Electronic Zoo
£9.99/£14.99

It is 40 odd years since the first person flicked a small weighted piece of plastic across a green table-sized blanket and tried to hit a huge (in relation to the player) ball. I remember owning a Subbuteo set when I was a nipper, and playing the Electronic Zoo computer version has brought the memories flooding back!

The game starts with the usual option screens: Single or League Matches. Both options allow you to play against either a friend or the computer, though league is more fun because it allows you to play with up to eight people (single only allows two participants). The rest of the options are the standard choices you'd expect from soccer games - team names, playing time (15-45 mins), skill level, and team formation.

You have control of all of your players except the goalie (who's always computer controlled), and each flashes in turn as a cursor passes over them. A press on the fire button selects a player, whilst a second press moves a small cursor. This is used to determine the direction of the flick. Then set the power and spin of the shot and watch it fly off.

Sadly Subbuteo is a brave attempt that doesn't quite pay off - too many footie releases have stolen its limelight. Control is a little confusing at the start, but practice improves this. But it's strange not to move the player with the ball at his feet: the skill here lies in flicking the player at the ball (and totally missing, in my case). Sound effects and graphics are as simplistic as the gameplay, so even with a few mates playing, the computer version doesn't quite catch the atmosphere of the table-lop game.

MARK [50%]

Subbuteo, hoi, hoi, hoi, hoi! Well that's how they go isn't it? Flicking stumpy footballers around a pitch, attempting to hit a ball the same height as the players is not my idea of fun. In the main game you view the players from above so all you see is a coloured circle with a white bit in the middle. What's the point of a computer simulation of Subbuteo? Owners of the original table-top game are going to be the only ones interested - and only so they can play it on their own.
NICK [59%]

Electronic Zoo
£9.99 cass/£14.99 disk
Reviewer: Jonathan Davies

I'm afraid that my knowledge of 'Subbuteo' is limited to merely being aware of its existence, but ignorance has never stopped a YS reviewer before. A few quick questions round the office revealed that a) it's something to do with little footballers which you have to 'flick to kick' and b) the World Championship was on Channel 4 a few months ago. Anyway, the Spectrum version has arrived (minus instructions) so I'd better have a peek at it.

Hmm. Well that's that out of the way I think I'll go and have a spot of lunch.

Eh? You want to know all about it. But I'm hungry! (Oh, all right then.) It's like no football game I've ever seen before, that's for sure. And there aren't too many football games you can say that about. You see, we're not dealing with actual players here but little chaps standing on hemispheres which wobble about but don't fall down (or are those Weebles?) Mind you, they're more like little red and blue blobs in the computer version, which reinforced my expectations of a pretty straight-forward footie game.

But then I played it. You see, in Subbuteo I'm afraid you cant just dive in and have your blobs zooming all over the place - it's all a bit too strategic for that. When it's your turn to play you've got to select a player and choose a direction to flick him in by moving a little cursor about. Having done that you've got to work out the strength of the flick and the 'swervyness' by watching these bar things go up and down and pressing Fire at the appropriate moment. Hopefully the player will then be sent wobbling towards the ball to hit it, sending it off in the right direction.

What happens next depends on a number of factors. Don't ask me what they are - I just know there are lots of them. I've made a sort of 'guess' at the rules, which seem to be as follows...

If you manage to hit the ball you've then got 'control' of it, and when the other player's turn comes around he's not allowed to touch it. All he can do is play a 'defensive flick' to put his blobs into a better position. You carry on kicking the ball until you do something wrong like missing it, kicking it off or committing a foul by hitting another blob at which point the other player gets the option to send your blob back to where it started and takes control of the ball). There are all the usual free kicks, throw-ins and goal kicks along with something called a 'positioning flick' which I couldn't quite get the hang of.

There's probably a bit more to it than that (things certainly didn't seem to follow this routine all the time), but I've worked it out as far as I can. There are a few options before you start, of course. You can play a single game, a league game or load in a league. You can also choose to play either another player or the computer. And that's about it really. Nothing too taxing.

