World Cup Carnival

C&VG (Computer & Video Games)

Graphics 1/10

Sound 1/10

Playability 1/10

Value 1/10

Fun 1/10

Total 5/50

Tony Dillon 5/50

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.

Your Sinclair

Graphics 3/10

Playability 4/10

Value For Money 2/10

Addictiveness 4/10

Overall 3/10

Rachael Smith 3/10

US Gold £9.95 Reviewer: Rachael Smith How kind of the Ed to let me, an ignorant girly, review this football program. After all, I'd never even realised that the World Cup is a five-a-side contest. Then again, maybe things were different in the 1984 World Cup - the copyright date you'll find on the packaging if you look very, very hard. The holes in this game are so wide you could drive an Artic through them. In fact this is an Artic game that wasn't even highly praised in its own day, enhanced and re-released. Load it up and you'll find that despite the practice mode, which has no practical link at all to the soccer simulation, at heart this is still the same mediocre game it always was, and that's still available, unenhanced, both at a budget price and as part of a compilation! Alternatively there's always Ocean's far superior Match Day. Practice consists of Taking and Saving Penalties and Ball Control. These are Daley Thompson type games with spartan graphics and slight control problems. Somehow it decided that I needed more practice and I was forced to reload because I couldn't break out of a purgatory of Penalty Kicks. Training allows a one or two player single game while World Cup commits you to becoming Bulgaria, Outer Mongolia or A.N. Other and playing the full competition. Either way you'll discover a peril that makes my blood run cold. One team wears white, with the player in possession turning pale blue, This means that against a green pitch they are almost invisible! How can our lads in Brazil stand up to these sneaky tactics? And it's infectious; as players come into contact they defect to the other team's colour! I suppose that the Ed thought I might like the wealth of posters, stickers and wallcharts and even a snazzy sew-on patch for my footballer-spotters anorak... but I didn't! Maybe US Gold should go in for the souvenir market full time!

Read it at Your Sinclair Rock'n'Roll Years

Crash

Use of Computer 32%

Graphics 25%

Playability 19%

Getting Started 30%

Addictive Qualities 21%

Value For Money 25%

Overall 26%

Unknown

Unknown

Unknown

Producer: US Gold Retail Price: £9.95 Author: AS Designs The release of Wold Cup Carnival coincides nicely with this year's Mexican extravaganza. Unlike the real thing, this game is played by two players who compete against each other, or by one player against the computer. The program also allows up to nine players to select teams from a list of 24 World Cup candidates. The game begins with the players running out onto the field. About one third of the pitch is on screen at any one time, scrolling sideways as the players run down towards the goal. You only have control over the player nearest the ball, and he changes colour slightly when in possession of the ball. Kick offs and goal saves are all automatically executed. The score is displayed at the top of the screen along with a time limit. The game is played over 90 minutes, but this isn't real time - each game actually takes about three minutes to complete with an allowance for extra time at the end. Apart from the main match there is also a practice mode where you can practice ball control, penalty shooting and saving. There is also a practice match option so you can have a dummy run before going on to the real thing. The complete package includes all sorts of World Cup memorabilia such as a wall chart with stickers to plot the progress of the real thing this summer, and a sew-on badge. There is no strategy involved in World Cup Carnival and players cannot be allocated to positions according to their particular skills - the computer sorts all that out, so the only thing you have to worry about is controlling the players on the pitch and trying to score goals. COMMENTS Control keys: Player one: 1 up, Q down, S right, A left, bottom row to kick; Player two: 0 up, O down, K right, J left, bottom row to fire. P pause, H instructions Joystick: Kempston, Cursor Keyboard play: okay Use of colour: severe clashes at times Graphics: far from 'state of the art' Sound: pardon? Skill levels: one Screens: scrolling window for match, plus penalty screens

Algeria play Scotland on the screen of WORLD CUP CARNIVAL. Scotland are doing rather better on screen than they are for real...

Sinclair User

Overall 1/5

Clare Edgeley 1/5

WORLD CUP FIFA! Clare Edgeley knocks out US Gold's latest in the first round. Label: US Gold Author: A S Designs Price: £9.95 Memory: 48K Joystick: Various Reviewer: Clare Edgeley With football madness rising to fever pitch, US Gold has launched World Cup Carnival - the official world cup game. And it's awful. Bleep. Action. And Robson flickers wildly up the pitch, dribbling the ball before him. A fumbling pass and he's intercepted. But by whom? Which team? The game suffers from excruciating colour clash. Where the ball once was is now a large squiggly blob of cyan and white. Eventually it turns into Hoddle - cyan because he's controlling the ball, Pasarella - black for the opposing team, and Lineker - white and representing your team. When those three colours get together definition flies out of the window and identification is impossible. The best you can do is twiddle your joystick and hope the mess will sort itself out. On they dribble. World Cup Carnival is played as a five-aside. It's just as well really because the pitch is minute. In fact the football part of World Cup Carnival is no more and no less than Artic's ancient World Cup - a game which did well enough in its time - almost two years ago - but compared with current techniques in programming the graphics and scrolling routines are straight out of the ark. This is mutton dressed as lamb. The mutton being Artic's original and the lamb being a few frills US Gold has added to persuade you you're getting your money's worth. There are three new practice modes which, in my opinion, are more exciting than the game. Taking and saving penalties, practising ball control and a training mode. Taking a penalty is played in Daley's Decathlon style - to gain speed while running up to the ball, pump your joystick back and forth rapidly. Then press fire and tilt the joystick in the direction the ball is to travel. It's very difficult getting past the goalie who seems to have ESP. The graphics are better than the game proper and the simulation of running is quite realistic. Almost average anyway. Saving penalties is tedious. Once your opponent has kicked the ball you dive in one of seven directions to save it. Ball control is a little competition to see how long you can keep the ball in the air by a variety of kicks and headers and is very boring. The training mode takes you back to Artic's original graphics and is a total let down. Once I'd tidied up on my footie skills I decided to put them into practise. I anticipated being almost enthusiastic, I particularly wanted to test the penalty practise mode. Accordingly, I tried barging, tripping, kicking, but to no avail. Goal kicks were the only result meaning that all those semi-exciting practise modes are a complete waste of time. You'll get more excitement out of watching the World Cup on TV than in wasting your time with this hurriedly cobbled together mish-mash of a game. And the posters, stickers, charts and badge which comes with the package in no way make up for the game's obvious shortcomings. Incidentally, the Artic original is currently being sold to the trade at 65p so it should be out by now at budget prices.

Over the page - Sinclair User's selection of the top three micro football games.

Part of the promotional dressing up - a map of the world cup cities.

Play penailties with bigger sprites but watch for the goalie with ESP.

See the tiny stick insects make their flickery way toward the goal. The Blue figure means you're in control.