Roy of the Rovers

Your Sinclair

Kit 69%

Atmosphere 78%

Playerbility 67%

At The End Of The Day 70%

Overall 69%

Jonathan Davies 69%

THE COMPLETE AND UTTER YS GUIDE TO SOCCER ON THE SPECCY Footie games, eh? Where'd we be without 'em? There've been hundreds of the blooming things, with more on the way each month, and they always (always! always!) sell like hot cakes (even the ones that are crap). So with the World Cup lining itself up on the horizon, let's join the slightly less-than-enthusiastic JONATHAN DAVIES, as we lead you by the hand into the past, present and future world of the Spectrum soccer game. Oh dear. How can I start? Um, quite a few phrases spring to mind. Like "They're all the same!" and "No, please, not another one!" and, erm, "Let me out of here!" The problem, you see, is that for every MicroProse Soccer or Matchday 2 there are six or seven World Cup Carnivals (US Gold's tragic 1986 attempt at a footie sim) to wade through. And I should know - I've just waded through them all. Quite frankly I wouldn't care if the colour green never darkened my Speccy again. I'm sick as a parrot. So let's just forget all about them, eh? What? No. You like them? Cripes. (Better get going on this giant mega-feature thingie then, hadn't you? Ed) Er, yes. Right. Football. Well, there are certainly lots of games. And no, they're not all the same. There are in fact a few basic types, and within each of these categories dwell a hundred and one subtle variations. Um, what fun... IT'S A GAME OF TWO HALVES That's right, one half management, the other half actually booting the ball around a bit. To kick off with we have the straightforward arcade simulation. This you should all be familiar with - a big green pitch (seen from above, or sometimes from the side), the roar of the crowd (well, the 'beep' of the crowd), lots of little men running around kicking the ball, and you up in the air somewhere above it all, doing your best to keep one or two of them (plus the ball) under control. What you don't have to worry about though is what any of the blokes are called, how much they're worth, or any other boring managerial-type stuff. Good examples of this kind of game are Matchday 2 and Kick Off. The second main sub-division, the management game, is a totally different kettle of fish. No footie here at all (as such), apart from the results of various games flashing up on your screen every so often to tell you how you're doing. It's business acumen we're worried about here, with all sorts of weird and wonderful information popping up to confuse you - what your men are called, how tall they are, how skilful they can be and all sorts. A good example of this variety of game is, surprise, surprise, Football Manager. The third, and crappiest, type of footie game is the pools prediction program. Now you may get really excited by the prospect of these (I don't know) but I find them so brain-blendingly boring that this is the only mention they'll get here, so enjoy it while you can. (Sorry and all that.) Actually there's a fourth subdivision I've just remembered too - those games that provide you with an often quite bizarre mixture of action game and management, usually consisting of lots of lists of numbers with slightly dodgy bolt-on arcade bits thrown in. Some of them work quite well, but there's always the odd game that's simply too weird for words - like Roy Of The Rovers for example, part arcade adventure of all things and with a badly drawn Roy searching for his kidnapped team! ROY OF THE ROVERS Gremlin Here's another oddball that doesn't quite fit into the scheme of things. It's a footie-based arcade adventure, with all that that suggests. Yes, you have to plod found the round hundreds of screens, collect things and talk to people. There's even a plot - the whole Melchester Rovers team has been kidnapped just before a key fund-raising match. If the money doesn't get raised developers will move in and flatten the ground! What a shame. There's also a fairly reasonable arcade footie sim tacked onto the end (for the bit where you've managed to rescue the team and then have to take part in the match) which can be practiced without having to play through the adventure bit. It's not what you might call 'state of the art', but it'll do. Bizarrely enough, it's not too bad a package, really - puzzles to solve, balls to kick and absolutely no lists of numbers to worry about.

Phew! Roy's found the rest of his team (they were down the pub) so the Melchester Rovers ground is sfe! Hey! Let's do the match right here!

A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE ON THINGS The Overhead View This features in MicroProse Soccer, Kick Off and most of the Codies games, among others. It has the advantage that you don't actually get to see the players faces (only their bald patches) and generally avoids some of the confusion you get in side views when too many players get all tangled in together and you can't quite tell what's going on. You often get a nice 3D view of the ball too, as it flies up into the air and then plummets back down to earth again. And on the minus side? Well, timing headers can get very, very tricky, but more importantly it doesn't always 'feel' quite right somehow. After all, when you watch a game of soccer, you never see it from above, do you? The Side View A bit common, you get this viewpoint all over the place, but generally it's the most reliable method. It gives a good 'as seen on telly' angle, although things have to be quite well animated for it to work (not always the case) and you do tend to get horrible sprite 'scrums' at key moments. A Bit Of Both Views Only spotted occasionally, in things like Gazza's Super Soccer, this technique can get very confusing indeed. You get a side view when the ball's in the middle of the pitch, but when you get near to either goal the whole thing flips round to give a sort of overhead/into-the-goalmouth sort of perspective. All very well, but it gives you a godawful headache after a while.

