Human releases a new version of their Hyper Formation Soccer game for the Playstation every year. Back in 1995, Human released the first ever PS soccer game and it was a good effort. For this week's recent history lesson, Namco was the next company to release a PS soccer game. Prime Goal EX was poorly received and as such, is still available today from National Console. The attraction of Formation Soccer has always been the realistic simulation and movement of the players as they run in formation towards a goal and charge into the attack. The program simulates true player support when your kicker has possession and has a fair chance of getting a goal. Human calls this innovative player logic the Position Support System.The control is excellent and the players are responsive to your commands.
The blue shirts run in tight flanking formation

The next World Cup will take place in France in 1998 and 32 of the world teams will meet there to decide who takes the cup home. Formation '97 includes all 32 teams and Human has programmed each team with real-life attack styles, defense patterns and any trademark formations that they may use when they're on the field for added realism. Team shirts and logos are also programmed in for even more realism. As you can probably tell from the pictures posted in this article, the camera moves around freely to accomodate all of the action. Some of the close-up camera zooms are helpful when you're ready to manipulate your players into scoring a goal.
		GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL....maybe.

		Three game modes are available in Formation Soccer '97. There is an Exhibition campaign where you play a single game against another player or the Playstation. The Human Cup Mode lets you participate in a tournament where you play soccer against a league of world teams. The World Cup mode is exactly that; you engage in preliminaries and finals in order to get on the Road to France and take that World Cup home. NCS expects another 5 to 6 soccer games in the Japanese market for both the Playstation and Saturn before the World Cup takes place next year. We'll carry them all for our loyal soccer customer base in Europe and the United States..
The stats for the Japanese World Cup team
Bottom Line: If you like soccer, you'll like this.		This document is © National Console Support 1997