Producer: Addictive Games, 48K
£6.95
Author: Kevin Toms

Universally agreed as one of the best of Spectrum games of any type. This is as much strategy as simulation as you choose a team from 64 on offer, and try to work your way up from Division four to win the FA Cup. The background to the game is quite realistic, with players losing strength value and gaining it by resting a match, morale worsening with lost matches, declining crowds and resulting loss of gate money, and all the technical and strategic problems of a club manager. Having selected your team, studied the opponent's dossier, you can sit back and watch the fully animated, edited highlights of the match! An amazingly engrossing game with seven levels of play and highly recommended.

Producer: Addictive Games, 48K
£6.95
Author: Kevin Toms

Universally agreed as one of the best of Spectrum games of any type. This is as much strategy as simulation as you choose a team from 64 on offer, and try to work your way up from Division four to win the FA Cup. The background to the game is quite realistic, with players losing strength value and gaining it by resting a match, morale worsening with lost matches, declining crowds and resulting loss of gate money, and all the technical and strategic problems of a club manager. Having selected your team, studied the opponent's dossier, you can sit back and watch the fully animated, edited highlights of the match! An amazingly engrossing game with seven levels of play and highly recommended.

Producer: Addictive Games, 48K
£6.95
Author: Kevin Toms

Universally agreed as one of the best of Spectrum games of any type. This is as much strategy as simulation as you choose a team from 64 on offer, and try to work your way up from Division four to win the FA Cup. The background to the game is quite realistic, with players losing strength value and gaining it by resting a match, morale worsening with lost matches, declining crowds and resulting loss of gate money, and all the technical and strategic problems of a club manager. Having selected your team, studied the opponent's dossier, you can sit back and watch the fully animated, edited highlights of the match! An amazingly engrossing game with seven levels of play and highly recommended.

SOFTWARE FOR THE SPECTRUM SPORTSMAN

John Gilbert goes for gold in a bid to find the best computer sports simulations.

OLYMPIMANIA
Memory: 48K
Price: £6

OLYMPICS
Memory: 48K
Price: £6.95

WORLDCUP FOOTBALL
Memory: 48K
Price: £6.95

FOOTBALL MANAGER
Memory: 48K
Price: £6.95

UNITED
Memory: 48K
Price: £6

TROON
Memory: 48K
Price: £6.95

NEW BIRKDALE
Memory: 48K
Price: £6.95

ROYAL BIRKDALE
Memory: 48K
Price: £5.90

SUPER SOCCER
Memory: 48K
Price: £7

SUPER-LEAGUE
Memory: 48K
Price: £6.50

ASHES
Memory: 48K
Price: £1.99

CRICKET CAPTAIN
Memory: 48K
Price: £4.95

HOWZAT
Memory: 48K
Price: £6.95

TEST MATCH
Memory: 48K
Price: £5.95

GOLF
Memory: 16K
Price: £5.95

Summer is here, or so we are told by the weathermen, and instead of spending hours in front of a television set watching the Olympics or a Test match, why not spend hours creating your own little piece of history with one of the Spectrum sports packages on the market?

The Olympic Games have always brought with them a mass of souvenirs, ranging from flags to cuddly toys. This year is the same but there is an added dimension as computer software companies have tried to cash in with high-pressure selling of their sports programs, including ones which simulate Olympic events.

Automata, of Pimania fame, has a spoof version of the Games with the Pi-man working his way to gold in five events. The events include the Pi-Jump, Alpi-Skiing, Steepi-Chase, the Pitathlon, and the Butter-Pi, which is the swimming contest.

Each contest is animated smoothly and the graphics are detailed down to the last member of the crowd. After every contest has been lost or won the awards are given on the familiar three-position pedestal. If the Pi-man wins he takes a bow but if he loses he runs round the stadium shaking his fist at the crowd. Pi-man may have learned to be an athlete but he is certainly no sportsman.

Olympimania, being from Automata, is a joke but should provide the usual hours of fun if you can suffer the inane humour of the Pi-man. You might also like to try the experience of listening to the soundtrack of the Pi-Land International Anthem on the reverse side of the cassette.

The game should also appeal to people who find the real Olympics dull but if you take a more serious interest you will want to run Olympics, which is another spin-off from CRL. The program includes 14 events and is LOADed in two 48K parts.

