Manchester United: The Official Football Game, MUTOFG for short, features a full management game, including injury, status, training, Cup Draws and League Fixtures as well as a full arcade game, featuring penalties, corners, free kicks, action replays, referee and linesmen!

You are met by a motif of Manchester United surrounded by various icons. In the background lies a brilliantly digitised picture of action from a real game. The icons are all controlled via the mouse, which you must double-click in order to access the option.

Training is needed in order to raise your team's skill level and agility, however this makes no difference when playing the arcade section. Players that have been sent off, injuries and league tables and fixtures are all part of this brilliant release. You can even buy and sell players as you wish.

I found the Progress Chart very good as an incredible picture of a newspaper lying on a breakfast table is displayed, showing a different picture and headline after every match. Handy options include setting the game time, changing the manager's name and choosing whether you prefer just arcade action or the fully fledged management simulation. Saving and loading is also allowed so you can come back to the same point you left off at any time.

Once you believe that you have your players ready, you can progress onto the arcade game. Click on the football symbol and away you go... off to Wembley or so you hope! You control the player nearest the ball, who is highlighted by four arrowheads. The way in which you can pass to your teammates, who you are also controlling, is very realistic.

The opposition runs around and depending how difficult you set their skills, depends how hard they try to get the ball.

When you do score a goal, you are given an action replay of the goal using a Visual Video Playback effect, accompanied by whistles and more cheers. The only point that I would like to make is that the continuous roar of the crowd cannot be turned off whilst in the game, but must be turned off totally by issuing a 'Speaker Off' command before booting.

The referee watches your every move and, if you make a sliding tackle, which he sees as a foul then he blows his whistle and makes a decision on a free kick or penalty. Linesmen are included which are a welcome addition. I laughed when I saw them frantically running up and down trying to keep up with the pace! Once you have played the game you go back to the Management Section to see how your team has performed and to train, buy or sell players. Although I'm not usually interested in football I found MUTOFG absolutely brilliant and almost as realistic as being at Wembley although I haven't been there [I think that's a Colemanball - Ed]. This game is definitely going to be on my Top 5 Arc games for 1990.

Verdict: Over the moon, Brian