Goliath Games/Doug Matthews
£9.95 cass, £12.95 disk

Know what I mean 'Arry: yeah boxing's a funny old game, but people like Muhammad Ali made their money out of it. And maybe Goliath will make theirs out of World Championship Boxing Manager, 'cos it isn't bad.

This is big league stuff: start naming the manager you control, then choose (and name) up to five boxers to manage, then into your office to drum up a bit of trade. A cursor can access five options: the filing cabinet with your guys fight records, contracts and rankings plus two boxing boards from the Federation Of World Boxing (FWB), and the World Council Of International Boxing (WCIB).

Your guys start 99th in each league, and by nattering on the dog and bone (telephone to you squire) you can contact 17 computer controlled managers to arrange fights. The boxing boards can be contacted when a fight has been arranged, and you can also ask your two scouts, Limpy and Wimpy, to nose around at other fights for you (to suss out the opposition). A look in your filofax informs you of the week's bouts (fight night is always a Friday), clicking on the calendar gives you the chance to advance dates (the game gets rather boring if the days are allowed to advance at their normal rate), and by exiting through the office door you can visit the gym and physio.

In the physio you check on your boxers' physical state, whilst in the gym your lads train for their forthcoming fights. On fight nights you choose whether to attend or not, but if one of your guys is fighting it's best to be there. Each fight is described in detail (no graphical representation), and your guy's mug in the ring appears top of screen. As he takes more and more of a bashing the lace becomes marked. At the end of the current round you're allowed 30 seconds to attend to the boxer (water bottle, attend to cuts, bruises etc) and change his fighting tactics. If he wins his position in the federations, books change and title fights are possible, all the way up to a world title fight.

I have to admit this is the first boxing management gains I've ever seen, it follows the same sort of format as footy management games, but for some reason I found this rather more playable.

MARK [74%]

Yeh, it's Boxing Manager, the game from the same people who brought you the award winning Tracksuit Manager. In Boxing, the programmers have tried to brighten things up a little by adding a few graphics and giving the text a very CodeMasters feel to the expanded characters. Why do things like that when they could allow you to see the fights instead of having to watch the computer telling you what's happened. If I wanted to just have the commentary I'd put the radio on!
NICK [45%]

Goliath Games
£9.95 cass
Reviewer: Tony Dillon

Well, well, well. Only Goliath Games' second product and it's making quite a name for itself. Tracksuit manager received a big eight out of ten from
our Snouty back in September 1988. And World Championship Boxing Manager, to give it its full title, promises to be equally exciting, so don't be put
off if you thought boxing games were old hat.

Taking a step away from the usual norm for this type of game (your traditional side-on, waggle-the-joystick-to-punch boxing thingy), Goliath has opted
for what, at first sight, seems to be rather a dull angle, the management side. But (but but!) half an hour on this and you'll be totally submerged.
it's brilliant!

The first thing you have to do is get yourself some boxers. At the start of the game you're approached by punch-'em-uppers hoping to make it big in
the world league. Should you spot one you like you offer him a contract (consisting of things such as a guaranteed shot at one of the titles). At this
stage of the game you can basically offer anything you want - the boxers are too stupid to refuse!

Your 'boys' (you can have any number up to six, decimal points notwithstanding) now start at the bottom in all rankings - these are the World, National
and Area tables, in both the FWB (Federation of World Boxing) and the WCIB (World Council of International Boxing). And surprise, surprise, from here
you've got to take them to the top.

in theory, getting there is simple. Check the tables to see the boxers just ahead of your own. Say, for example, Geoff Tate is at 95 and your boxer is
at number 100. You decide that fighting and beating him would move you up a good five notches at least and improve your status in the councils' eyes.
So you check Geoff Tates record and discover his manager to be Peter Mensch. You call Peter and arrange for the fight to take place in three weeks.
Peter agrees, so then you phone the relevant boxing board to get agreement from them. The next day they send you a letter okaying the fight, and you
pop into the gym to see Jim (a Terry Lawless type of bloke) and tell him just how you want your up-'n'-comin' hopeful trained.

Now that's more or less how the system runs in 'real life', so I'm told, although it is simplified to a large degree, of course. The main game screen
is your office and from here you can open your filing cabinet, your filofax, call people up and progress to the next day. Step through the door and you
can walk into the gym or pop into the physio.

The fight itself works in a similar way to Tracksuit Manager. Between rounds you're given a lit of various tactics to use, and you can instruct the
boxer to try and follow any one or more of them. There's also a chance to work on his cuts and bruises.

As with Tracksuit Manager, you don't see any of the action as it happens. Instead, you're given a running commentary, the speed of which is completely
adjustable as before. This really shows you how clever the Speccy is, as it works out all the relevant factors contributing to the outcome of the
fight. There are no unrealistic moves. There are no stupid responses or impossible attacks. Everything is worked out to the nth degree, and it shows.

Boxing Manager is terrific - even to me, hardly the greatest fan of boxing there is! Buy it, you'll love it.

Label: Goliath Games
Price: £8.95
Reviewer: Chris Jenkins

Yur, yur, 'e's a good boy, 'e's bin trainin' 'ard, 'e's up to 'is fightin' weight, I fink 'e'll take 'im in the sevenf, 'an like that World Championship Boxing Manager is so realistic you can almost smell the sweaty jockstraps - the only option you don't have is to shoot your manager, fnarr fnarr.

As you'd expect, there are a lot of similarities between WCBM and a footie management game; you pick your lads, train them, go out to arrange matches, keep an eye on the performances of other managers and boxers, and try to get your boys to the top of the league, or in this case, the two controlling boards of boxing, The Federation of World Boxing (FWB) and the World Council of International Boxing (WCIB), who each operate by slightly different rules.

The program's fairly heavily textual, though there are some reasonable (if static) graphics. Most of your decisions are made using a pointer-controlled menu system; from your office, you can consult the contents of your filing cabinet (contracts, fight records and rankings), your filofax (boxers' records, fight diary and notes); you can make phone calls to other managers to try to arrange fights with suitably experienced boxers, to consult the regulatory boards for permission to go ahead, and to send your scouts to keep an eye on rival boxers. You can also control the date by advancing the calendar, check your mail for news of fight fixtures, and choose to leave the office.

Once outside the office you have another selection of options; you can enter the Physio's office to check the health of your stable of up to five boxers; you can go to the training room to specify a regime of different training routines for your lads; and you can exit the building to watch a fight. Don't make the mistake of choosing to sit through a fight which doesn't involve your boxers; all you get is a sort of ticker-tape display saying "A hit B, B ducks, B hits A", which goes on for ever and ever and ever. Pity there isn't an option to skip through this. In fact, it's almost as slow and boring if one of your lads is fighting, but at least then you get to choose different tactics - fight close, defensive, dirty, and so on, and you get a bar-graph display showing factors such as stamina, alertness and bruising.

Not many people know as much about the strategies and tactics of boxing as they do about those of football; and, since there's no arcade element to WCBM at all, strategy is what it's all about. You'll soon learn to encourage your boxers to fight in a particular style, to match them with suitable opponents and to train them to win. This is a worthy follow-up to the well-received Tracksuit Manager, and whether or not you're interested in the noble art, you should enjoy having a bash at it.