Previous Next

Let's face it, management sims have traditionally been the style of game accountants love to play. The sort of game doctors recommend to insomniacs and people with dodgy tickets. With football itself becoming every more defensive and dull, a game in which you have to do the tax returns, as well as control the on-field antics, hardly sounds thrilling. What hope is there then for Superleague Soccer?

The patient, ST Format is glad to announce, is showing unexpected signs of vitality. Soccer avoids the trap of thinking that more is automatically better and concentrates solely on the First Division. It doesn't weigh you down by involving teams you've never heard of, from places you never want to visit, in leagues you didn't even care existed (i.e. the Second Division!).

You're the freshfaced new boy who begins work at the start of the football season with all the First Division clubs as potential employers. At more successful clubs there's a greater depth of players and finances, so the seediing system is obvious. Any fool can take Liverpool to the top [Kenny Dalglish couldn't - Ed], but the real challenge comes with the Charlton Athletics of this world. Win the league with them and you're in the wrong job.

All the actual gaming between matches is done on a series of clipboard pages that you can leaf through. Click on top of the respective document to reveal more in-depth information on the topic. These categories are mutually exlusive and let you control the club's activities quickly and easily. Tables, Money, Train, Pick and Play are the menu choices, each dealing with a certain area of the club's operation. The process is made considerably faster with the help of a quick start flowchart, which outlines every choice and the subheadings to select in order to get to them.

No typing is necessary once you've established your squad, club name and players. Based solely on the use of the ouse, you can speed through the most laborious of tasks. A pen and paper will always be necessary for this style of game, as player stats are too detailed to implement effectively from sketchy memories. It's no fun trying to pick a team when you find half your star players contracts have expired and they're now playing for the opposition.

If you do well in the three domestic competitions then the following season you have the chance to go for further glory in European cups of all shapes and sizes. Avoiding failure is your initial goal, as nobody loves a loser. True to life, success breeds further success and continual defeat ushers in your P45 very quickly.

Soccer's main claim to fame is the control you can exercise over matches as they're played. Most management sims have merely given full-time results, or a blow by blow account of a match, while you sit powerless to influence events except by substitution - not much use when you're sixteen goals behind at half time! Soccer actually lets you control each of your players kick by kick.

Using a team roster, displayed below the match screen, you click on the player you want to move, click where you want them to run or kick the ball and determine the shot's strength. A good working knowledge of which number player stands where on the field is necessary, as the figures are too small to display shirt numbers - again the quick start card proves invaluable here.

It's tricky to begin with and time consuming, but you can develop quite a feel for the match itself. If mistakes are made then at least you have yourself and not the program to blame. These controlled matches can be either short "highlight" versions or a full game, and those mangers who believe that their team is a dead cert winner can just opt for an instant result.

For all these features Soccer cannot escape the fact that it's a management game, and will therefore never have those heart-stopping moments found in shoot-'em-ups. The new extras do lift it out of the typical management quagmire, by allowing a greater element of control than has been realised before.

It doesn't try to guide the manager along a set route, the pitfalls are yours to fall into whenever you want. Its brevity in concentrating only on the First Division almost gives the game pace. But Soccer is still a game that you'll have to devote hours to if you want to play it well, and there will be many angry moments until then. It's still a game accountants will love, but real people can play too without feeling sick as a parrot.