Gazza: a legend in his own lunchtime. The Spurs midfielder who leapt into the limelight with his tearful performance in the World Cup.

This is the second game that's had Gazza's name on the box (so that explains the title). It's less than a year ago (AA54) that we looked at Gazza's Super Soccer - and gave it a right old panning...

Empire is making the most out of Gazza's new found fame and fortune, and Gazza II will no doubt attract many of the footballer's new fans.

Gazza II isn't a really a sequel to Gazza's Super Soccer (thank goodness). The team management section has been dropped, and the game has more in common with the Kick Off style of computer footie than anything else.

There are few options. You can set the game length, whether you play human or computer opponents, and the skill level of the computer team. That aside, it's straight into the action.

Apart from the (very good) digitised picture of the nation's favourite footballer on the title page, Gazza the game has very little to do with the Tyneside hero. Eleven identical footballers play on each side - none of them with a Geordie accent.

It has to be said that Gazza isn't much of a footie sim. There are no fouls, penalties or free kicks. Your team play like a maurandering rabble and any pre-match tactics the team may have, go through are out the window the instant the kick off whistle is blown.

Perhaps that's why it's such a darned good game! It's not bogged down with all the tedious offside rules, and is more like playground football than any thing. Everybody appears to chase the ball at once, and if one team breaks through, and your defence has deserted you, then there's only your (rather useless) goalie between the ball and the net.

It's an uncomplicated game. When you have possession you can simply run along with the ball. The computer-controlled players run after it in roughly the right direction. All this dribbling slows you down, though, so it's quite possible to be caught by the computer players. Tackling is achieved by running into the player with the ball and pressing Fire.

Rather than let the other team take control, the obvious thing to do is to boot the ball to another player on your team.

Gazza II has one of the finest passing mechanisms of any football game. The longer you hold down the Fire button, the more powerful the kick. This allows pin-point passing between the other players on your team - an area that other games have had difficulty with. There are usually one or two team mates hanging around your man. You always control the player nearest the ball, so you become the player you've passed to as soon as you've kicked the ball.

This system works well for the most part. Sometimes, though, when you're chasing the ball, another player on your team gets nearer. In this instance, control flips to him, and you can get a little disorientated while you work out what's going on.

Gazza is very 'diagonal': movement of the players and the ball is strictly by compass direction. No doubt this has a lot to do with the speed of the game, but it does cause flaws in the gameplay. Kick-offs are a sham. You basically have three directions to boot the ball in - each leads straight to the feet of an opposing player. There's definitely no advantage to be had with the kick-off - the fact the other team immediately gain possession stops that!

Corners are another annoying 'bug'. Here there is only one possible direction - at a 45-degree angle towards the centre of the pitch. The only influence you have on a corner is how hard the ball is hit. Worse still, your team mates seem disinterested in this goal-scoring opportunity. Instead of tactically positioning themselves to take full advantage of the corner, they wander off to their own side. Of course, as soon as the kick is taken the ball goes immediately to the other team. In fact it became an often-used tactic in the AA office: if you're under pressure, boot the ball off the pitch - that way you're guaranteed to clear your half of the other team's players.

The goalkeepers are crap. They track the ball up and down, so shooting diagonally means you score every time. Even if the ball hits the keeper head on, you can score if you give the ball a hard enough thwack. When they occasionally do make a save, they never catch the ball, it just rebounds back into the penalty area.

Niggles aside, though, the speed and superb playability make up for it all. The pitch scrolls (rapidly) to follow the progress of the ball. The game is played left to right, rather than up and down as is more common in footie games. The action's viewed from above, the (none too accurate) white pitch markings and occasional fleck of yellow make up the entire background. At the bottom of the screen, a scanner shows a small-scale representation of the the whole pitch. Coloured dots tell you where the players and ball are. It becomes necessary to learn to keep an eye on both screens at once! Then long passes from one side of the pitch to the other are possible.

In two-player games, player one is always light blue, and the opposition plays in black. This choice of colour guarantees that there'll be no confusion about who's who.

The skill of the computer's team is picked by team name. Albania are the weakest team, and Brazil are the best. Skill relates directly to the speed that the team's players move at. The speed advantage you have over the slowest teams makes winning a walkover. Play the computer at anything approaching your own ability, though, and you've got one tough match on your hands!

Gazza II is the most playable footie game on any computer! It's very (very) fast, the passing is excellent, and the playability spot on. As ever, a two-player game is the one to really test you. Playing against a person, and thrasing the pants off them, is so much more satisfying than playing a computer opponent. There are a few annoying quirks. Even so, Gazza has got most things just about right.

Overall 88%
The most fun footie sim you'll find!