Previous Next

England's surprisingly good form in their recent world cup qualifying matches has created a resurgence in football support and even computer addicts, not known for their athletic prowess, are getting itchy feet and yearning for the sight of acres of muddy grass.

The Amstrad has its very own version called World Cup by Artic Computing which on first appearance looks very like Commodore's International Soccer cartridge.

The game begins by asking you to choose one of the twelve teams on offer, ranging from Brazil to Wales.

The game then goes through the preamble of having all the players trot onto the pitch in pairs and stand in their proper positions. After this performance, which lasts several minutes, the whistle is blown and you're off.

You then have a game lasting around fifteen minutes which includes a change of ends at half time. At the beginning, the computer slaughters you every time. Wingers dash along the touch line, dancing past your defenders, dummy the keepers and smash the ball into the back of the net. Typical score lines are: 7:0, 8:0 and 12:1 - a lucky shot in the last game.

But once you have played the game several times, you notice that the computer players always behave the same way in certain situations. Once you have learned these "programmed" moves, it becomes very easy to run rings around the computer-controlled teams and I had soon won the World Cup four times on the trot with a little practice.