ALMOST EVERY SOCCER GAME EVER RELEASED (DEPRESSING ISN'T IT?) Bobby Charlton's Soccer - Dacc Brian Clough's Football Fortunes - CDS Bryan Robson's Superleague - Paul Lamond Emlyn Hughes' Soccer - Audiogenic European Five-A-Side Football - Silverbird FA Cup Football - Virgin Fighting Soccer - Activision Footballer of the Year - Gremlin Footballer of the Year II - Gremlin Football Director - D&H Football Director II - D&H Football Fever - Tanglewood Football Manager - Addictive Games Football Manager II - Addictive Games Four Soccer Sims - CodeMasters Football Frenzy - Alternative Gary Lineker's Superstar Soccer - Gremlin Gary Lineker's Hotshot - Gremlin Gary Lineker's Superskills - Gremlin Gazza's Super Soccer - Empire International Manager - D&H International Match Day 128 - Ocean Kenny Dalglish Soccer - Manager Cognito Kick Off - Anco League Challenge - Atlantis Manchester United - Krisalis Match Day - Ocean Match Day II - Ocean Mexico '86 - Qual-soft Microprose Soccer - Microprose Peter Beardsley's International Football - Granslam Peter Shilton's Handball Maradona - Grandslam Player Manager - Anco Premier II - E&J Professional Soccer - CRL Roy Of The Rovers - Gremlin Saint And Greavsie - Grandslam Soccer Boss - Alternative Soccer 7 - Cult Soccer Star - Cult Street Cred Football - Players Street Gang Football - CodeMasters Super Soccer - Imagine The Double - Johnson Scanatron Tracksuit Manager - Goliath Games Two Player Super League - D&H World Cup Carnival - US Gold World Cup Soccer - Artic World Cup Soccer '90 - Virgin

AND STILL TO COME This is of course World Cup Year. And what happens in World Cup Year? Yes, hundreds and hundreds of new Speccy soccer games suddenly appear, that's what. There are going to be oodles of them - but how are you going to be able to tell them apart? What you need is a handy-dandy reference sheet to keep score on, isn't it? And - by Jingo! - what have we got here but the very thing! Simply keep reading YS, fill in the scores of all the new games in the spaces provided as we print them and 'Bob's your uncle' (as they say)! Now all you need do is take this copy of the mag down the shop with you whenever you intend to buy a footie game. You won't regret it! (Oh, and by the way, we've not included any budget games here - there'll be plenty of those around too. Check out Matchday or the Codies' World Cup offering for starters.) WORLD CUP '90 SCORE CARD Game: Adidas World Championship Football Company/Release Date: Ocean - May/June Notes: Programmed by Smart Egg Software, this one has to have a good chance around World Cup time. Score: 85% Game: England - The Official Football Game Company/Release Date: Grandslam - May/June Notes: Grandslam has secured the official England licence, meaning it can use the images of all the individual players (say John Barnes, or Bryan Robson). It's also planning a feature which modifies the team's performance if one of these is injured and can't play. Blimey! Score: Never released Game: European Superleague Company/Release Date: CDS - June Notes: Another management game to add to the list. Score: 80% Game: Football Manager World Cup Edition Company/Release Date: Addictive - any day now Notes: Apparently even better than Football Manager 2. It comes with its own World Cup wall chart and a competition with 'prizes' like getting your picture up alongside Kevin Toms on the packaging of the yet-to-come Football Manager 3!! Blimey! Score: 82% Game: Italy 1990 Company/Release Date: US Gold - April Notes: We await US Gold's entry with bated breath. The one thing we're certain of is that it won't be a replay of World Cup Carnival (surely?). Score: 81% Game: Golden Boot Company/Release Date: Ocean - to be announced Notes: We don't know much about this (including a firm release date) but it's a wacky football game programmed by Ocean France (responsible for Beach Volley, which looks less and less likely to ever appear on the Speccy). Score: Never released Game: Kenny Dalglish Soccer Match Company/Release Date: Impressions - April Notes: A pretty straight, eight-way scrolling side-view footie game with a Kenny Dalglish licence attached. Again, a full review next issue. Score: 46% Game: Kenny Dalglish Soccer Player Company/Release Date: Impressions - end of next year Notes: More in the Footballer Of the Year mould (though more arcadey than that apparently), this new Kenny game follows the fortunes of an individual player trying to make it into a team and then on and upwards from there. Score: Never released Game: Kick Off 2 Company/Release Date: Anco - May Notes: Hopefully a souped-up, less scrappily presented version of the original Spectrum game (on compilation now, though it was only released a few months ago). Score: 80% Game: Liverpool - The Official Football Game Company/Release Date: Grandslam - April Notes: The first of the two 'official' Liverpool games, this one gets to use the images of the various players... Score: Never released. Game: Liverpool FC Company/Release Date: Ocean - September Notes: ... while this one uses the official team badge and colours. Score: Never released. Game: Manchester United Company/Release Date: Krisalis - any day now Notes: Another game sponsored by a team as opposed to an individual player, we'll have a full review next issue. Score: 74% Game: Player Manager Company/Release Date: Anco - July Notes: Like a sort of cross between Kick Off and a management game, this was a massive hit on the 16-bit machines recently and deservedly so. Will it do the same on the Speccy? Score: Never reviewed in YS Game: Subbuteo Company/Release Date: Goliath - May/June Notes: Based not on football itself so much as the popular 'flick-to-kick' table-top game. Will we see giant fingers reach down onto the pitch? You'll have to wait and see! (Again.) Score: 81% Game: Super League Manager Company/Release Date: Audiogenic - May Notes: Audiogenic's first Emlyn Hughes game got a critical drubbing from Marcus (and then went on to sell by the lorry-load of course). How will this management offering fare? Score: Never released. Game: Superleague Soccer Company/Release Date: Impressions - out now Notes: A pretty basic management game by all accounts. Again we'll be having a look at it next month. Score: 52% Game: Vinnie Jones Company/Release Date: Again Again - September Notes: Too late for the World Cup, this will in fact sell on the 'merits' of soccer hard-man Vinnie himself. We can hardly wait. Score: Never released. Game: World Cup Italia '90 Company/Release Date: Virgin - May Notes: And last, but by no means least, it's Virgin's game, the only one officially sponsored by the World Cup tournament itself. Hurrah! Score: 79%

