It's extra-orrrdinary Brian! Everywhere you turn there's a
new Spectrum soccer simulation (try saying that after a few
Lucozades), aimed, no doubt, at the countless thousands who
shelled out for Kevin Toms' golden oldie
Football Manager.
And gameplay in
Footballer Of The Year isn't a million miles
from that old chestnut. You still play for a team struggling to
escape the lower divisions, only this time you deal in goal cards,
which enable you to have a potshot or two at goal whenever you
play them. You can also buy Incident Cards (just like Chance and
Community cards in
Monopoly). As you score more goals and rise
up the divisions you find yourself gaining status points and being
transferred, often against your will. But there's a definite way to
play it to win!
This involves buying as many goal cards as you can, using
them sparingly and spending the rest of your ackers on Incident
Cards. From then on in, there are only seven or eight hours of
hard play before you finally make Footballer Of The Year. The
gameplay's not too bad if you like that sort of thing and the
graphics really are excellent. Parts of the game, though, are a
mite dodgy. There's no consistency about league positions - if a
team's won ten games and lost 24, you wouldn't really expect it to
be sixth in the league. Not only that, there's no difference in cup
games between 1st and 4th Division teams and when the
Footballer Of The Year ceremony comes up someone is invariably
nominated twice, and still doesn't win.
So does
Footballer Of The Year hit the crossbar or is it a
winner? Well, Brian, without wishing to put the boot in, let alone
brandish the red card, I'm afraid it's not at the top of
Division One. Still,
it's a game of two halves,
Brian, and you could do a hell
of a lot worse in 90 minutes.
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