FIFA 2001, published by Electronic Arts for PC, PlayStation, PS2 and GameBoy Colour

UEFA Champions League Season 2000-2001, published by Take 2 Interactive for PlayStation, PC

This Is Football 2, published by Sony for PlayStation

SO who's the biggest name in football? Manchester United? Arsenal? Juventus? Real Madrid?

In the real game, there's so many to choose from, but in the world of football action games on the computer, there's only one.

FIFA 2001 is the latest instalment in Electronic Arts' hugely successful series, for which a new version comes out about as often as Manchester United shirts.

It doesn't mean it's the best, it just means that it is relentlessly, remorselessly successful. By rights, Konami's ISS series should hold the prize, but EA has the right player names, the right marketing, the right music and, at least, consistency.

The latest version is a considerable improvement on the last one, however. FIFA 2000 was a rare stumble, with wildly differing difficulty levels and little real sense of fun. The difficulty levels have been sorted out to an extent, although amateur skill level is still ridiculously easy, with its being stunningly simple for my Middlesbrough side (bizarrely abbreviated Mdlbr) to humiliate Manchester City 15-0, or wipe the floor 19-0 with a really rubbish side like the same city's United.

Step up the difficulty level, and it becomes a slightly more difficult proposition, but still not too challenging. Only when you hit the world-class difficulty setting does it become an even match-up, and I'm not the greatest games player in the world. Some will find this game far too easy, and that's a problem.

Also, it is very frustrating to find two of your controls are next to useless - both the sliding tackle and the throughball controls are practically redundant, as your opponents anticipate them all too easily. A dollop more playtesting would have found that out, one would think.

All in all, though, FIFA's not too bad. It's still not the best, as ISS Evolution is much sparkier, but it's the best new football game on the market, that's for sure.

In comparison, UEFA Champions League Season 2000-2001 is left on the subs bench.

How can you tell a bad game? Well, when the developer has nothing about it on the website, and the new publisher has nothing about it either...

UEFA shamefacedly hides its hideous graphics, pathetic sound and gameplay which turns football into basketball, both teams taking turns to just run idly past the feeble challenges of their opponents to see if they can get a shot on target. I can sum up UEFA in just three words. Awful, awful, awful.

This Is Football 2 is Sony's very own take on football and it's a considerable improvement on the last effort. Attractive to look at (though not as nice as FIFA), it boasts quite intuitive gameplay that is only marred by the sluggishness of the player on the ball. Once in control, you move roughly half the speed of your average snail, making it awfully easy for opponents to catch up with you.

Watching Michael Owen being overtaken by Tony Adams is a strange experience. This forces you to work your way through your opponents through a complex web of passing that is more like problem-solving than playing football.

It proudly claims third place in the list of best football games on the market, but who wants to be third in the game of two halves?

FIFA UEFA TIF

Graphics 5/5 1/5 4/5

Sound 5/5 2/5 3/5

Gameplay 4/5 1/5 3/5

Gamespan 3/5 1/5 3/5

Overall 4/5 1/5 3/5

STEPHEN HUNT