NAMING YOUR FOOTIE GAME This is the trickiest part of writing any footie game. Although coming up with a name is fairly easy, the chances are that it's already been used seven times before. To assist with this problem we've designed the YS Footie Game Naming System™. Simply pick one word from each column and put them all together to come up with a convincing title. Gary Robson's Advanced Football Game Brian The Hamster's Ten-a-Side Soccer Simulator Kevin Lineker's Super Footie Director Plus Wayne Of The Rovers' Boring Tracksuit Manager '90 Darren Monkhouse's Quite Good Pickled Onion Challenge Bernadette Toms' Strip Ninja Footie Quiz

RATINGS Being the tricky things they are, footie games don't quite fit into the usual way we rate our games, so for the purposes of this feature here's a one-off system we've devised that hopefully takes into account all their little (and dearly loved) idiosyncrasies. Playerbility: Having forked out your dosh and loaded it up, will you be over the moon or sick as a parrot? In other words, is it any cop... or is it utter crap? At The End Of The Day: ...will you still be playing it? Or will it have joined the potato peelings, used tea bags and missives from Readers Digest in the dustbin? Kit: Aesthetic appeal, really. Lists of numbers are all very well, but are they decently presented? And if it's an arcade jobbie, are the graphics any good? Especially high marks go to those games with two or more colours used on the players, or a choice of team outfits. Atmosphere: Is it just like being in the stands at your local ground (apart from getting a bottle smashed across your cranium every ten minutes that is)? Or might you just as well be standing in a queue by the fish counter at Waitrose counting the dandruff on the back of the person in front of you? Here's where to find out!

SO YOU WANNA WRITE A FOOTIE GAME? Here are a few features you may wish to incorporate when devising your own 'tuff turf' footie extravaganza... A celeb, preferably glistening and grinning, with his signature scrawled across the box. Important-looking statistics, and screenloads of them. These should not only be wholly incomprehensible but, so as to thwart even the most dedicated of punters, boast no underlying logic whatsoever. Minimal player interaction. Keep him waiting for hours just to 'PRESS ANY KEY'. A big green box with lots of footballers on it. They all have one. Tacky adverts round the pitch carrying plugs for your other games. Disastrous artwork all over the place. Muscles where you never knew they existed. Free poster and badge that you wouldn't particularly want to stick anywhere (see artwork). A 'STOP THE TAPE' message halfway through loading. Meanwhile, you've dozed off and the tape runs on to the end.

THE FIRST FOOTIE GAME IN HISTORY A bit of a tie (almost), but by checking out all my back issues of YS, getting hold of various release dates, dismissing the really early stuff that's virtually unrecognisable as Speccy games as we know them today, and consulting with all the experts I could find, it has to be... Football Manager from Addictive! That's right, it's the one with mugshots of that cheery bearded bloke all over it (Kevin Toms actually. Ed). Originating in the days of long shorts and over-the-knee footie boots, it sold squillions of copies, mainly because it was released on everything from the ZX81 to the Teefal HY9000 De Luxe Deep Fat Fryer. We didn't stand a chance really. It was, of course, the first of those dreadful 'management' jobbies, in which you spend the whole time staring at lists of things. Written in 100% Basic, it featured some chronic 'action scenes' and a unique 'customising' feature. (In other words, you could break into the program and do all sorts of despicable things to it.) The punters loved it. As for the first action game, that's a bit harder. It was probably Artic's World Cup Football, the first of the little-people-running-around variety. Unfortunately though it was, to be honest, utterly, utterly terrible. The graphics especially were complete rubbish. It was so bad, in fact, that US Gold decided to use it as the basis for its renowned World Cup Carnival game. (Hurrah!) Far better is Matchday, which appeared soon after - the first proper, enjoyable footie action game.