So what we've got is more of a 'ballistics' game than a footie one. To become proficient you need to get the hang of all the angles and things. Unfortunately, however angles and things are the one thing the Speccy really knows lots about, so it tends to play every shot perfectly every time. It's sickening. So you're better off in two-player mode on the whole (at least then you'll actually get a go at flicking ball yourself).

Although it's very much a thinking mans footie game, things tend to move at a pace that should satisfy most action fans once they've got the hang of the wacky flicking system. It's also quite slickly presented, although the little blobs don't give it a lot of scope for incredible graphics. And that's about it really (at least that's about as much as I've understood).

I think it would be safe to say that this is a pretty accurate representation of Subbuteo. I haven't actually played the real thing, of course, but I enjoyed this so much I think I might go out and purchase a set. (Only kidding.)

Label: Electronic Zoo
Price: £9.95
Reviewer: Chris Jenkins

Ah, Subbuteo! Long summer afternoons spent flicking wobbly little players around a cardboard football pitch, arguing with your little brother and ending up throwing footballers at each other.

No-one knows why it's called Subbuteo (except Mrs Subbuteo, presumably), but it's one of the traditional English pastimes which have been knocked on the head a bit by computer games, so it's nice to see Goliath having a kick at reviving it.

And a pretty good job they've done too. OK, there's absolutely no attempt made to create any illusion of 3-D; I suppose that would have made it too difficult to judge distances and angles, so the playing area is seen in a straight top-down view which reduces the players and the ball to featureless little circles.

The gameplay's the thing, though, and here Goliath do a good job of retaining the subtleties of the game.

You can choose to play either a single game, or enter a league competition, naming teams as you require. There's a wide range of control options, including all kinds of joysticks, definable keyboard and computer players; and you can choose the length of each half of the match from 1-45 minutes, select a playing formation from a list of three, and set the computer's playing skill at any of three levels.

So to the match itself. The pitch fills most of the screen; at the top are the scorecards and the digital timer. No big surprises here; the main difference between Subbuteo and other football games is that here only one player can move at a time; you don't get any "intelligent" control of your other players by the computer.

If you win the toss for kickoff or when it's your go otherwise, by combining various joystick movements and button presses you have to scroll the screen to the position of the ball, select a player (not necessarily the one closest to the ball), move a small white cursor indicating the direction of kick, then set the power and spin using a sliding meter which appears at the side of the pitch. It's all a bit fiddly, but there's no time pressure on you because nothing's happening while you dither (the computer, incidentally, seems to dither even longer).

Once you kick, your player flies off (hopefully in the direction of the bell), scattering the opposition and punting the pill vaguely goalwards. The computer will tell you if you have made a foul, used an illegal player, gone off-side, scored a goal or whatever, and will give you a choice of a defensive or offensive move for your next go.

It takes some time to get used to the tactics of Subbuteo (for instance, you sometimes have to manoeuvre a player into position behind the ball before you can contemplate taking a shot), but if you have played the original game this may come more naturally. If you're used to more conventional footie sims Subbuteo probably won't drive you wild, but this is an excellent implementation of a classic "board game".

Electronic Zoo
Spectrum/C64 £9.99

Subbuteo! Oi! Oi! Oi! Oi! Yes, that perennial favourite - table-top, cloth-bound soccer action is now yours for the taking but on your trusty computer. Subbuteo on the 8-bits is much the same caper as the 16-bit game reviewed in the November issue, but the 3D rotating pitch has been replaced by an overhead 2D view. Instead of the usual soccer-type computer action, the gameplay follows Subbuteo rules to the letter. You know, moving one player at once by choosing a direction and "flicking" it.

This is hardly exciting stuff by any stretch of the imagination. The pace is slow and tedious and with the overhead viewpoint it's as if you're just controlling a team of coloured circles rather than the distinctive plastic players. You'd be better advised to save up those shekels either for a better soccer game (and there are plenty of those about) or buy the real thing instead.