Previous Next

You're a pure-bred player without a hint of leadership potential, 'totally at your manager's discretion as to whether you play or are dropped from the squad'.

Strange as it may seem for a simplistic-looking football manager game, Professional Footballer is multi-load. In the first part, you choose your position, nationality and the year - anything up to 9999 AD! After another load, the main menu is presents ten options, including Training, Manager's Office, Save Game, Fixtures and so on - the usual milarky.

Unfortunately, the only two features relevant to the game are Training and Go To Match. The others seem to be there just to look good on the menu and packaging; they merely allow you to view records and tables or make minor changes. Mind you, this does cut down on time between games: all you have to do is train twice then go to matchday.

This might be an asset if the training method and match weren't so peculiar. In training you're asked a football tactics question (eg, Free kick: what do you do?) and offered four possible answers. Unfortunately, none are necessarily correct. They have a percentage chance of being right next to them along with the number of stars awarded if you select the right answer. So, none of the answers are right but you need six stars to stay in the team. Oh dear.

My luck hasn't held out that long yet and I always manage to get relegated to the subs in my first game and the reserve subs in my second. The match is basically the same, only in-between the questions you get little reports on what's happening.

And that's just about it. Professional Footballer has the makings of a neat game, but as it stands it's unambitious with an infuriating training method.