Striker Manager

Your Sinclair

Overall 60%

James Leach 60%

THE YS FOOTBALL Yes, it's Autumn, the time of year when people go out into the cold to play football. What a noble game it is, what with refs, subs and Desmond Lynam. We ordered JAMES LEACH to go and play four recent £3.99 releases from D&H Games. We also invited wacky TV footballing funsters, Saint and Greavsie to comment on the games (just to add that souppon of expert opinion). STRIKER MANAGER Hmm. You actually takes part in the games with this one. It sets you up as a striker, then gets you running as hard as your little legs can, erm, run to get you training for the season. You actually get to see the 'goalmouth action' as well, in a kind of 3D view. The graphics are a bit slow, but it isn't as bad as having your knees pierced with a child's plastic for. (How do you know? Plastic forks can be very painful, actually! Ed). They've also managed to change the character set too which add, erm, something to the feel of the game. Overall, Striker Manager is pretty fast (as these things go), it's got graphics and you can actually score goals. It's also pretty easy to get to the first division, too. Greavsie says: D'you know what? I've got a cast-iron Qualcast lawnmower that I haven't used since 1971? It works and everything, I just haven't used it! Saint says: Ha ha ha. Oh, Greavsie, you crack me up.

Yes, it's spot-the-ball time. I reckon it's up the goalie's jumper.

Crash

Presentation 25%

Graphics 9%

Sound N/A

Playability 25%

Addictivity 10%

Overall 25%

Will Evans 25%

Cult Software £3.99 Cult's latest of many football simulations' has numerous features (none of them are new, however), such as load/save game, pick your nationality and change the 128 other team's names. An 'interlude' follows while the computer puts all that together. Financial information is provides too, which I found useless. At last, into the main game menu, from which you can pick your team, coach 'em, train 'em, tell 'em how to play, buy/sell players (free transfer actually), view your opponent's record and gaze upon the division table. You can also view a marksman table and a list of offers but both curiously empty. Once you have used all these features - a tedious process - you can look forward to an action-packed, nail-biting match. Sadly not. The 'match' consists of messages flashing onto the screen: 'your team attacking', 'your team defending' and 'your team midfield' and identical messages for the other side. Every so often it says 'The other team are shooting' and you get to see a tiny little sprite kick a football at your goal. If you're (very) lucky you might get to shoot, using the 'S' key to kick the ball when the little angle meter looks good. Other than these penalty-type shooting scenes you can't see the game in progress and have no control over it. This hardly makes the game interesting. On the whole, a tedious game lacking anything to keep you playing beyond your first go.

Decisions, decisions, ho hum!

Has the goalie laid an egg or has someone scored? Hurrah it's a goal.