Producer: Addictive Games
Retail Price: £9.99 cassette, £14.99 disk
Author: Kevin Toms

Ever fancied being a Terry Venables or a Brian Clough? Well Football Manager 2 allows you to manage a football team of your own, buying and selling players and choosing tactics. The game has been written by Kevin Toms, the man who programmed the original some years ago.

The player can choose to manage any league team, but no matter which, must start humbly in Division 4. The team for the next match is selected by moving players out of the reserve pool into various positions on the field where the opponents players are also shown. There are three team selection screens, one each for defence, midfield and attack; the way players are positioned allows for various formations.

Each individual player has a skill rating: the higher the skill the better he can tackle and dribble. Each player also has a position in which he prefers to play. A player out of position has an arbitrary skill rating of two, reducing his effectiveness. Each player's fitness level is also shown. If it falls below 50%, he must be rested from match play to recover.

As well as choosing the team, the manager must also choose two substitutes which can be brought on at half time if needed. The team formation can also be altered during half time.

When the team has been chosen, the match action is displayed over three sections of the pitch, shown individually depending upon where the ball is. The players run around the pitch automatically, dribbling, tackling and shooting. If a goal is scored the name of the scorer is given. After the match the other results in the division are also shown, followed by a league table. Apart from playing league matches, the team also take part in the FA and League Cups.

Each week some players come into the transfer market and the manager can make a bid for any of them. Players can also be sold to raise cash and reduce the wage bill.

The finance screen shows the profitability of the club. Gate receipts, wages and overheads are shown along with the weekly balance.

COMMENTS

Joysticks: Kempston, Sinclair
Graphics: poor, with colour clash, but purely functional
Sound: limited spot effects for acknowledgement only
Options: nine difficulty levels, choice of 92 teams

I'm not a great fan of football management games but I did quite enjoy playing this. It has more to offer in the way of graphics, is easier to use than most other football games and is also well presented. The player selection is easy to use and not confusing at all. And with all the little pictures that are used in the game, you never get a boring screen just full of text. When the match is played, all the players move around the screen well but there is the usual colour clash which is to be expected. Football Manager 2 is a great improvement over Football Manager because of all the enhancements Addictive have put into it. You can now do man to man marking, there's a full 92- team league and a display of who has scored. For all you Football Manager fans, Football Manager 2 is an essential purchase.
NICK [72%]

It's take a long time for the sequel to the classic original to arrive but Kevin Toms has managed to make a big improvement to it. The graphics are good for this type of game with plenty of little players running about the screen, although there is a lot of colour clash. The best thing is the positioning of the players and the fact that they appear in the right area of the field during the game. The way the teams actually play isn't exactly brilliant with the players bunching up and all chasing the ball at the same time (a bit like Wimbledon without the fouls). However, the standard of graphics isn't that important in this type of game. The transfer system works well, as do the various tactical options such as extra training. Little of the play seems to be random so strategy works well. The game really keeps your interest as you feel you have some control over the way the team plays; the best game of this type yet.
PHIL [80%]

And as far as I was concerned Football Manager was the best thing since Clive Sinclair. But now things have changed, there are games such as The Double and Football Director available through mall order, so Football Manager 2 is well overdue. The sequel isn't just Football Manager with a few extras, it's a complete revamp of the old game. Kevin Toms has obvious looked at all the football strategy games around and taken what few good points they have. Then he's looked at the whole concept of sports strategy games and added a new dimension to it, making it more appealing to a wider range of people. People criticised the graphics in Football Manager, so they've been improved. But games of this genre shouldn't be judged on their graphical appeal - strategy games are all about planning and that's where Football Manager 2 is so good. If you plan your tactics realistically then you'll get realistic results - along with a few random elements thrown in (football is a funny old game). Real football fans everywhere will love it; it may not have mass appeal, but it's a leader in its field.
PAUL [82%]

Armchair sports fans or strategy freaks. Call them what you will. One of the most prosperous products a mail order company could ever produce is a sports strategy game. Most of the majors have kept out of this genre (only Addictive Games continue), but what they're missing is one of the most dedicated and loyal computer gaming groups in the UK. Some of us dream of managing our own favourite soccer, American football or cricket team and with the aid of your Spectrum it's possible for your dreams to come true - well, almost. Ace sportsman and all round sports fan PHIL KING takes a look at the top sports strategy games around at the moment.

