Previous Next

Um, just between me and you a minute, there's one teensy weeny little thing I'd like to bring up, bearing no relation to that Kentucky Fried Chicken I had last night. Management games are what I'm alluding to here. Why oh why oh why do software companies feel compelled to release the stupid things? 99.9 percent of each month's crop are inexplicably the same as 99.9 percent of the management games already available, 99.9 percent receive hopeless reviews in 99.9 percent of the magazines, usually because (99.9 percent of the time) the accused software company has only made about 0.1 percent progress since their last crappy production. Basically, and this is only an opinion, it all adds up to 599.6 percent.

Yet month after month after month, management game after management game after management game is churned out indicating, albeit dubiously, that there are people out there who actually buy and, one assumes, like them. It is these people, people who let games like Populous 2 pass innocently by, people who wouldn't realise that the management game is terminally dead even if you tattooed it on their bottom, that I assume would buy this sort of thing. So let's be slightly more objective for their sake.

Here goes then. Rugby Coach. Well, it's not exactly original, but what the heck, eh? And it's icon-driven - probably the most effective method, I'd say. And it's all text with no animation, just text text text. Easier on the eyes. And the gameplay is simple - pick teams, buy players, play games, look at results, re-arrange teams, buy new players. All the usual stuff. Hmmm. And there's an annoying delay for anything to happen when you click the mouse. Um. Erm...

If you can think of any objective comments about this game, perhaps you'd write in and let me know. For me, a management game is a management game and will always be until someone does something new with the form, which, it has to be said here, they haven't.

A management game with nothing fundamentally wrong with it except for the fact that it's a management game.