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Football games look set to take over at the moment with every software house with two programmers to rub together launches some Mexico spin-off.

Activision's contribution to this is the French-produced Soccer 86 (though having seen France scrape through their match against the 1000 to 1 outsiders Canada, I am thoughtful about the state of the Canadian software industry...).

The game is in the International Soccer mould pioneered by Commodore a couple of years ago, but with a lot of changes and significant improvements.

Instead of merely being able to change the team's colours, instead you pick a country. This then selects the appropriate national colours and national anthem. Then (with your manager's cap on) you can give points to each of your players to (say) strengthen your midfield or your defence. This aspect of the game is very good and lets you have more individual control over your team than would be strictly usual in a game of this type.

Then off to the game. The teams troop in, line up and their national anthem is played. They then stand around the centre line (there is no central circle) and kick off. From here, play is identical to International Soccer, except that the pitch is rather longer than you would normally expect for one of that width. Goal kicks, corners and throw-ins are all handled with no real problems.

Control is likewise easy with joystick or keyboard being available. Though I did find that controlling the goalie is a bit difficult, but perhaps that's just me.

A very good football game, now Amstrad owners can stop drooling over people with Commodore 64's with the International Soccer cartridge and show them some real football.