Disney Sports Football

Mice playing football? Ducks slide-tackling chickens? Foxes floored by roving fireballs? Most TV channels would be out of business within seconds of broadcasting such lunacy. But of course, the Disney Sports Network isn't your average TV channel - and these aren't your average mice, dogs, ducks and weasels.

Disney Sports Football takes Konami's dreamy ISS engine, swaps the real-life players for bouncily-animated Disney characters, and emerges as one of Nintendo GameCube's most fun-stuffed footy games. Like your modern-day Disney movie, this disc has something for the mums and dads as well as the kids - and so many game modes, collectible items and tinkerable extras that your friends won't hear a squeak out of you for ages.

Eight teams are at your paws in Disney Sports Football, each captained by one of Walt's most famous doodlings. The controls are spot-on - and actually a step-up from Konami's own ISS2, with passing and shooting reserved for the A and B Buttons, and the R Button and X Button drafted in for shot/pass height and player-changing duty. Very intuitive, and mostly responsible for the fluidity and heart-flittering speed of each and every match.

The first couple of Dream Cups are the perfect introduction to the game, featuring teams like the SteamRollers who test your skills to the limit by sleepwalking around the pitch and consistently aiming at some invisible goal five metres above the corner flag. But then there's the third cup: the Imperials chucking energy balls all over the shop and star strikers about as likely to miss the goal as they are to cameo in a Warner Brothers cartoon.

This difficulty ramp is just one of the ways Disney Sports Football unexpectedly meets all ages head-on. Kids can keep themselves busy perfecting their passing play and donning magic shoes to bash the opposition grassward or steam to the goal as a flickering fireball. Grown-ups can switch off the sorcery and curl the ball past the keeper with the Control Stick-controlled aftertouch, or chip it into the net with deft use of the R Button - all the while dipping into the fully-featured team formation and substitution options.

Animation is - no surprises here - one of this Disney product's real strengths. It's a treat even in less chaotic moments: but even better when tiny mice start being flung from halfway line to goal mouth by magical blasts, and gangly monkey goalies are knocked flat on their backs by a ball in the stomach. The post-goal celebrations are a chuckle, too - our favourite being one evil captain's arrogant silence as he displays his "Good Job" certificate. Throw in (ha!) a neat option to swap power-enhancing shoes with the Game Boy Advance version of the game, and you're looking at a goal-fest that ably dribbles its way around its rivals. Gooooooooooal? You bet.