Previous Next

The shed football lies forlorn and forgotten in a corner, collecting dust and spiders. We just don't use it anymore. Last summer it was a very different story of course (we were tackling and dribbling all over the shop) but since then we've kind of lost the bug. Now Andy's got his horseriding, James has taken up jogging (!), and I, erm, well, I don't do anything. So when Manchester United Europe came along it was generally thought that I could do with a bit of exercise. So it looks like the ball's in my half (so to speak).

Manchester United Europe is the follow-up to, erm, Manchester United (actually). If you bought that game, you might have filled in a report card telling Krisalis what you liked about it and how they could make it better. Well, they read these reply cards very carefully, took note of all the remarks, and came up with what seems remarkably like the same game (except it's got the word 'Europe' stuck on the end).

Like its predecessor, Manchester United Europe is a combination of management game and arcade action. In the first, you get to do all the run-of-the-mill things that make managers such busy (and highly paid) chaps, like sort out when's the best time for your team to go and stand in a muddy field and get their shins kicked. Or you can tell your men the right way to tackle and then get them all to do fifty press-ups! To do this, you need to click on the various icon boxes that decorate the option screen. This is okay, but it's a bit sluggish when you're switching from one to the other, and personally I prefer the desktop approach of European Superleague, where you get to make your choices by picking up the phone and chatting to people.

In contrast, the matches are pretty fast-paced and furious! They look like any other arcade footie game - you get an oblique view of a four-way scrolling pitch populated by blobby characters with beachballs under their shirt (well, that's what it looks like to me!) and that football sim way of running (i.e. sort of inhumanly). There's all the usual moves, fouls, cautions, penalties and substitutions.

In fact, everything's as you'd expect. The thing with footie games is you can't really design one that's massively different from all the others. And, to be fair, that's not what people want. Manchester United Europe is a good, solid, honest footie game (and that's a compliment). The original was incredibly successful and, if any of the people who scribbled out their forms want to find out if Krisalis have listened to their advice, this will be too.

Footie sim with slow management bits and fast arcade sequences. A good all rounder.