64 = awesome

[Bub&Bob]

ISS64 = the best, post pub footie gaming fun ever

[dste]

ISS Deluxe on the SNES.

The scorelines that you can rack up on that is just insane.

[Negative Creep]

My first play with ISS is ISS Pro on the PS1.
I like the game & the commentary on it like this:

"I'm glad I got out of bed today!"
"He was BORN to score!"
"He's got a head of steel!"
"SCORCHIO!"
"My grandmother could've saved that one!"

From memory their pronunciation of Nigeria was also completely off key and sounded bizzare

[Steve1982]

1 thing i will say

iss/Pes has the best soundtracks ever

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... aA7eNKUjuG

[ArchaicKoala]

The first ISS game I played was ISS Deluxe on the SNES and even now it holds up well unlike some other football games from the era. I will add as well that I was blown away at the time with the fact that it had commentary albeit a bit lacking

My favourite though has to be ISS 98 on the N64. Even today me and a friend will fire this up and have a laugh with it. We are both terrible at the game but because of this much hilarity usually entails which usually culminates in a friendship ruining penalty shoot out

[Mire Mare]

I'm another big fan of ISS64. It's probably my most played footie game since I started playing footie games. Single player was superb whilst two player added a huge amount of longevity to the game. I played ISS '98 but seem to remember preferring the purity, less options, of the original.

Rodimus summary of the game hits the nail squarely on the head. ISS64 straddles the line between arcade and simulation perfectly. It's fast, fun, football with a good amount of technical gameplay.

[nakamura]

My first play with ISS is ISS Pro on the PS1.
I like the game & the commentary on it like this:

"I'm glad I got out of bed today!"
"He was BORN to score!"
"He's got a head of steel!"
"SCORCHIO!"
"My grandmother could've saved that one!"

From memory their pronunciation of Nigeria was also completely off key and sounded bizzare

It was like the CD was swapping to another language at that moment!

Goal Storm is Winning Eleven in Japan and the birth of PES.

[skodathegreat]

ISS64 tops it for me.

It was the first of the series I played, and I feel that its how football games should be.

The last few versions (last 6 years) of FIFA / PES, while certainly more realistic, just aren't as fun to play.

[errolwd40]

I loved Iss pro evolution in ps one way back in 2000. It was the first one to include club sides via the awesome master league.

The following year the sequel iss pro evolution 2 was released and was even better, offering more clubs and 2 leagues where you needed to win promotion before you could really add to your squad of no hopers.

I still have master league data and some classic goals saved on my third party ps one memory cards.