ACE (Advanced Computer Entertainment)

Graphics 8/10

Audio 4/10

IQ Factor 7/10

Fun Factor 6/10

Ace Rating 535/1000

Phil South 535/1000

Gremlin replay a comic hero. The whole of Melchester Rovers has been kidnapped, and it is up to Roy Of The Rovers (who must have been polishing his Porsche or a starlet's bottom at the time, thus avoiding capture) to find them before the big match. This is the scenario for the first section of ROTR, a true-blue, pull-down-menu driven arcade adventure, which for some reason puts me in mind of Andy Capp. You wander around a map of Melchester (supplied with the game) and follow the slightly leaden clues until you do, or indeed don't (it doesn't seem to matter) find the lost team. Then you are asked to load the footy section of the game. The missing players are miraculously restored, and this is where the game's story falls down. If the Rovers lose the match, the developers can move in and build a block of flats. If they win, then the team can carry on to thrill the crowds and please the readers with their antics, and, who knows, maybe even earn a Fleetway comic annual all to themselves! The arcade adventure section is well implemented, for sure, but lacks real sparkle and any kind of incentive to complete the task in hand. The footy game is very difficult to control, and you often find yourself running in exactly the opposite direction from the way you'd like to be going. I thought the problem might be a duff joystick, but the game misbehaved with every one I tried, including the trusty Konix Navigator. So thumbs down all round, which is a bit of a shame as the idea had possibilities. Strolling around the streets looking for clues can be a challenge for some, I know, but to me this adventure's a little lacking in the kind of design points that make the task enjoyable. What it needs is a really cracking football game to act as an antidote. Unfortunately, it doesn't have one. Reviewer: Phil South RELEASE BOX C64/128, £9.99cs, £14.99dk, Out Now Spec 128, £7.99cs, Out Now Predicted Interest Curve 1 min: 0/100 1 hour: 85/100 1 day: 50/100 1 week: 50/100 1 month: 20/100 1 year: 10/100

Roy of the Spectrum - go find your mates and you can have a jolly ol' game of footy!

SPECTRUM VERSION The Spectrum version has the problem of being monochrome, which makes it hard to distinguish your side from the opposition.

Sinclair User

Graphics 50%

Sound 32%

Playability 55%

Lastability 29%

Overall 38%

Steve Mahoney 38%

Label: Gremlin Author: System Applied Technology Price: £7.99 Memory: 48K/128K Joystick: various Reviewer: Steve Mahony Here we go, here we go, here we gooo!!! So, Roy of the Rovers, the legendary comic book footballer, is here - courtesy of Gremlin, by way of destitute Piranha Software. We find Roy (screams from the fans) trying to find the other four members of the five-a-side football squad he's playing with. They have been kidnapped and are being held somewhere in Melchester, Roy's home town (Oh, purplease! - GT). If he doesn't rescue them within the time limit, he will have to play the match with the mates he has managed to save. A map of Melchester is given with the instructions, so it's just a case of checking around and following leads given by the various characters, such as Roy's mum (Barf). The graphics in this section are reasonable but are used in a very uninteresting way with dull looking buildings. But if you think the graphics are bad, think yourself lucky that you don't have to put up with the sound (YAWN) which consists of a sparse little tune on loading and not much else. After 2.3 milliseconds of playing, I decided I'd had enough of this because what with Afterburner, Robocop and the like, who wants to play this resurrection of nearly every walking around and exploring locations game ever written. So, not too impressed (as you might have guessed by now) I tried the other part. The second part is the aforementioned football game which has some serious faults. The footballer's graphics are the same graphics which were used to animate Roy in the first bit. Some are shaded to signify which team they belong to (as if it makes much difference, because the computer is really, really, really hard). At the end of all this searching and finding and looking and any other moving around and doing-bugger-all-type verbs and once you finally manage to beat the computer (highly unlikely), what happens? Eh? Come on? What? You get a scrolly congrats message and that's it! So, in the words of somebody bumbitingly famous, 'What you've got to ask yourself is... is it worth the dosh?'... Really, after some of the games that Gremmo have produced, such as Super Sports and the impressive Techocop, they really should be doing better. One point to mention, if you are keen enough on Roy to buy this, notice that when a goal is scored a great spine jellying roar goes up from the crowd - THERE IS NO CROWD. LOOK AT THE PICS. WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON? Thinking positively, you could buy this game for the worst, fartbaggiest enemy you have and send it to him/her for Christmas. Otherwise don't bother.

