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Gordon Houghton has a ball with Virgin's official World Cup soccer game.

With the World Cup a mere gnat's football away, the release of another soccer game is like giving chocolate to Willy Wonka - it's got to be something special to make an impact.

World Cup Soccer: Italia '90 is a mouthful to say but a fairly straightforward no frills soccer simulation. The first screen you come across is a parameters menu: you can alter the volume, the game time (1-15 minutes), the skill level (1-5), switch sound on or off (on if you want the speech and crowd noises) and opt for one or two players.

A choice of four teams follows, most of which sport psychedelic versions of Middlesbrough's strip from the 1970's - take your pick from England, Belgium, Italy or Spain. Now get out there and do good.

What is football but a sport played by 22 skilled athletes stroking a ball around a park? Well, in the case of World Cup Soccer, it's a seven-a-side game with no facility for headers, clip shots, banana shots, backheels, scissor kicks, overheads, volleys, dummies or specialist free kicks.

There are two things you can do with the ball when in possession - pass or shoot. When you defend, there's only one thing you can do - tackle. This means that you can't practise skilful ball control or create sweeping man-to-man moves: you tend to resort to hoofing the ball up-field and hoping one of your men will be there.

The unusual low-level goalmouth action looks good but has its drawbacks: at the near end of the pitch it's harder for a keeper to judge the bounce and distance of the ball and it's harder for a striker to score because the view is obscured.

Since the teams don't change ends, the player kicking down is at a permanent disadvantage. In any footy game it's the playability that counts, and WCS doesn't have much to offer: because there's so little you can do with the ball, even two-player mode is a haphazard dash from one to the other.

Single-player mode, while less enjoyable, is more of a challenge, since the computer opponents can be impressive - it's fairly easy to reach the Quarter Finals, but the last three teams take some beating, and if you do win it's usually only by the odd goal.

There are enough good points to make you appreciate the kind of game this could have been: neat presentation touches like speech, the ability to save high scores and a continue option. But the reality is that it falls way short of the mark.

The action is portrayed from a bird's eye view, the pitch scrolling in eight directions to follow the play. The referee is there at all the game's crucial moments - kick off, goals, free kicks, corners, penalties, goal kicks, throw-ins and full time.

Fouls are always punished by a free kick and sometimes by an automatic sending off - more skilled computer opponents tend to foul more more often than weedier ones. If a player is injured badly in the challenge, a couple of medical staff lollop onto the pitch and take him off on a stretcher. Luckily, even if players are sent off or injured, the team number remains exactly the same.

When the ball comes within sight of goal, the angle switches to ground level: at the near end of the pitch the action is viewed from behind the goal - at the far end it's directly in front. If the forward gets too close there's a strong chance he either blasts the ball over the bar or hits the woodwork.

Whenever the ball crosses the line for a goal kick, corner or throw-in, one of your players is highlighted by an arrow. Pressing fire kicks the ball straight to him, which gives WCS the distinction of having the most flexible and accurate dead ball play of any footy simulation.

This is what it's all about - the sweet taste of victory (no one bothered to tell the keeper though). Win within the allotted time-span and you progress to the next round. Otherwise there's an extra 30 seconds of sudden death play, the winner being the first to score. If the scores are level after this period, the match is declared a tie and replayed.

ST soccer supremos can get out that scarf and bobble hat - your version is planned for simultaneous release at the same price.

For an extra fiver, PC footy fans will be able to play a blinder on their own version. Again, it should be out by the time you read this.