2 AFL games for the Xbox in 6 months? It sounds too good to be true, and well, to be honest it actually is. Released late last year AFL Live 2004 met with mixed reactions as many gamers complained of poor A.I and didn't feel that the graphics had really improved enough to warrant another purchase. Well, AFL Premiership Edition (from now AFL PE), even according to IR Gurus themselves is the version of AFL Live 2004 that should have been released. A lot of the aforementioned glitches have been smoothed out and a lot of the gameplay has been tweaked to make for a much better experience. It isn't a major update over 2004 but if you never picked it up last year, the Premiership edition, at its cheaper retail price, is probably worth a look for all you AFL fans out there.

The gameplay in AFL PE is identical to AFL Live 2004. It's still AFL with the same rules and game as before. Grab the ball after the bounce, stream forward in glory to the goals and bang through a massive torpedo from 55 metres out. Well, that's the plan anyway and like in real footy, it's never that easy. Well, let me correct myself. On the easy setting you will most likely be able to stick to that gameplan 9 times out of 10 as the A.I is very, very easy. To be honest I don't recommend playing AFL PE on anything except normal or hard. Easy is definitely for extreme beginners and if you're familiar with the game and its controls from previous versions you will be winning by 20 goals even with the quarters set to 2 minutes. Overall though the difficulty doesn't seem to have been adjusted much, if at all, and if you mastered AFL Live 2004 on hard then AFL PE isn't going to give you a new challenge.

New to AFL PE is the pre-season ‘Wizard Cup' competition including all the rule changes such as the infamous ‘super goals' from outside 50metres. It's a welcome addition and always good to see developers keeping the game as current as possible and including new features. Unlockable videos are also a new addition and feature plenty of hard hitting AFL action. There are about 50 videos that become available as you complete certain objectives and they feature some of the best marks and hardest hits that you're ever likely to see! A welcome sight is the ability to see what you have to complete to unlock certain videos so you can concentrate on meeting the objectives to unlock just the great goal videos if that's all you're interested in seeing. Simply scroll down the list of locked videos to see how to unlock it. It certainly beats the way many other games handle unlockable features.

Mini games make a welcome return this year as well and the handball event is pretty good but they really offer nothing except a diversion from the normal game. Yet again there is no ‘franchise' mode or draft system to let you pick rookie players and develop there skills. These mini games would be ideal in the form of a training camp for rookie players, or better yet, personally created players. Just about every sports game around has a ‘create a player' mode and it's surprising to see that it still hasn't been implemented.

The graphics are still the same as ever. Low polygon count players that look worse now that this is the third AFL game released. Really, while featuring some improvements, last year they weren't up to the standards of Fifa or NFL games and while these games have received graphical enhancements in the past 2 years its sad to see that even some minor improvements couldn't have been made for AFL PE. The crowd is still made from flat 2d shocking bitmaps and feature no close-ups or noise except for a flat standard crowd noise that never seems to adjust itself to what's happening on the field. AFL PE features updated player lists which is always welcome, but if AFL Live had featured Xbox Live support, this could have been made available as downloadable content instead of requiring a new purchase. Sadly Xbox Live support in any form is also noticeably absent from AFL PE.

The player animations, particularly the marking which also features a much better system than AFL Live 2004, have been tweaked a touch and smoothed out somewhat. Recurring issues from the past 2 games such as players sticking together when running into each other are still around though and I thought by now that issues like this would have been well and truly fixed. Instant replays capture the last few seconds of marks and goals yet this doesn't seem to work properly sometimes either as on many occasions, I've taken a mark, gone to play on yet the replay still kicks in so in the end I just turned them totally off. Instant replays are available when pausing the game but feature the worst controls imaginable. You control the zoom, playback and rotation with the 2 analog sticks and it's just cumbersome.

The controls in the game itself work fine but there is still no way to target specific players for a handball pass. Also you still lose control of players as they are going for a mark and you only have access to the controllers face buttons to go for a mark or punch. Sometimes my selected player will be further away from where the ball is going to land and you can't even select the sprint button to get him there quicker. Loads more control needs to be given in the marking competitions as currently it feels like you aren't 100% in control, and well you really aren't.

Lastly AFL PE features the same ordinary commentary that we've seen in the past and this is a real shame as well. It's extremely repetitive and features some of the worst comments imaginable and is really better turned off. It was pretty ordinary back when AFL Live 2003 came out and it's one of the games biggest letdowns that it hasn't been improved upon and unfortunately AFL PE is full of irritations such as this. Features we've been wanting included for years have yet to arrive, and issues that have been pointed out repeatedly don't seem to be getting addressed.