Side one of the cassette includes events such long jump, discus, shot putt and javelin. The other side contains six events which are held outside the stadium. They include cycling, swimming, canoeing and yachting. A marathon has also been included, run in five sections, each part between the other events.

In the standard game you will take the part of the British team. The computer will challenge the might of three other teams consisting of the United States, the Soviet Union and the Rest of the World - this might be the only opportunity you have to see the Soviet Union compete in the Games.

Once you have been through the first half of the Games the medals your team has won will be added to the score you accumulate in the second half. Unfortunately, only gold medals are awarded and you receive no points for being second or third. That detracts from authenticity as the Olympics are not the same without silver and bronze.

The graphics which show the events taking place are not so good as those of Olympimania but the ways in which the athletes compete in terms of skill and energy levels have been well thought out. Sufficient realism has been incorporated into the program that athletes will start to slow during the events if you over-stretch their limits.

The games are written in Basic with a corresponding slowness in the speed of graphics and the way in which results are calculated.

Olympics will interest fans who buy anything to do with the Games but will disappoint others who are looking for good sporting software.

The World Cup is to football enthusiasts what the Olympics is to athletics fans. Artic Computing has decided to produce its own World Cup Football for the Spectrum two years early.

You take the part of one of the teams playing in the cup and take it through a series of games to reach the final. Each game has the usual time-scale, including injury time if necessary, but the time factor is scaled-down so that each game takes about five minutes to play.

The graphics representation of play shows part of the field and the life-like actions of the players. The players even return to the dressing rooms at half-time.

Your control is limited to the footballer who is nearest to the ball in your team. That player will light up when in possession of the ball.

World Cup Football can be played at nine levels and there are 40 teams in contention. The game is addictive and should even be of interest to people who know nothing about football.

United, from CCS, on the other hand is a poor relation of the Addictive Games Football Manager and has none of the thrills of the Artic game. The four league tables are there, you can pick your team, and you can spy on the other teams to find their weak spots. The only people who will like it, however, are those who like looking at tables of figures, as the graphics displayed when games are taking place are appalling, having a green background with little pin-men making a brave effort to keep contact with the ball.

United is so uninteresting that it cannot be recommended, even to beginners. If you want a good game buy Football Manager, which is still the best value for money.

Super Soccer is much the same as United. It is poorly-presented, slow, and we also had difficulty in LOADing our copy, which could point to the use of low-quality cassettes for reproduction.

Winters is a small company which exists solely because of its range of sports programs. Super Soccer is not one of its better efforts, which is a pity, as some thought appears to have been put into the game. It can be obtained from Winters Ltd, 24 Swannington Close, Cantley, Doncaster, South Yorkshire DN4 6UA.

Super-League, for the 48K Spectrum, is from Cross Software and, thankfully, different from the other play-and-get-to-the-top-of-the-league games. At the start you have to decide the skill level at which you are to play. That is based, as ever, on the league position but, in the case of Super-League, you have either to finish in the top six, in the top half, or avoid relegation. Unfortunately the game is limited, as there is only one division in which to play. If you are relegated you join the losers and the game finishes.

Like many other football games on the market, the program is just a database which manipulates numbers to produce the league results. It would not be half so bad if the players were shielded from all the calculations by more varied methods of input but numbers have to be balanced on the skill sheets to provide marks for dribbling skill, strength of kick and supporting energy in attack and defence.

Everything is entered as numbers and the computer then plays the game for you. That is followed by a 30-second wait for results, which would deter the strongest of us from football for life.

It is obvious that the major criticism of the game is that you are not given sufficient involvement during play. Although Super-League will become tedious for hunters for action, there are sufficient aspects in it to hold the attention of a fanatic. It is pity that most of the game is played by the computer but if you prefer to plot strategy quietly and slowly, Super-League is for you.

The cricket season is in full swing and there are many games for the Spectrum which will support fans when their teams have walked off out of the rain. Ashes, from Pulsonic, is the cheapest in the range at £1.99. It provides a good graphic simulation of the game for the 48K Spectrum. At the start you are given a choice of venues. There are 10 of them, five in England and five in Australia. Your choice will, of course, affect the type of bowlers you can select.

