FOOTBALL MANAGER By: Addictive Games Download: footman.zip Some of the best selling games at the moment are soccer management sims. Football Manager (clever name) was the first game of it's kind which I ever played. At the time many budding soccer bosses were hooked on this little gem. Could they do better than the coach of their favourite team?

In the game you are put in charge of a football team of your choice. You might as well pick whoever your favourite side is because regardless of who you pick you start in Division Four. The aim of the game is to take the team to the top (Division One as this was made before the Premiership existed) and win the league and cup. The game never ends, you just play season after season trying to do your best. Once you master the game you can increase the difficulty so the life span of the title is impressive.

One thing that will strike whoever plays this now is how outdated the game data is. This is understandable as the game was released in 1984. Thankfully you get the option of editing teams and players. If you cannot stand seeing the likes of Ian Rush and teams which no longer are in the football league just go on and rename those players and teams.

Every week you start off staring at the main menu were you have a few options to select from. If you for example are in need of extra funds you can apply for a loan, just watch out for the interest you'll have to pay. You can also sell a player if you want to reduce your squad size (which happens as sixteen is the maximum amount of players you can have.) Just pick a player and a team will bid on him. You can either accept or refuse the offer but be careful as players who you reject bids on mysteriously get injured. Another option you can select is to view your score. Managers are given a rating out of one hundred.

When your happy with all that you can move onto playing a match. You'll be presented with a screen which rates your team and opponents on energy, morale, defence, midfield and attack. These ratings can be altered by changing your lineup of players. Each player has a playing position, rating from one to five and energy level from one to twenty. The only thing you cannot change directly is morale which varies depending on if you won your last match or lost it.

Once you have picked a team you can run the match. All you can do is hope that what you have selected will lead to a win. Once the game has kicked off you cannot do anything to influence the result of the game (such as make substitutions.) All you get to view are some match highlights. The game manual boasted 3d graphics although what you get is a bunch of stick men kicking a dot about. The players shoot the ball terribly and the keepers couldn't catch a cold. It's not as bad as it sounds though. These highlights are short and better than having to watch an entire match which many games do. An entire match is all well and good the first time you play, but it gets boring after a few plays.

When the match is over you get to view the other match results and league table. A transfer listed player will appear for you to bid on after every game too. If you want him you can type in a bid for the player who can either accept and join your team or refuse (which makes his price go up.) That pretty much covers the game. That cycle continues until the season ends and a new one begins.

Football Manager will be a great trip down memory lane for people who played it when it originally came out. Anyone else will probably be put off by such a simple BASIC game. It fails to include many features which modern management games include as a standard and can get very repetitive.

Rating: 60%