1st November 1988
Footballer Of The Year
This old Gremlin sports simulation was originally conceived as a board game, but eventually appeared on computer back in February 1987.
The game has you as a budding Gary Linker on the road to stardom. You have £5000 and ten goal cards which, as if you didn't know, are exchanged for shots at goal. An icon-driven control menu is used to access the various parts of the game - including many statistics. And if you think that you're too good for your current team (highly unlikely) a transfer can be requested.
The game's board origins aren't surprising when you see that as well as goal cards, incident cards can also be purchased. But after making a few strategic moves it's time to get out onto the pitch to play a match. An arcade sequence involves shooting at the goal mouth while avoiding the tackles of the defenders.
Footballer Of The Year is an odd mixture of strategy and arcade skills which, unfortunately, fails due to the large amount of luck involved in making progress. Moreover success is extremely easy to attain so that any minimal appeal is soon lost.
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