Each team has 11 players you can choose, or you can use the two teams which are already in the computer. You can specify the type of bowler you require as fast, swing/seam or spin. The toss is made and the winner automatically bats first. If you are not batting you will have to field your players to take advantage of the ground and particular batsmen. Positioning is limited as you can choose only from those positions indicated by the computer.

Like so many sports games, Ashes relies heavily on numeric input. If you are batting you have to match your stroke with the way the bowler pitches at you by entering a numeric option. The same is true of bowling. You must press a number to signify your choice of line and length.

Howzat, from Wyvern Software, is one of the best cricket games available. The graphics display is freer than Ashes, as you can decide where you want to put your players without restriction on field areas. You can also change the field if you think it is necessary at most points in the game.

Wyvern has opted for realism as it has included 17 first-class county squads and seven Test squads with which you can play. As with Ashes you can choose a standard team or select one of your own. Howzat, however, has an edge over Ashes as you have a wider range of teams from which to select your 11 players.

Details of matches and information about the state of players is given quickly and efficiently. Wyvern has even included a realistic scoreboard to show the events while play is taking place. Its depth of play and proximity to the real thing could not be beaten even by such games as Test Match, from CRL, or Cricket Captain, from Allanson Computing, which aim to produce the same effect.

If your game is golf rather than cricket, there are many simulations of courses round Britain, including the Troon and New Birkdale classics from Hornby Software. Among the newer releases Royal Birkdale, from Ocean, is one of the best.

The game takes you to the famous course which has hosted the Open championship and has been the haunt of many famous players.

At the start you are given the opportunity to alter the wind speed conditions. You then select your club and take a position at the first tee. There are 10 clubs in all, the first being a driver and the last a sand iron. Directions are entered using a clock-face technique in which 0 and 360 degrees point north. That is the method used by all computer golf games, although some vary the directions round the clock.

The instructions on the cassette insert are more than adequate and provide hints on how to play in the rough and which clubs to use on any occasion.

The course is laid out hole by hole and when your ball hits the green a close-up of the hole is given so that you have a better chance of holing the ball.

The only criticism is that the graphics representing the course are too detailed and the different areas of the course tend to clash with each other. If you can tolerate the cluttered screen display, Royal Birkdale should give you many hours of pleasure. Like any of the other sports games on the Spectrum it can be just as much fun for a non-sports player as for an enthusiast.

Virgin has recently issued its version of Golf but, unlike most of the other companies specialising in sports, it has aimed its program at the 16K Spectrum. The game, for one to four players, scores points on graphics display, which is more inviting and easier to read than that of Ocean, but it does not have the same feel of a real course Royal Birkdale offers.

The Virgin version offers play at a varying number of holes, from one to 18, and will allow you to use one of six clubs for each shot. Wind direction and speed are not taken into account so noticeably during the game but the names of the clubs and strength with which you hit the ball are important factors.

Golf uses the same direction input system as Royal Birkdale but is more precise as to the points of the compass in relation to the player. It is certainly a match for Royal Birkdale but the Ocean game wins for its authenticity.

If we were to apply a rule that all sports games had to be representative of reality, none of those reviewed would be worth playing. The best, such as World Cup Football, Troon and Royal Rirkdale, are just barely simulations.

A fairer rule to apply would be that all the games provide entertainment for people who enjoy real sports, and most of those reviewed clearly do. Games using soccer, golf or cricket for their basis are not meant as full simulations and they are more likely to be played by computer users and sporting computer owners than sports enthusiasts.

Undoubtedly few Spectrums have been bought solely to play sports games and if they have that is a sad prediction for the future of the sporting world, which relies heavily on co-operation and team spirit. Computer games can go nowhere near to simulating that type of experience.

Most sports are outdoor activities and, like nothing else, lose much in translation to computer. Computers are limited in the way they store information and cannot take all the variables of game play into account. Most sports programs are, therefore, very limited in what they achieve.

Players using computers to play football or golf may be trying to ind a substitute for the real thing. If you are satisfied with that substitute, the games available for the Spectrum should keep you entertained. None of the so-called simulations on the market, however, is anywhere near the real thing.

