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I'm sorry but it has to be said, the loading screen to The Match is the most depressing thing I've ever seen. It looks like a road accident. But having said that, the gameplay is speedy and pretty idiot-proof. You get to see the whole field from a sort of far-away grandstand view, and the tiny figures run around with the ball 'til someone scores. Just like the real thing. There's a running commentary at the bottom of the screen so, even if you can't tell the teams apart, you can still keep up with what's happening.

In the game it's possible to train everybody, so your team gets pretty pokey quite early in the season. [He means powerful. - Ed] This is good news if you don't want to sit in front of your Speccy for about 40 hours in an attempt to win just one match.

The graphics aren't too bad and, amazingly they don't go along at the speed of an arthritic snail climbing a mountain. In fact, you could live to see out an entire season of The Match.