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What do insect soccer fans sing? "Earwig go, earwig go, earwig go..."

Hope that bit of hilarity has got you in the mood for the latest Atari ST release from the consistently 'interesting' Microdeal. It may not be a new idea, but it's a first for the ST, and the 16-bit machines have the potential to support an excellent simulation.

The first thing you'll notice is that unlike some soccer games, International Soccer ST features a full eleven players on each team. Despite the fact that all 22 men run around frantically, the screen scrolling is pretty good, and on the higher skill levels the action gets very fast.

Before you start you can define various game characteristics. You can set the shirt colour for both teams, choose from a selection of play formations, set the ground conditions to dry or wet, and set the wind to blow left, right or not at all.

The wind level is equivalent to a gale, so this function is pretty useless. You can also opt to play at night, which simply makes the screen darker and adds shadows to the players. Game length can be 10, 20, 60 or 90 minutes; there doesn't seem to be an option to quit during a game.

The best aspect of the game is that you have complete choice over which player you control. By centring the joystick and pressing the fire button, you can move the small white control arrow appearing below the players, until the one you want is selected.

Player control is good too; by holding down the fire button for different lengths of time, you can play a ground pass, a chip or a long shot - so long, in fact, that it's quite easy to score from the halfway mark.

You can tackle by closing on an opposing player and pressing the fire button, but if you try this in your goalmouth you will concede a penalty. Penalties can be aimed high or low, left or right, and it's up to the player controlling the goalie to respond appropriately. Goal kicks, throw-ins and corners are taken by pressing the space bar, which seems an unnecessary distraction.

International Soccer is very playable, features a selection of good tunes and nicely detailed graphics. There are a few minor niggles, though: for instance, the ball is never actually going into the net; as soon as it crosses the goal-line, the electronic scoreboard display comes up. The program also seems pretty indifferent to subtleties like offside, so it's a fun arcade game, but not a detailed simulation. Overall, though, you should go for International Soccer if you like football at all, or even if you're an Arsenal fan.