Kevin Toms' classic game that has, in many respects, evolved little since inaugurated on the ZX81. Not that the technical details of programming matter though, because the elements that make the game great have little to do with the frontiers of computer science and a lot to do with quality of playing design.

Forget high-res graphics and smooth animation, all you'll get here are jerky figures. But no matter, you'll find yourself rooting for your stick figures over the opposition - all the usual criteria are abandoned with Football Manager.

The game is, as the name implies, one of planning and strategy. As the manager of a team (or teams) you must decide how best to allot time and money to build up the best team you can. Should you spend a lot of money on a good player, or take your chances with an untested novice who may perhaps become a champion? What formation should you play? Which defenders will you select?

The outcome of the matches your team plays depends (with a little random elements) on the decisions you make. Having made your choices you can only sit nervously on the sidelines as the Spectrum replays the key goals of the match. Try pointing out the technical deficiencies of Football Manager whose home grown team is 2-1 up in the final...

Spectrum £2.99cs, C9.99dk
C64 £2.99cs, £4.99dk
CPC £2.99cs, £4.99dk
ST £5.99dk
Amiga £5.99dk
PC £5.99dk
BBC/Electron £2.99cs
Atari 8 -bit £2.99cs
MSX £2.99cs
C16 E2.99cs
VIC-20 £2.99cs

The first, and some would say still the best football management game. It's the game that made its designer - 6-foot-plus giant Kevin Toms - a part of computer game history, as his bearded mug shot appeared on all of the hundreds of thousands of games that were sold. Quite a photo star was "Our Kev".

MAKER: Addictive Software
MACHINE: Spectrum 48K
FORMAT: cassette
PRICE: £6.95

'In all my years of playing with toys - ever since I was a kid anyway - I've never imagined in all that time that anything like this could exist. I've been a professional footballer for seven years now and I tell you I could play this 24 hours a day and never get tired of it. I'm not even sure it's a game at all. It could even be useful - to football managers! If Don Howe [Arsenal manager] took this home - or any other manager - I guarantee they'd do well on it. Their ideas would come out. The different things you can do... like putting players up f or sale... It's incredible.

'The Highlight sequences are pure magic. And then you have to sit on the sidelines and sweat it out! Completely fantastic. I want one!"

MACHINE: Spectrum
SUPPLIER: Addictive Games
PRICE: £5.95

When I first received this game, I spent the best part of a weekend playing it. Since then, I have returned to it more often than any other.

The object of the game is to pilot your chosen team from division four to the league championship, on the way winning the FA Cup as often as possible. The game mirrors reality in that a good Cup run will give you greater attendances, hence more money at the gate. Conversely, losing too many games cuts your income and can result in you getting the sack.

You have a maximum of 16 players in your squad and can buy or sell as the situation dictates, borrowing from the bank as necessary. You can change players' names to suit your own foibles and prejudices. Unfortunately, your players must have names of eight letters or less, including initial, so there's no room for Kenny Dalglish.

Loading Football Manager for the first time, you are invited to enter your name and then choose a team from the 64 on offer. No matter which team you choose, you start the game in division four which must be particularly galling for Liverpool fans. If your favourite team is not represented, you can select any of the others and then change the name. You select your skill level from a choice of seven, ranging from beginner to genius. You then choose your team's colours - this is not too realistic as you are restricted to black or white - and the game begins.

The truly addictive quality of this game is the remarkable way it mirrors a real football manager's problems. Each player in your squad is rated between 1 and 5 in skill. This rating affects his price in the transfer market and his cost to you in wages. In addition, each has an energy value of 20 or less. Each game played reduces this value by one, while resting the player for one game boosts his energy by 10. Your team's performance will depend on values obtained from the skill and energy ratings of the players, plus a morale factor. Lose games and this goes down, making you more likely to lose again. This is identical to a real team's performance.

So far, the game is purely textual. Now the fun begins. Having selected the most suitable team for the forthcoming game (you have a dossier on your opponents' skills, morale and energy), you have to sit back, biting your nails like any real manager, while the game is played. This is done in a series of goalmouth scrambles. Successful shots are greeted by an electronic scoreboard flashing 'GOAL!' and the match score is displayed.