FOOTBALL MANAGER 2
Producer: Addictive Games
Price: £9.99

Only last issue (79%) CRASH looked at Kevin Toms's sequel to the all-conquering Football Manager. Football Manager 2's extra features include the exact positioning of players on the field and the option to make substitutions at half-time.

The graphical portrayal of the match is a great improvement over the original, which was slow and unrealistic.

Players may be bought and sold on the transfer market where bids are made. The finance screen shows the gate receipts, wages bill and overheads. In addition to the championship and FA Cup, the team also gets to play in the League Cup.

Although there aren't that many more options, the general quality of programming and presentation is much better than the original's. The game really holds your interest and is definitely the best of the sports strategy genre.

Addictive
£9.95 cass/£14.95 disk
Reviewer: Marcus Berkmann

And over to Barry Davies in the commentary box... 'There's nothing on here... oh, it's one-nil!'

Yes, its footie time again, and as regular readers will know there's nothing that gets the old Berkmann pulse racing like a footie sim on the Spectrum. Football Director? Love it to pieces. The Double? Right result on the day Jimmy. Match Day 2? Work of flippin' genius Pedro.

The mater and pater of all, though, is Football Manager, the game that absolutely everybody must have bought at some point or other. Well, either that or some clot's got a quarter of a million of 'em - which, come to think of it, is a distinct possibility knowing the way footie sim fans think.

Originally released by Kevin Toms on his own Addictive label (since swallowed up by the mighty Prism corporation), way back in 1982, FM has sold consistently ever since - a unique achievement in the brief history of everybody's fave computerised tablemat.

Mr Toms has tried many times since to repeat the feat, but entirely without success. New game after new game from Addictive came a cropper, but every time it re-released Football Manager, it leapt straight back up the charts again. That grinning bearded mush is probably the best known face in computer gaming - and if its ever cropped up in your nightmares, I can tell you you're not alone.

Now six years later, things have moved on just a wee bit (machine code has superceded Basic, for one thing), and Mr Toms new bosses clearly decided it was time for a sequel. The game was in fact announced at last year's PCW Show, accompanied by cries of "And the three bears" from myself and Phil. But a mere nine months later here it is on my desk - and it's a ripsnorter.

As he put this one together, Mr Toms clearly took notice of the new breed of footie management sims - the Football Directors and Doubles of this world. Both of these games radically overhauled the original blueprint of FM 1, though each chose a quite different approach. Footie Director, to the horror of programming snobs, did away with graphics completely, and instead supplied huge amounts of information (within a very tricky gameplay structure), which data junkies like me lapped up. The Double tried for more accurate representation of a footie season (and a manager's career) than FD: instead of presenting you with numerical info, it made you establish through observation, which players were any good and in which positions - meaning you worked by trial and error as well as by logic. FM 2, like the mass-market product it is, tries in part to combine both approaches, while staying essentially true to the basic (if not Basic) structure of FM 1. It's a fair old balancing act, but I think it works.

The graphics, as you'd imagine, are much improved. The pitch is split into three screens - broadly defined by Attack, Midfield and Defence - and as the ball is punted about the field, so the game follows it about from screen to screen. You're given a squad of (on level one), fairly nifty players - Peter Beardsley and Clive Allen aren't bad for Division 4 - and you have to play them in the right positions on the field. The positions as you choose them represne the part of the field that player will attempt to dominate. Each player, on both teams, has a skill rating of between three and nine, and generally the more skilled player will win more balls.

The other factor is fitness, measured between zero and 100. Players drop a little in fitness every time they play; if they drop below 50 they are considered "unfit" and are sidelined. Players who don't take part, though, increase in fitness, so you have to spend a lot of time juggling your players around and keeping a balanced squad, just in case a real nasty happens and someone snaps a pin. Youch!

