Beyond Belief
£3.99

Why do they bother? if you've seen one footy management game you've seen 'em all! it wouldn't be so bed if Jimmy's Super League added something new to the genre, but it's just a straightforward rehash of old ideas - and not a particularly good one at that.

Upon loading, quelle surprise, pick your team. The screen takes ages to update as you cycle through endless player files and you're only allowed to select eleven men - in case of injury, tough luck 'cos you haven't got a sub! The files are well set out (a nice mugshot of each player) but the colours are hideous - they look like the demented offerings of a frustrated art student.

When you've selected your team it's on to the game. There's no animated representation of the match whatsoever - you just sit watching the clock and reading the match commentary. Aaarrggghhh! The only thing that moves is the commentator's mouth!

All the usual features are here, such as transfers, injuries, morale etc, presented through Icon-driven screens and menus. The graphics are pretty awful, though, and the whole thing's so slow it made me want to throw the tape at Lucy in frustration (Ian 'Stain' Osborne's cruising for a bruising, methinks - Ed).

Nicko gave i's predecessor, Jimmy's Soccer Manager, 30% in Issue 96 and Super League is basically an attempt to sell the same game twice. Dodgy graphics, dull gameplay and hellishly slow running speed make it a real stinker. And who the hell's Jimmy, anyway?!

Beyond Belief
£3.99 cass
Reviewer: James Leach

So there were these two nuns, and one says to the other, "Do you believe in life insurance?" And the other one says...oh, sorry, have we started doing the review now? Erm, I'll tell you the rest of the joke later, Hutch.

Apologies for that, readers. You joined us a little early. Anyway (sounds of paper shuffling), let's get on. Jimmy's Super League, yes indeed. This is another management sim from the Beyond Belief stable. In fact it was programmed behind that pile of dimly-lit straw next to the horse feed.

You've got a team of eleven strapping young feller-me-lads raring to go and play a tough game of ninety minutes, two halves and a spell in the sin bin.

Everything is controlled from a main office with a PC on the desk, a phone and a filing cabinet. You simply move the cursor onto the telephone or computer or whatever and you can go for a quick training session with the lads, play the game, look at very long lists of names and numbers and so on. There's masses of highly exciting detail on each bod, even down to what they had for breakfast. This is actually very important to a player's mental and physical agility, and can mean the difference between them being sick on the pitch or not.

All this detail is fine and groovy, and it adds a lot of atmosphere to a pretty boring game. But this doesn't hide the fact that it's still just an okayish footie management sim, and all you really need to do is select eleven players. Amongst the list of names you'll find that of the internationally famous W Scribo - art critic, deep sea diver, wok assembler and part-time pipe cleaner. Where would Beyond Belief be without him, eh?

The best bit is the game itself. You get both a commentary and an edited goal-mouth graphical action sequence. A David Coleman-type chap sits and watches each game carefully, making suitable comments in a scrolly line box. like "Nobel prizewinner W Scribo has the ball. He passes to W Scribo, famous author who gets into position and shoots. But it's a great save by the Scribo twins (both minor Norse gods, of course) in goal!"

A side-on view of the goal shows some enterprising dude rushing on (it's usually our fave, Sir W of Scribo MBE) to have a shot. You can watch with bated breath as he whacks the ball at the net. If the goalie is alert, he can get in the way, otherwise it's a classic goal of the sort which will crop up on A Question Of Sport in years to come.

What Super League lacks, of course, is an action packed 90 minutes of full-screen on-pitch action. The only way you can get an idea of what's going on is to read what the commentator is saying. It's like an extremely weird cross between listening to the radio and watching telly.

The only other fault of Super League is that it's as slow as almost every other management sim. You keep wondering whether your Speccy has crashed. I know that the computer is actually making lots of lovely calculations while you're watching a blank screen, but couldn't they display a little animation or show us the latest stock and share prices or something? Even Ceefax would be more interesting than a screen with the words 'Please Wait' on them.

So, in conclusion, Jimmy's Super League is proof that management sims are getting better. Most people still prefer a shoot-'em-up, but mannie sims (as they're known in the biz) have reached new heights, it would seem.

Beyond Belief
£3.99
0933 57998
Reviewer: Jon Pillar

We originally saw this 'un way back in the mists of time (issue 75 actually), when James gave it the once-over and proclaimed it worthy of 58%. Since then, the gameplay's been tweaked here and there, with the player intelligence routines falling prey to a bit o' rewriting and the various options having a mite more user-friendliness built into them. So we thought we'd take another look at it.

As usual, you're the manager of a struggling club and have to climb to the top etc etc etc, and also as usual (well, these days anyway) the main screen is a whizz-your- pointer-around-the-cluttered-desk thang. Slight humour is introduced with the team, who all have strange names and apparently are all based on real-life people. (Yes. W Scribo makes his obligatory appearance here as well.)

So, what's Jimmy's Version 2.0 like then? For a start, more like Jimmy's 1.1 - the changes aren't spectacular, and just serve to make the game a little more rounded and less pernickety. If you've got the first version, there's no point buying this one, but if Jimmy's Super League isn't yet gracing your shelves, pop out and swap your pocket money for it. Nowhere near the giddy heights of all-time fave Tracksuit Manager, but pretty good fun all the same.