It should be stressed that this is not a short game - there are 15 games in a season, plus the various rounds in the FA Cup. To get from division four to the league championship at any of the higher skill levels is going to take you a week of playing every day.

Versions of Addictive Games' Football manager have been produced for all the popular home micros, and it is now available for the 48K Spectrum.

You are given the managership of any one of the 64 teams in the league (you can even change any team's name to your own favourite if it is not one of those shown). Whichever team you choose, it begins in division four at the start of a new season. Your aim is to achieve promotion and a good run in the FA Cup - who knows, perhaps even win it!

The league is split into four divisions of 16 teams, so each season involves 15 league matches plus up to eight rounds of the FA Cup. You start off with a squad of 12 players and £100,000 to spend in the transfer market if you wish. If you're the sort of manager who likes to try and buy your way to the top, then you can also obtain a bank loan up to a certain credit limit based on your division, at a 1% per week rate of interest.

The players, whose names are those of current league footballers, have three attributes. First, they are either defence, midfield or attacking players. Second, they have a skill rating of 1 to 5, on which depends their value. Third, they have an energy rating of 1 to 20, which goes down by one for each game played, and up by 10 for each game rested. When you come to play a match you are given the 'team attributes' for yourself and the opposition, and it is then up to you to juggle with the composition of your team if you need to. The five team attributes are the average energy rating, morale (which goes up and down depending on results), and then the total skill rating in defence, midfield and attack.

With the team selected, you can sit back and watch the match highlights in moving 3-D graphics. This is what makes the game more than just a sophisticated 'Kingdoms'. Seven or eight goalmouth incidents are shown, with players running around, moving into position, and then shooting at goal. Having to helplessly watch the results of your decisions like this is almost as exhausting as playing. The final score is based on the team attributes, but there is always the chance of a shock result. After the highlights, if it was a league match the rest of the results are given and the league table calculated and displayed.

MATCH OF THE DAY

Each week you are shown your financial balance sheet. Outgoings are wages, which depend on the number of players and their value, ground rent, and interest on your loan (if any). Incomings are gate receipts, which are based on your position and your opposition's position in the league. A good FA Cup run can also be a money spinner. At the end of the season, promotion and relegation take place, you are given bonus according to your league position and a 'managerial success rating' is calculated.

There is a facility to SAVE the game at any point so that you can progress with one team for as long as you like. This feature is often available in adventure or chess programs, but I always find I forget where I've been, or what strategy I was following. With Football Manager, this is not a problem, as all the information you need is available at each stage.

Although I'm no great football fan, I really enjoyed playing this game. Despite having been converted from a ZX81 program, excellent use is made of colour and user-defined graphics. The game is very logically put together, so that the development of strategy and tactics has a real effect. For example, one of my teams got through to the fourth round of the FA Cup where it was beaten by a second division side. This upset morale and meant that our promotion bid failed. Perhaps I should have given up the FA Cup run and held some good players back - the possibilities are endless. Brian Clough had better watch out!

'Football Manager' is £7.95 and is available from Addictive Games, PO Box 2 78, Conniburrow, Milton Keynes, MKT4 7NE.

Addictive Games
£9.95

The evergreen Football Manager has been released for yet another season and it is as compelling as when it first hit the market many moons ago. There must be a version of this game for just about every micro on the market (and I can even remember a ZX81 version!).

The game is essentially a text game of strategy and planning, buying, selling, transferring and selecting players to get your team strength as high as possible in five areas, energy, morale, defence, midfield and attack before playing a match. Full league tables promotion and relegation, FA Cup and the option to save or load a game is provided.

The graphic replay of match highlights is an effective way of adding tension to displaying the results, better than a simple pause and you can really get into it. I actually cheered or groaned as goals were scored for or against us.

This is the ultimate accolade, and this is probably one of the best strategy and simulation programs on the market, time has not aged it at all. An important consideration with this kind of game is the ease with which you can grasp the essentials and the degree of options during play. The clear, well designed screen displays make it simple to read and understand, even without resorting to the detailed instructions supplied, and the variations are plenty. Including the occasional "luck" or random element. If you are keen on this sort of program then Football Manager is an absolute must, and if you are not sure if this type of game is your forte, then this is the one to try. You'll soon be hooked.