Your Sinclair

Graphics 7/10

Playability 6/10

Value For Money 7/10

Addictiveness 8/10

Overall 7/10

Marcus Berkmann 7/10

Gremlin £7.99 cassette/£12.99 disk Reviewer: Marcus Berkmann "The lads done great, Brian, the lads done great." It's odd, isn't it, the way managers speak an entirely different language to the rest of us. You and I would have said "the lads have done well" or "the lads did well" or "the lads were great" - and I know a couple of people who'd've said "the lads, they're well wicked, narmean?". But "the lads done great"? Leave it it out, Brian. The obvious explanation is the immense pressure these poor saps live under. I mean, look at them. Five matches without a win and they're off to the job centre, with only a sheepskin coat and a silly hairstyle to show for it all. But one man has survived where all the other managers have failed - Roy Race. Yup, Roy hasn't done badly, I reckon. 1000 years on, he's still player-manager of table-topping Melchester Rovers, and all without a change of hairstyle. First in Tiger, and latterly in his own comic, Roy of the Rovers has confronted every known managerial hazard, from crippling injuries to freak hailstorms, and he's still there. The man's a ruddy miracle. And now, thanks to Gremlin, he's been honoured yet further by becoming the hero of a computer game. Actually on Gremlin's recent form that's not up to much, but Roy Of The Rovers is a good deal better than the Gary Lineker titles. In fact there's quite a neat little game lurking in this unlikely package. The plot is as ludicrous as ever (has someone been reading Billy The Fish?). Melchester Rovers is to be taken over by city property developers, and Roy Race has organised a celebrity 5-a-side tournament to raise funds to stop them. But lo! his entire team has been kidnapped, and Roy must whiz around the streets of Melchester, find his team members and get back to the ground by 5 o'clock - or all is lost. Daft, eh? What this all leads to is a two-game package in which Roy first finds his team (or in my case doesn't) and then plays the celeb match. The first part is much the more interesting. The streets of Melchester are conveniently arranged into a giant square grid (there's a map in the game's packaging), so around you wander, looking for clues (ooowah) and talking to people as you meet them. By flipping the roads around 90° every time you turn a corner, the computer makes sure you're always travelling from left to right or vice versa. This can be confusing at first - but Gremlin tried this before with Deathwish III (less successfully, as the game needed faster reactions), and thanks to a useful compass you soon get used to it. As well as moving around you can also activate certain windows. Yes, it's impersonate-a-Macintosh time again, as windows pull down from the horizontal menu at the top to reveal all manner of options, including "chat" to anyone you happen to bump into or, even more bizarrely, "smile". But then that's like real life - grin at the wrong person and you'll find yourself beaten up for your troubles. The puzzles here are tricky and not easily solved, and the fact that you have a limited amount of time to do it means that when you get to play the football match, you do so initially with just one player - Roy Race. Galling though this is, it does in fact help you practise for future games, when with luck you'll finally get to rescue a player or two and have a little more help punting the pill past the celeb goalie. If the game is let down by anything, in fact, it's in the football department. Yes, I know, we've seen millions of these games now and none of them is a patch on Match Day 2, but the way everyone comes up with ever more tatty and unplayable versions of that classic is deeply disheartening. There's got to be another way of representing footie on the Spectrum. But that said, this one's not that bad a game of Speccy boot - the whole shebang wouldn't be worth playing if it were - but I wouldn't suggest you buy the game for that part alone. Control is tricky, it's all but impossible to tell the two teams apart, and it's a matter of the greatest fortune if you manage to score a goal. No, the attraction of the game is the way the two parts combine so neatly. In most of these multi-game packages, the various parts are entirely separate, but here how well you do in part two depends to a great extent on how well you did in part one. The programmers were System Applied Technology of Sheffield (crazy name, crazy guys) and they've done a good job. Final trivia note: You may have thought this game came out yonks ago. Well, it didn't, although Piranha originally had the licence and went on and on about it, advertising it, putting it on its release schedule, the works. When the company went down the tubes, the licence became free again, and Gremlin snapped it up. An impressive performance, eh, Roy? "The lads done great, Brian, the lads done great." Sigh.

Read it at Your Sinclair Rock'n'Roll Years

C&VG (Computer & Video Games)

Graphics 5/10

Sound 3/10

Playability 3/10

Value 2/10

Overall 41%

Tony Dillon 41%

MACHINES: C64, Spec, Ams SUPPLIER: Gremlin PRICE: VERSION TESTED: C64, Spec (To be read in the style of Norman Lovett). Oh dear. Boo hoo, 80% of the Melchester Rovers five-a-side team has been kidnapped. That's four of the five players, if you hadn't already guessed. Nobby, Spunky, Tossy and Veiny have all been abducted by some evil criminal mind, and it's all down to one man to save them - Roy of the Rovers. Yeah! Instead of going for the usual boring approach of trying to come up with a single decent game, Gremlin have quite originally gone for the rather odd approach of putting two very poor games together. Does it work well? Does it heck. The first of the two games is imaginatively entitled Roy: The Adventure. This is the full-blown exciting escapade as you guide Roy around the streets of Melchester, talking, smiling and fighting with the people he meets. The game is viewed as a side-on scroller, with roads cutting through the plane of vision, both into and out of the plane of the screen. These streets can be moved onto by moving Roy in the general direction of the intersection and pushing up or down to move into or out of the screen. A menu system is used to run the game in a method not unlike the GEM system used on the ST. A menu bar at the top of the screen has four choices, each of which can be selected via a certain key on the keyboard. Each bar brings up a different window, which does different things. Select the Extras option, and you can stop and chat or fight with anyone who may be standing near you, or, simply smile at them, shown by a large, Colgatey gleam around the general vicinity or Roy's mouth. Graphics aren't too bad for this section. The C64's graphics are far superior to the Spectrum's due to the good use of colour and reasonable sprite definition. The sound is limited to some spot effects and tunette here. and there. The second section is an appalling five-a-side football game which is just so bad, I couldn't play it for anymore than a few minutes. Correction. I couldn't play it for anymore than a few minutes. Correction. I couldn't play it. The graphics are pathetic, the gameplay is slow and frustratingly unresponsive. The controls are slack and the fun level is dangerously close to nonexistent. The ball never leaves the floor - even when the goalie kicks the ball out, it merely ends up as a gentle roll along the floor. Roy of the Rovers is a pathetic attempt at both an adventure and a football game. Stick to Microsoccer or Emlyn Hughes International Soccer if you're after something a little more footbally. As for representing the feel of the comic successfully, well, at least my finger won't go through the tape.

Not one of the all time footy greats.

Roy features this arcade adventure scene.

Roy is on the transfer list.