As with FM1 there is the option, only at the start, to choose a skill level from one (easy) to nine (very %$@&*$ hard). Level one (easy) is dead easy, but you'll only discover this when you've been playing for 40 minutes and won every game 5-0. I think I would have preferred the same system as in Football Director, which puts your skill level up automatically if you do too well. But sooner or later you do find your natural skill level, whereupon things get really interesting.

Half time now becomes a particular boon. Here you can swop around your team, or bring on a substitute, if you feel that your tactics aren't working. If there's a weakness in your midfield, for instance, you can put a better player in the vulnerable position, or even bring in an extra player and drop, say, a striker. This means that watching the match is not the chore it always was, but both fascinating and absolutely necessary if you're going to learn from your mistakes.

There are loads of other new features - a full transfer market, success points, sponsorship and the League Cup to name but four - but what makes Football Manager 2 work is that its structure is basically sound. Internal logic is the be all and end all of this sort of game - lose it and you lose all attempt at credibility. For connoisseurs, I'd say this is probably nearer The Double in feel, but that game's massively complex structure much simplified. It also has the ruthless logic that Football Director imposes (if not its loving detail), which'll make it a vital purchase for anyone hooked on that game. I'm delighted with it, as I imagine Kevin Toms is. As John Motson would say, 'You have to shay, Jimmy, he wash absholutely nowhere.' (Eh? Ed)

THE COMPLETE AND UTTER YS GUIDE TO SOCCER ON THE SPECCY

Footie games, eh? Where'd we be without 'em? There've been hundreds of the blooming things, with more on the way each month, and they always (always! always!) sell like hot cakes (even the ones that are crap). So with the World Cup lining itself up on the horizon, let's join the slightly less-than-enthusiastic JONATHAN DAVIES, as we lead you by the hand into the past, present and future world of the Spectrum soccer game.

Oh dear. How can I start? Um, quite a few phrases spring to mind. Like "They're all the same!" and "No, please, not another one!" and, erm, "Let me out of here!" The problem, you see, is that for every MicroProse Soccer or Matchday 2 there are six or seven World Cup Carnivals (US Gold's tragic 1986 attempt at a footie sim) to wade through. And I should know - I've just waded through them all. Quite frankly I wouldn't care if the colour green never darkened my Speccy again. I'm sick as a parrot. So let's just forget all about them, eh?

What? No. You like them? Cripes. (Better get going on this giant mega-feature thingie then, hadn't you? Ed) Er, yes. Right. Football.

Well, there are certainly lots of games. And no, they're not all the same. There are in fact a few basic types, and within each of these categories dwell a hundred and one subtle variations. Um, what fun...

IT'S A GAME OF TWO HALVES

That's right, one half management, the other half actually booting the ball around a bit. To kick off with we have the straightforward arcade simulation. This you should all be familiar with - a big green pitch (seen from above, or sometimes from the side), the roar of the crowd (well, the 'beep' of the crowd), lots of little men running around kicking the ball, and you up in the air somewhere above it all, doing your best to keep one or two of them (plus the ball) under control. What you don't have to worry about though is what any of the blokes are called, how much they're worth, or any other boring managerial-type stuff. Good examples of this kind of game are Matchday 2 and Kick Off.

The second main sub-division, the management game, is a totally different kettle of fish. No footie here at all (as such), apart from the results of various games flashing up on your screen every so often to tell you how you're doing. It's business acumen we're worried about here, with all sorts of weird and wonderful information popping up to confuse you - what your men are called, how tall they are, how skilful they can be and all sorts. A good example of this variety of game is, surprise, surprise, Football Manager.

The third, and crappiest, type of footie game is the pools prediction program. Now you may get really excited by the prospect of these (I don't know) but I find them so brain-blendingly boring that this is the only mention they'll get here, so enjoy it while you can. (Sorry and all that.)

Actually there's a fourth subdivision I've just remembered too - those games that provide you with an often quite bizarre mixture of action game and management, usually consisting of lots of lists of numbers with slightly dodgy bolt-on arcade bits thrown in. Some of them work quite well, but there's always the odd game that's simply too weird for words - like Roy Of The Rovers for example, part arcade adventure of all things and with a badly drawn Roy searching for his kidnapped team!