Written in Basic and hardly the fastest game ever seen, Football Manager was nevertheless a huge success, both for the Spectrum and ZX-81.

It is your job to guide a football squad through a season of league and FA Cup football. Each player is given a rating for skill and energy, and your team gets a morale rating depending on its status over the last few games. The game is played in a series of goalmouth highlights, while you sit and bite your fingernails. Deceptively simple, it is probably the most addictive strategy game ever produced for the Spectrum.

Position 35/50

It's 4.40pm on a cold winter's day, your team are two goals down with five minutes left to play. The crowd are booing loudly for such small numbers, and the directors are well aware of the league position and of the massive overdraft you've caused by unsuccessful dealings in the transfer market. Suddenly, a bottle of Scotch and a hole in the ground seem a very attractive proposition...

If you thought that kind of pressure could only fall on Peter Taylor then you've not played Football Manager - a compulsive game and an accurate portrayal of a manager's problems. You can choose your team, pick or buy, players and watch them crash out of the FA Cup or encounter relegation.

The game starts at the beginning of the season in Division Four; after inputting your name and choosing the team that you want to manage you are away on your quest for the First Division and Wembley glory in the FA Cup. Of the seven levels of play it is best to start as a beginner since the higher levels would leave even Brian Clough speechless.

The game kindly gives you a hefty bank balance and several options before playing that all-important first match. You can list or sell your players, pay off that loan or make it an even bigger millstone around your neck, change the team name or players names. If a player becomes available on the transfer market you can make the highest bid you can afford, knowing the high value his team have placed on him. Should you not wish to exercise any options, the program displays the forthcoming fixture and various team attributes such as morale, the strength of the defence, midfield and attack. If you wish to maintain the present team selection, the program's best feature becomes quickly apparent. In a three-dimensional view of the pitch, match highlights are played out with every goal announced American-style by a large scoreboard at the top of the screen with the magic word GOAL emblazoned across it in giant letters.

The games end shows the result and is followed by an update of your financial condition, your gate money, wage bill and weekly balance tells you whether you can afford to pay off your debts or whether you can afford to buy another player.

These are the attractions of this simulation as it mirrors the problems of football at all levels. The manager has to decide all aspects of his team and the challenge of finding success both on the field and on the club's financial balance sheet provide the compulsion of this game. It can be acutely agonising to watch your league position fall when the league tables are calculated and exhilarating when the position improves.

This game has been on the scene for a long time, and its age is betrayed by the presentation, which is not up to the high standards required today. The match highlights are well animated and the teams are portrayed by little men who run and shoot realistically, but it is let down by the dull grey border which is shown throughout. The options display is dull and response to commands is slow, and the player is kept waiting while the league table is calculated. The game is also slowed down by having to use the number 99 to persuade the program to continue (the choice of this two-digit number for this job is for arcane reasons beyond rational explanation).

However, this is still a highly absorbing game which, with better presentation, would be a classic. Highly appealing to the football fan and providing a lasting challenge with room for both strategy and that touch of luck that can turn any match. This game will differentiate between fans who believe they can do better than present managers and those who really can. Good value.

GETTING AS SICK AS A SPECTRUM PARROT

If you have always wanted to manage a football team, Football Manager, from Addictive Games, is for you. The game works on the 48K Spectrum and charts the career of a professional football team from the Fourth to the First Division.

At the beginning you choose your team, which has a full complement of players. The players can be sold and bought during the progress of the game.

After you have selected your team you will be given a position in the league table, usually at the bottom of the Fourth Division. A team will be selected for you to play and highlights from the match will be shown to you in 3D. After that a brief rundown of the rest of the day's matches is given and the league table is calculated for the division.

The skills needed are that you must keep a balance between earning money from the gate returns and winning on the field. It seemed that if you do too much of one the other suffers.

The game is ideal for a football fanatic but the most interesting thing for us was the 3D graphics used to create the goalmouth. The league tables, players' records and match results seemed to bear no reflection of real life. For instance, Kevin Keegan is given a very low skill rating and a transfer fee of £5,000. Apart from that, the game is a winner.

Football Manager costs £7.95 and can be obtained from Addictive Games, PO Box 278, Conniburrow, Milton Keynes MK14 7NE.