Previous Next

If a soccer team achieves flop all in a big tournament, the first person to receive a battering from the press is the manager. No matter who it was who missed the goal or tied their bootlaces together, the boss is always to blame. This is another text-based footy management sim, and if you're an armchair critic it is your chance to manage the ball-kicking lads better than the professionals.

You take charge of a top European team, chosen from a list of 28. These include familiar clubs such as Liverpool and Tottenham, but also the more obscurely-titled Ajax and Feyenoord. After that tough decision, it's into your office to get the team ready for their first match of the season.

Four options can be selected from the office (obviously a small room), by moving the pointer and clicking on a filing cabinet (to view player files and decide whether to keep or transfer them), a computer showing the division tables and a phone which you use to contact the bank and other club bosses. The fourth option is the actual game, where a commentator relays the action on the field and a side-on view of goal attempts occasionally appears. The more matches you win, the more money your club accumulates, and with heaps of readies, you can buy star players to improve the team's performance.

I've never had a craving to be a football manager (I hate those long brown coats!), but I thought Jimmy's Super League could prove fun. After one do you realise it isn't particularly enjoyable at all. There aren't enough options to keep the mind occupied, and the ones available are badly lacking in content. The players' profiles are all framed in garish colours so reading statistics causes undesired eye-strain, and it's laughable the way the same players appear in each team, all of them having brown hair. Miserable old R Brenden looks exactly like the equally glum R Bedford, and when I changed teams, there they were again, Brenden and Bedford, both still unhappy!

Watching the matches soon becomes a bore, each consisting of text messages from the commentator and rough looking sprites feebly shooting at a goal. One line of speech includes "Don Clarke is injured and is out of the match, he'll be fit in two weeks". How on earth would he know?!

It's all a bit of a shambles really, which is a pity - with more detail, better interaction, quality graphics, different competitions, heaps of players and exciting gameplay, it would be fantastic!

Wahay! There's nothing like a good footy management sim to get you on your feet and shouting hysterically at your TV. On the other hand, dull ones are likely to bring reactions of a different nature - and boy is this dull!

This kind of management game's two-a-penny these days, and that's about as much as it's worth. The lack of (any) tactical depth and laughable match sequences suggest the game was thrown together in about two days.

Somewhere there's a sad geezer who has no friends - this is the man who created the tragedy that is Jimmy's Super League.

Presentation 30%
Little to spark any real enthusiasm

Graphics 32%
Mostly text, with blocky sprites during the match

Sound 28%
Basic beeps and peeps

Hookability 30%
Amusing for a short while, but not for long

Lastability 33%
Set the alarm before you play - you'll need it!

Overall 26%