Commodore User


Peter Shilton's Handball Maradona

Author: Mike Pattenden
Publisher: Grandslam
Machine: Commodore 64

 
Published in Commodore User #41

Peter Shilton's Handball Maradona

What a licencing deal! Peter Shilton and Diego Maradona all in one game - the trouble is, it looks as if all the money and imagination went on the title and little on the gameplay.

What we have here is a goalkeeper simulation H hence the Peter Shilton namecheck, but where Diego Maradona fits in I don't know. There's not even a hint of Argentina or Napoli about any of the strips and sides in the options.

The game is joystick- or keyboard-playable, but it's worth mentining that, should you buy this, you'll have to fiddle around sticking the joystick in both ports to work through the options screens.

Peter Shilton's Handball Maradona

Running through the options quickly you'll simply have to enter your initials, select joysticks or keyboard choose a team and select from, practice, game and skill upgrading.

This takes us into the gameplay. You're presented with a screen depicting one end of the pitch from an elevated camera angle, a bit like one of the views you get on the Big Match. Two or three players from each side are running around aimlessly and there you are the man in the green jersey, the last line of defence, planted between the sticks presumably worrying about your private life and whether Mark Dennis is going to stick his elbow in your face during a goalmouth scramble.

The attacking side I have to admit, is a bit tasty. These lads have the kind of shot on them that Bobby Robson would give up promoting YTS schemes for. Not since the days of Bobby Charlton have I seen a ball whistle into the net like that.

Peter Shilton's Handball Maradona

Faced with striking as devastating as this and a defence leakier than a sieve you're in for a pretty soul-destroying time in froont of the old onion bag. Your job is made all the harder because it's difficult to pick up the flight of the ball. So often you're left rooted to the spot as the ball flies in for another goal. Occasionally you dive embarassingly late, so late that the announcer's already telling you who the scorer was before you hit the ground.

Actually that's a bit of an exaggeration, but there is some speech of sorts. Apart from telling you what the game is when it's loaded (useful if you're partially sighted, I suppose) you get another brief announcement to tell you what you already know, depending on the whereabouts of the ball. More often than not, a digitised voice - presumably that of an asthma sufferer by the sound of it 0 coughing "Goal!" into a handkerchief somewhere in the distance. It's that distinct. Of course, should you pull off a save, he wheezes "Save!" into his spinhaler. I was hoping for a chorus of "England's, England's number one, England's number one".

What you have here is a slimmer version of the keeping part of International Football. Just as the keeper responded to the joystick to make a save so do you in this game. To just concentrate on that, I'd have wanted better graphics and control over the player. Instead you end up with a bloke about as skillful as Alex Stepney. I'm calling up the reserve keeper - Peter Shilton's getting a free transfer.

Mike Pattenden

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