''Three Lions'' (The Official England Team Game), released in North America as ''Alexi Lalas International Soccer'', is a

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

developed by

Z-Axis Underground Development, Ltd. (formerly Z-Axis, Ltd.) was an American video game developer based in Foster City, California. The company was founded in 1994 by David Luntz and sold to Activision in May 2002. Following a rebranding to Undergrou ...

and published by

Take-Two Interactive Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. is an American video game holding company based in New York City and founded by Ryan Brant in September 1993. The company owns two major publishing labels, Rockstar Games and 2K, which operate internal g ...

, based on European football (soccer). It was released for the PC,

PlayStation is a video gaming brand that consists of five home video game consoles, two handhelds, a media center, and a smartphone, as well as an online service and multiple magazines. The brand is produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment, a divisi ...

and

Game Boy Color The (commonly abbreviated as GBC) is a handheld game console, manufactured by Nintendo, which was released in Japan on October 21, 1998 and to international markets that November. It is the successor to the Game Boy and is part of the Game ...

on 17 April 1998 and in 1999 as the official video game of the

English Football Association The Football Association (also known as The FA) is the governing body of association football in England and the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. Formed in 1863, it is the oldest football association in the world and ...

. Originally announced under the title "Major League Soccer", it was also marketed under other names in other regions, including ''Golden Goal 98'', ''Bomba:98 All Champions Challenge'', ''Mundial:98'' and ''Pro:Foot Contest 98''.

Cover Stars

Editions of the game in different regions feature native international footballers. In France, ''Pro:Foot Contest 98'' features

Didier Deschamps Didier Claude Deschamps (; born 15 October 1968) is a French professional football manager and former player who has been manager of the France national team since 2012. He played as a defensive midfielder for several clubs, in France, Italy, E ...

, in Italy, ''Bomba:98 All Champions Challenge'' features

Roberto Di Matteo Roberto Di Matteo (; born 29 May 1970) is an Italian professional football manager and former player. During his playing career as a midfielder, he played for Swiss clubs Schaffhausen, Zürich and Aarau before joining Lazio of Italy and Chelse ...

, in North America, ''Alexi Lalas International Soccer'' features

Alexi Lalas Panayotis Alexander "Alexi" Lalas ( el, Αλέξης Λάλας; born June 1, 1970) is an American retired soccer player who played mostly as a defender. Lalas is best known for his participation with the United States men's national soccer te ...

Reception

The PlayStation version received unfavorable reviews according to the

review aggregation A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

GameRankings GameRankings was a video gaming review aggregator that was founded in 1999 and owned by CBS Interactive. It indexed over 315,000 articles relating to more than 14,500 video games. GameRankings was discontinued in December 2019, with its staff bei ...

. ''

Next Generation Next Generation or Next-Generation may refer to: Publications and literature * ''Next Generation'' (magazine), video game magazine that was made by the now defunct Imagine Media publishing company * Next Generation poets (2004), list of young ...

'' said, "If you're looking for speedy, no-nonsense physical play, you could do a lot worse than ''Alexi Lalas International Soccer''." Extreme Playstation rated the game an 85 of 100 stating that " Three Lions doesn't boast great graphics and has a few niggling flaws(like the omission of any type analog control), but there's enough innovation and gameplay here to give the other World Cup bandwagon games a run for their money

References

External links

* 1998 video games Association football video games Game Boy Color games PlayStation (console) games Video games developed in the United States Windows games Take-Two Interactive games Video games scored by Allister Brimble {{TakeTwo-stub