C64 SCORES Graphics: 6/10 Sound: 5/10 Playability: 3/10 Value: 2/10 Overall: 48%

UPDATE... C64 and Spectrum versions are on sale now. An Amsrtad version will shortly be available but there are no plans for an Atari ST or Amiga interpretation of the popular comic soccer hero. Shame.

C&VG (Computer & Video Games)

Graphics 2/10

Sound 1/10

Playability 2/10

Value 1/10

Fun 1/10

Total 7/50

Tony Dillon 7/50

FUNNY OLD GAME INNIT CECIL? Footballs have been kicked around computer screens for just about as long as the gaming habit has existed. 1988 saw more releases than ever before - Tony Dillon asks what is and what is not good computer football. Of all the simulations, authentic endorsements and plain old original attempts, there can't be any topic that comes as close to a games player's heart that our very own Soccer. Even in the very early days of paddles and mono displays, where the Grandstand home entertainment console reigned supreme with it's incredible 4-game selection football was one of them. Admittedly it was nothing more than computer tennis with double the number of bats, but it was still football. And it was the first. Since then, many have tried to recreate the feelings of running about on an open pitch, being buffeted by the wind, the cheers of the crowd and smells of the other players. What we at C+VG have tried to do is come up with a comprehensive guide to the more memorable ones, the best, the worst, the one with the nicest graphics, the one that you couldn't tell the difference between the ball and the players, or indeed the players from the pitch, or simply the one that we liked the most. Also, we've put our heads together and come up with a league table of all the football games around at the moment. Including the ones we didn't get to mention. So, here goes, straight into section one, which funnily enough is about. ARCADE FOOTBALL Of the three genre of football games (Arcade, Managerial and Diagnostic), the arcade is easily, judging by the sales, the most widely popular, though games like Football Manager still rank high up in the list of best selling games. There were many early attempts at football games way back in the dawn of programming history, when programming people were just finding their feet. Now defunct Artic, for example, released World Cup I and II, which both featured small matchstick men, slow gameplay and a very low computer skill level. Funnily enough, World Cup II was given a facelift (well, not really a facelift, more a snip-and-tuck around the chin) and was released by US Gold under the title World Cup Carnival to coincide with the World Cup happening at the time. It came packaged with lots of photographs, posters and other World Cup memorabilia. Nevertheless it flopped and went down in game history as one of the worst games ever, ranking up there with The Great Space Race itself. Probably the most successful of the early arcade football games was International Soccer on the Commodore 64. Originally only available on cartridge (now released on tape and disc by CRL), it featured large blocky graphics, crude animation and a tendency to crash quite a lot (well, mine did!). The funny thing is, even with todays high programming standards and the high level that consumers expect to find of today's software, it's still one of the best you can get on the 64. Except, of course, for a slightly altered version I saw a while ago, changed by the hands of our dear friend, Mr Gary 'Moose' Penn, who changed the players from their running state, and placed them all in wheelchairs, which is sick, and terrible (snigger), and not (cough, splurt) at all (ready to burst) funny (Ha ha ha). So, what else happened that shook the world of football gaming? Matchday did! Written by Jon Ritman, and Bernie Drummond, it was quite simply incredibly superior to anything that had appeared before it, on the Spectrum anyway. It featured large, well animated graphics, a goalkeeper that could dive and a chance to play through a knockout championship to win the FA Cup, as well as simultaneous two players to boot. Not long after that came Matchday II, which had all the above and then some, such as jumping headers, a league facility with a code entry system, and improved graphics, not to mention DSS. What's DSS? The Diamond Deflection System. What this does is work out what direction the ball's going to travel in when it hits off another player, with the player's speed and direction brought into account. Between these two came the game that should have been a lot better and, judging by its features, it was. Unfortunately, it wasn't. Super Soccer included things like sliding tackles, enemy levels and extra training, but was so bug-ridden and unplayable that it flopped. One major bug was the energy thing. If you played a long game, the players would run out of energy quite quickly. What they would finally end up doing was jog around the pitch at a snail's pace, then if you tried to do a sliding tackle, they wouldn't get up again, so basically 80 minutes into the game, the pitch would be littered with dead players. Both the Nintendo and Sega have their own soccer games, Nintendo's is called Soccer, and is quite playable and has several levels of play. It also has a two-player option, but suffers from slightly sluggish joycard response. That withstanding, it's still a lot better than you can buy on most home computers. Sega's World Soccer is one of C+VG's all-time favourite games, and can be held responsible for many hours of lost work time - particularly the case with Gary Williams, the Ads Manager. Unlike him, though, the game is absolutely brilliant and fully captures the spirit of a big game, with the players able to do overhead kicks, banana shots and slide tackles. It's a shame that it's only available on the Sega, as it's the best soccer game on any home system. Up until recently, games have been displayed in semi forced perspective 3D, which works really well but often makes aiming for the goal difficult. Now a new trend is emerging: the overhead viewpoint. Games like European 5-a-Side and Supercup Football let you view the action from above, which gives a much more accurate look at the action, with the size of the ball increasing and decreasing to denote hoots skyward. Easily the best, however, is the new one from Microprose/Sensible Software. It's smooth, fast, very playable and extremely polished and scored 95% in the last issue. It's menu system is incredible, and the game comes a very, very close second to World Soccer - it's easily the greatest football game available for home computers. But these are mere highlights of all the arcade football games around at the moment. Check out the league table for the full C+VG report. Now, let's move onto the next section, which by some staggering coincidence happens to be about. MANAGERIAL FOOTBALL Moving completely away from games that require fast reactions and an eye of an eagle, and onto the slower, more thoughtful games that are around the managerial. Typically: in a managerial game you take the role of the manager/secretary/accountant of your chosen team and have to make all the right decisions with the ultimate aim of taking your team to the