Gremlin has also thrown in a pile of stadiums, complete with flag-waving supporters, to keep things fresh. While most remain fairly close to the arena template, there is enough variation to keep you reminded that a home match with Saudi Arabia is taking place in a markedly different setting than that Australia at Canada blizzard-fest you just wrapped up. Hearing the crowd chanting and singing from the surrounding trees was a touch weird, though. Visible weather effects assist this as well. You can play in clear, cloudy, rainy, snowy, or foggy conditions during day, night, or dusk.
Night games are particularly attractive, thanks to the good use of shadows.
The designers also included software-rendered, 3Dfx, and Direct3D support for just about every resolution under the sun. Running the game on my Riva TNT video card at 1024x768 in 32-bit color with all options maxed out has resulted in flawless performance. Everything is smooth and the image quality is sharp enough to cut your finger on. It's still hard for me to fathom why the EA Sports braintrust refused to accomodate the growing number of gamers with Voodoo2 SLI and Riva TNT cards, but at least the good lads at Gremlin demonstrated more sense. Even the menu screens are clean and attractive.