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Not so much a variation on Football Manager, more a case of team shepherding as with Virgin's officially endorsed FA Cup game, you have ten sides to guide through to the Wembley final.

Up to eight players can choose the ten teams they want to manage from a list of 124 league and non-league sides and there's also an option to include a really obscure team of your own invention. Once you've chosen there's an option to bypass the first two rounds and start with the third when all the big teams enter. However some of your potential giant killers may have been eliminated on the way.

If you choose to play the first round, you sit through the draw and then the individual matches flash up so you can make your tactic selection. Any unchosen teams are managed by the computer. Tactic selection is rather limited; there's an option to play either an attacking, defensive or balanced side. In the later rounds there are more options, such as changing tactics at half time, and in the last three rounds there are opportunities to change strategy during the game as well as making a late substitution.

As for the games themselves, it's a question of watching the scores flash up as the clock ticks away. The clock can be speeded up with the space bar if you can't stand the tension and want to know the results pronto.

If any of your squad of teams make it to the later rounds there are also managerial questions to be answered which may effect the outcome of the match and newsflashes appear sporadically on the screen to bring morale-breaking or boosting items.

But for all the attempts to convince you that you are controlling a team's fate it doesn't really come off. There is no indication of just how momentous decisions actually influence the results. So, if you are looking for a really in-depth football management game this isn't it. On the other hand it is a very enjoyable group game because the results (which often look like Rugby scores) seem to rely entirely on the computer's pre-programmed whims. FA Cup Football is a game which makes few demands on you but if you know a lot of people who like football it could be a winner. It's really a game that needs an audience to get the best out of it.