top of their league and winning the FA Cup/World Cup/Nations Cup/whatever. Of all the ones I've seen, rather than mention games that stand out, I'm going to talk about the companies involved. First is Kevin Toms' company, Addictive. They released the first successful managerial game way back in, oh, well it was a while ago. It was then hailed as the best football game ever (not much of claim; check out the opposition at the time!) and was pretty simplistic. Written in 100% basic, it consisted of a series of screens with a choice on some of them. After cycling through them, you get a few highlights of the match you just played, with matchstick men and beepy sound effects. Though not much by today's standards, it still has to get a mention for being the original. I wish I could say the same for it's successor, FM2. The only difference between them were screen redesign and better graphics on the game highlights. A shame really, considering what could have been done. One company that I have to mention are D+H games, a company almost solely devoted to managerial games, especially football ones. Though none of their games require huge amounts of thought, feature no graphics, have a tendency to be slow and are generally small, there is still an edge of the seat feeling when playing a match as minute by minute it updates the score. Probably their most famous one is Football Director, What a lot of people don't know is that Football Director is only part of a series. As well as the usual Football Director II, which boasts nicer screens and faster gameplay (except on the +3, which is six times slower than any other version), there's a two-player Super League, which is identical to Football Director except that it boasts two-player simultaneous action, and International Manager, which is Football Director set in the topsy turvy world of international football. The last company I have to mention is the company that has recently written the best ever managerial game, Goliath Games. Headed by Doug Mathews, of ex-Scanatron fame, Track Suit Manager was the company's first release, and was well-received by everyone and featured all the teams in the World Cup, and all the players in all the teams (around 700 in all) as well as accurate statistics on all of them, a revolutionary ,match commentary system that gives you a continuous flow of text telling you what's happening on the turf. All this would normally cost speed, but in this case it doesn't. The speed of the game is fully adjustable via the joystick, from the full 45 minutes a half, right down to eight seconds a half. The Spectrum version is a bit slower than the Commodore version, and boasts a masterful piece of compaction. All the data just fits, and looking at the statistics I've been given, there were two bytes left at the end of it. The funny thing is there were two spelling mistakes, "Substitute" and the other one escapes me for the moment. The point I am two letters missing altogether, so if those letters were included, there would be no room left at all. I can't talk about managerial games, though, without mentioning the worst: Soccer Boss. Soccer Box is not a very good game. In fact, it's very bad. It boasts amazingly s-l-o-w gameplay, unresponsive controls and is sooo easy. Needless to say, it's still riding high in the budget software charts. Makes you think, doesn't it? But of course, there are many others. This is just the cream of the crop and we simply haven't the space to re-review all the old games, for the simple reason that there are so many of them. We came up with over 30! Plus there are lots of pools prediction things and record filers and lots of other serious gimmicks that can't be classed as games. We leave you now with the league tables. We've done two because it just isn't fair to class arcade games alongside strategy games. If you've written a football game that you think is any good, or you know of one that isn't mentioned here and you think it should be, then why not drop a line to C+VG. Even if it doesn't get reviewed in the mag, we'll still get back to you and let you know what I think of it. Please include an S.A.E. if you want the tapes returned. FOOTBALL DEATURE - LEAGUE TABLE 1 - STRATEGY Title: Tracksuit Manager Home Ground: Goliath Games Realism: 9/10 Depth: 8/10 Speed: 9/10 Visuals: 7/10 Fun: 8/10 Tot: 41/10 Title: Brain Clough's FF Home Ground: CDS Realism: 6/10 Depth: 8/10 Speed: 8/10 Visuals: 2/10 Fun: 10/10 Tot: 34/10 Title: Football Director 2 Home Ground: D+H Games Realism: 4/10 Depth: 6/10 Speed: 6/10 Visuals: 5/10 Fun: 8/10 Tot: 29/10 Title: The Double Home Ground: Scanatron Realism: 8/10 Depth: 6/10 Speed: 3/10 Visuals: 3/10 Fun: 6/10 Tot: 28/10 Title: Football Director Home Ground: D+H Games Realism: 4/10 Depth: 3/10 Speed: 3/10 Visuals: 4/10 Fun: 7/10 Tot: 21/10 Title: 2 Player Super L. Home Ground: D+H Games Realism: 4/10 Depth: 3/10 Speed: 2/10 Visuals: 3/10 Fun: 8/10 Tot: 20/10 Title: Int. Manager Home Ground: D+H Games Realism: 5/10 Depth: 3/10 Speed: 3/10 Visuals: 3/10 Fun: 5/10 Tot: 19/10 Title: Football Manager Home Ground: Addictive Realism: 2/10 Depth: 1/10 Speed: 3/10 Visuals: 3/10 Fun: 5/10 Tot: 14/10 Title: Football Manager 2 Home Ground: Addictive Realism: 2/10 Depth: 2/10 Speed: 2/10 Visuals: 5/10 Fun: 3/10 Tot: 14/10 Title: On The Bench Home Ground: Cult Realism: 3/10 Depth: 2/10 Speed: 1/10 Visuals: 2/10 Fun: 3/10 Tot: 11/10 Title: Soccer Boss Home Ground: Alternative Realism: 2/10 Depth: 1/10 Speed: 1/10 Visuals: 2/10 Fun: 1/10 Tot: 7/10 All the marks are corresponding to the best version of that game. The +3 version of Football Director 2, is six times slower than any other version, so it would be unfair to review that version. FOOTBALL FEATURE - LEAGUE TABLE 2 - ARCADE Title: Sega Soccer Home Ground: Sega Graphics: 9/10 Sound: 8/10 Playability: 8/10 Value: 8/10 Fun: 9/10 Tot: 42/10 Title: MicroSoccer Home Ground: Microprose Graphics: 9/10 Sound: 7/10 Playability: 8/10 Value: 8/10 Fun: 7/10 Tot: 39/10 Title: Match Day 2 Home Ground: Ocean Graphics: 8/10 Sound: 6/10 Playability: 8/10 Value: 7/10 Fun: 8/10 Tot: 37/10 Title: International Soc. Home Ground: CRL Graphics: 5/10 Sound: 4/10 Playability: 9/10 Value: 9/10 Fun: 8/10 Tot: 35/10 Title: Match Day Home Ground: Ocean Graphics: 7/10 Sound: 4/10 Playability: 7/10 Value: 6/10 Fun: 6/10 Tot: 30/10 Title: European 5-a-side Home Ground: Silverbird Graphics: 6/10 Sound: 6/10 Playability: 5/10 Value: 8/10 Fun: 4/10 Tot: 29/10 Title: Gary Lineker's SS Home Ground: Gremlin Graphics: 6/10 Sound: 4/10 Playability: 6/10 Value: 5/10 Fun: 5/10 Tot: 26/10 Title: Peter Beardsley's Home Ground: Grandslam Graphics: 6/10 Sound: 4/10 Playability: 6/10 Value: 5/10 Fun: 5/10 Tot: 22/10 Title: Supercup Football Home Ground: Silverbird Graphics: 3/10 Sound: 2/10 Playability: 4/10 Value: 6/10 Fun: 4/10 Tot: 19/10 Title: Super Soccer Home Ground: Imagine Graphics: 5/10 Sound: 3/10 Playability: 3/10 Value: 2/10 Fun: 3/10 Tot: 16/10 Title: Roy of the Rovers Home Ground: Gremlin Graphics: 2/10 Sound: 1/10 Playability: 2/10 Value: 1/10 Fun: 1/10 Tot: 7/10 Title: World Cup Carn' Home Ground: US Gold Graphics: 1/10 Sound: 1/10 Playability: 1/10 Value: 1/10 Fun: 1/10 Tot: 5/10