"He has excelled in the creation of this game with his brilliance," remarks the inlay. It is describing, of course, Kevin Toms, and also provides a photo of his majesty for all to marvel at. The game, though, is of the 'lists of numbers' variety, with the dubious benefit of 'match highlights'. It's an update, would you believe, of the original Football Manager. The action sequences are a major improvement, thanks to the innovative use of Machine Code, but they get a bit boring after a couple of picoseconds as you just sit there and watch them. The lists are quite interesting too (as lists go), and should keep any number-fan occupied for a while.

For sheer historical accuracy, FM II deserves a mention. And it's also pretty good. Its only real problem is that it tries to be a bit of a jack of all trades, with its strategy stuff and flashy graphics. While this might appeal to most people, those who want to stick to one area might fare better looking elsewhere.

Label: Addictive
Author: Kevin Toms
Price: £9.95
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Graham Taylor

Football Manager was ridiculously successful. It was successful on the ZX81, successful on the Spectrum, successful on everything else and then it proved successful for a second time on budget. The thing is, in this age of multicoloured, high speed, ultra smooth sprites, it looked like complete dung. But it played brilliantly.

What to expect then of FM2? Would it look better and play worse? Would they dare to get away with such dodgy graphics in 1988? Would it be glossy and naff? No! It's great! it still looks a bit tatty around the edges (couldn't you have redesigned the character set even Kevin?) and the actual football bit, though definitely improved - they don't look like sticks any more - is not exactly state of the art. However, actual gameplay is even better!

Football Manager 2 it should be stressed, is, like the original, not actually a game in which you play football at all. You just make all the decisions for your team and then watch the events unfold in animated 'edited highlights' of the match. If this sounds dull then a) you obviously haven't played the original b) you underestimate the degree to which the matches really reflect your choices.

At the start of the game you can choose whether to accept membership money. (Hold out for a better offer if you have the nerve). You pick your team, start in the fourth division and by wise buying, selling and training of players, plus a little luck you win matches, make money and buy better players and... you get the picture. If you're lucky, you make money and climb the divisions, if not...

The differences between FM2 and FM1 are summarised elsewhere. The real difference is the way your decision over formation and player selection affects the match very directly. If, for example, you are forced to put a weak player in midfield you can 'see' the weakness in the play highlights. It's very impressive.

This game has everything - injuries to cope with, players' fitness and passing styles to be analysed, finance reports (later on you can even invest in a new stadium if you have the dosh)!. You play both league and cup matches and have to plan accordingly... you might want to 'rest' a key player for a league match if an important cup tie is coming up - get him fitter and take your chances with the less important match. That the game takes this into account and that it really does make a visible difference is the reason the game is so good.

FM2 is all FM1 was and more, the graphics are (a bit) better, although that would never be a reason to play this game, there are a few extra features but what is really astounding is the sheer playability. My favourite strategy game on the Spectrum, no contest.

Spectrum, £9.99cs, £14.99dk
C64, £9.99cs, £14.99dk
CPC, £9.99cs, £14.99dk
ST, £19.99dk
Amiga, £19.99dk
PC, £19.99dk £14.99dk

The sequel to the biggest selling footy management game ever. FM II offers a deluxe reworking of Football Manager - the original soccer management game, with loads more options and features. Enables you to make key management decisions such as buying and selling players, picking the team, deciding on play formations, commercial decisions and stacks more.

Spectrum 48/128 Cassette: £9.99, Diskette: £14.99
Amiga £19.99

Hot on the trail of the Atari ST version reviewed last month (65%), come the Spectrum and Amiga updates.

To begin, you choose a team from the available 92 which is placed in the fourth division with half a million pounds in the bank and companies clamouring to offer sponsorship. From here, the only way is up through the ranks to the first division, and to win the major division and league cups on the way. As team manager you have to make all decisions to get the best out of your men. As long as your club is solvent it remains in the league. If liquid assets fall into the red however, bankruptcy and defeat soon follow.

The Amiga version is virtually identical to the ST game, no attempt has been made to enhance it . Control of the Spectrum version is easier than on the 16-bit machines, and the players are more independent - less likely to play follow the leader. Despite the lack of 'pretty' graphics, the Spectrum game is the most playable of all.