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Is it a board game or a computer game? Football Fortunes tries to put a boot in both camps

When popular board games have been adapted for the home computer they have often been a disappointment. Games that can draw people round a table like a magnet tend to lose their appeal when the monitor screen is the focus of attention.

Perhaps with this in mind, CDS have designed a game that keeps the appealing social aspects of board games (i.e. it can get very competitive and there are plenty of opportunities to outsmart your opponents) while farming out all the donkey work - rolling the dice, statistics, tables, results, etc to the computer.

Football Fortunes is an enterprising hybrid that has been well thought out to exert maximum hold over the football fanatic's imagination. If you've ever followed football you will definitely have put together your "dream team" with all your favourite players. With Football Fortunes you can try to do just that in your quest to carry off the League and Cup double. Success depends on assembling a strong squad from the available player cards, each card represents a well known player and gives his category (defender, midfield, etc) and a star rating 1 to 5.

If your favourite player has been left out there are blank cards provided so you can include them. The star ratings are bound to spark an argument or two, especially if your particular hero is deemed to be only worth one star. The total star ratings for defence and attack are fed into the computer before each match to indicate your team's current form.

The game proceeds much along the lines of a conventional board game. Throw the computerised dice and proceed around the board, which is sizeable (fitting it into the double cassette size box was a masterpiece of origami) to land on squares that may be to your advantage like sponsorship or send you sliding into bankruptcy. The manager's luck square may be good or bad, and result in a windfall or going seriously into the red due to a managerial crisis. "Selection Problems" is a square to beware of as the computer program chooses one of your players randomly who is either injured or retired causing you to frantically rejuggle the team.

Plenty of variety is built into the board game but to stop any chance of it becoming repititious you can conduct transfer deals and haggle over players at any point in the game and if someone is selling off players to avoid bankruptcy the bargaining can get very fierce indeed.

There's an awful lot of enjoyment to be had out of Football Fortunes whether you enjoy football or not. CDS have brought back the human element and the more players you have (from two to five can play) the better the game. For a change the computer program plays a supporting role to the players and Football Fortunes is all the better for that.