Zeppelin
£3.99 cassette
091 3857755
Reviewer: Stuart Campbell

Y'know, Spec-chums, it's a confusing world we live in. Robert Maxwell, were-they-or-weren't-they-banned drugs at the Olympics, 'friendly fire', the painted-on crowd at one end of Arsenal's ground - all these things, and lots more besides, are a wee bit confusing. As if that wasn't enough, though, there are some people out there who try to make things even more confusing with a cunning use of words.

You know the kind of thing I mean - 'unbelievable arcade action' translating as 'horrible tedious monochrome crap with a big muitlioad, or 'the best game I've ever played in my entire life, translating as 'I' own the company, please buy this and make me lots of money'. So in the name of global understanding, I'm going to take you by the hand and lead you through the literary minefield that is the world of games. First though, I'm going to need the help of a volunteer from the audience. Yes, sir, step right this way! And your name? Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, let's hear it for Mr Graeme Souness Soccer Manager! (pause for cheering).

Okay, let's take this from the very top and start with the front of the box. 'Graeme Souness Soccer Manager'. Well, yes, it's got a picture of Graeme Souness on it. Beyond that, though, the influence of Graeme Souness on the game is distinctly conspicuous by its absence. You can manage any team you you like (it doesn't have to be Graeme's Liverpool), and if you do choose his side it won't have any of the players you might be expecting. Perhaps the title Generic Football Manager Game With a Quick Licence Stuck Totally Gratuitously On The Top would be more appropriate.

Over to the back now, and the first words we come across are 'a devastatingly accurate simulation of the trials and tribulations of taking a football team to the top'. Yeah, right. The day anyone has a heart attack brought on by the stress of playing with this unremarkable, simplistic and repetitive collection of menu screens is the day the world turns day-glo and we all start calling each other Ethel Merman. I think the phrase we want here is 'a devastatingly accurate simulation of a particularly boring day at an accountant's rather uninteresting office.'

Down a bit past some more guff and we come to a bit about 'large animated icons keep you in total control of the running of a Professional Football League team'. If any of the icons in this game are in any way animated, I must have blinked and missed something, and if this really covers everything involved in the running of a football team then I'm surprised they don't get primary school children to do the job - if you can count to thirteen, you can play Graeme Souness Soccer Manager. So let's revise that to 'Moderately big completely static icons let you do nearly as many things as you could in the original Football Manager which came out nine, that's NINE, years ago.'

Let's try inside the box, where it tells you about the 'Gameplay'. Apparently the game can be controlled by joystick or keyboard, and the instructions list a set of 'de-fault' keys which kinds of implies some redefinability. Well, I tried every joystick combination I could think of and did everything to redefine the key possible, but the only way I could control this game by anything other than the listed keys was to take all the plastic key tops off my keyboard and put them back on in a different order. Clearly the correct wording in this situation would have been 'The game can be controlled by these keys here, and if you don't like it tough blimmin' luck.''

I could go on about the 'animated match highlights' which consist of a total of four different attacking moves carried out by players who all look exactly the same, whichever team they're supposed to be playing for, on about the 'sophisticated team/player data' which really means 'it tells you the name and age of each player and how many goals they've scored'. I could natter about the 'whole host of other excellent features' which translates directly as 'absolutely no excellent features at all' or simply on about how this game is less involved, less sophisticated, less enjoyable and inferior in every single identifiable way to the original Football Manager, far less any of the much better games which have come after it (of which, incidentally, I reckon the thoroughly spanky Football Manager 2 is still just about the best).

Despite what I said at the start of the review, there's really nothing at all confusing about this game. It's complete crap. Simple as that.

Label: Zeppelin
Memory: 48K/128K
Price: £3.99 Tape
Reviewer: Steve Keen

You may remember Match of the Day, reviewed last ish - the official BBC footy sim. This was released by Impulze, Zeppelin's full-price label, and it took the SU Crew by storm (ie. It was rather good, missus). A big change from all the budget priced, budget gameplay management sims available. So can Graeme Souness Soccer Manager, yet another humble budget sim, create the same impression? Let's see...

Graeme Souness, the top-dude manager of Liverpool FC, has not been a very healthy chappie recently. He's a lot better now though and it's just as well 'cos Zeppelin's latest management sim would tax anyone's ticker - yep, it's a good'un.

Unlike Paul Anglin (sad man), I try to steer away from management sims. I find them too slow, boring and repetitive. Yet I actually quite enjoyed GSSM. You've got all your usual options and menus for choosing players, viewing the league tables and fixtures, dealing with club finances, buying and selling players and the like, all driven by very well defined and colourful icons.

You can choose to manage any team in the four divisions, though when you see the player lists you'll notice that the players on each team have all got exactly the same names! You have your own scout too, although he doesn't play as big a part as the scout in Match Of The Day. This time he only tells you what he thinks about the strengths of the opposition defense, mid-field and attack.

During matches, you watch the minute counter ticking on until something 'exciting' happens. Then the scene changes to a 3D view of the goal area as someone shoots. This bit teeters precariously on the edge of naffness. The player sprites are pretty poor to say the least, and they run around the area like lost sheep.

From what I could tell, the computer randomly picks one of four different goal shooting animations - two score; two miss. These are quite nice little routines but we could do with a few more - I soon got bored with the same old ones.

However, this is still a very gripping part of the game. Helplessly sitting there watching the scores increase, hoping your team will be the next to put the ball in the back of the net is nailbiting stuff! Fortunately, if you don't like watching the highlights, there is an option to turn them off.

All-in-all, this is another pretty dam spanky footy management sim from the Zepps, which even people who hate the genre will get some enjoyment out of. It lacks a few features that MOTD had, like training options for your players, but for a budget title it ranks as one of the best of its kind.

ED LAURENCE:
Once again I find myself actually enjoying a management sim! just about. Not quite as entertaining and accurate as Match of the Day, Graeme Souness is still the best budget version of the ilk that I've seen for a long time.