Computer football - second only in popularity to computer Ninjas.

European Five-A-Side - budget footy smash.

Gary Linekar failed to score.

Microprose Soccer - is the one to watch,

Sega Soccer - C+VG's all time fave footy game.

Crash

Presentation 50%

Graphics 45%

Playability 45%

Addictive Qualities 44%

Overall 47%

Mark Caswell 55%

Nick Roberts 33%

Phil King 53%

Can Roy save the day? Producer: Gremlin Graphics Football Tickets: £7.99 cass, £12.99 disk Author: System Applied Technology Crikey, Melchester Rovers are REALLY in trouble this time. The whole team (except Roy of course!) has been kidnapped and now greedy property developers want to buy up the Rovers'sacred ground - no doubt to build another hypermarket! Only one person can save the club - you guessed it, Roy of the Rovers (blow the bugles, bang the drums, shake your rattles?!). Doing a fair impression of a private eye Roy dons his mac and sets off in search of his missing team mates (they probably buggered off down the pub!). The search for the team forms the main arcade adventure section of the game, but there is also a five-a-side footy game (which can be played on its own). In the arcade adventure four menus are used to control Roy's actions, which include chatting to other characters and fighting. He can also pick up and manipulate objects to aid him in his dangerous quest. These include a pair of sunglasses to make him look so-o-o-o cool (just like the pizza man himself!?!). Naturally if he succeeds in his quest then there's a prompt to load in the five-a-side game for a clash with some local rivals. (Are you sure he's successful? I thought there were eleven in a team - Ed.) Unfortunately neither of the two sections is much cop. The main adventure has some easy-to- use menus, but there's a lack of any real interaction between characters. Graphics are colourful, but also very blocky, something which also mars the football game itself, where wobbly sprites jitter around a dull pitch. In addition the controls are unresponsive. Completely lacking any of the 'big match' atmosphere of the famous comic strip - this is another disappointing licence-based game. PHIL 53% THE ESSENTIALS Joysticks: Kempston, Sinclair Graphics: colourful enough, but blocky all the same Sound: not a lot to get worked up about Options: play the full game or just the match itself

TACKLING THE PROBLEMS Go to your Mum's house to find the sunglasses and torch. Chat to the characters you meet, they might tell you soemthing useful. Don't hang around or you'll run out of time. Wear those shades to give you some street cred - well you want to look cool, don't you?!