Football's an odd game, and amateur football players are even odder. Why, oh why, do they have such an urge to get out of their nice warm beds and go and stand in the middle of a cold field? I could understand it if they got vast amounts of money, but they don't. They just get bruised ankles and, if they're lucky, a Mattesons liver pate sandwich. It's one of life's great mysteries!
    Having slagged D&H's re-released Cricket Captain off into oblivion elsewhere in this month's YS, it looks like here we go, here we go, here we go (again) with World Cup.
    
You couldn't manage a ham roll!
Technically speaking there is little to initially fluster about. Apart from its. Timing. That is. (Sorry- that was a crap version of an Alexi Sayle joke, but it didn't seem to work quite so well on paper. Hem.) Everything that you'd expect to be able to do in a management game can be done. In other words players are bought/sold, matches arranged and played, team tactics carefully considered, players trained and so on, with all options selected using exactly the method that you'd expect to be using in a management game, in other words via a whole load of lists.
    Sounds a bit like Football Manager so far, doesn't it. And I think that this is no mere co-incidence. World Cup is sadly an unashamed rip-off of Football Manager. What's more, the programmers are so cheeky that they haven't even tried to do anything different with it! In fact the only major playability differences that I could find were the inclusion of an option to speed up the (crap graphic-ed) animated match highlights and the fact that the proper names are used for each countries' team. Oh, and the welcomed lack of huge pauses in the original is lost, thanks to the upgrade to machine code from BASIC. Hardly the kind of improvements that I'd have hoped for. Especially considering the fact that programmers have had over ten years (yes ten!) since Football Manager was originally released on the Sinclair C5. Or whatever.
    

BLIM! Despite being the captial of unified Germany, Berlin hasn't got a first division side. Coo, eh? Mind you, you can buy very cheap sausages on the terraces, so I suppose that's some consolation.

Having said that, even the best management games such as European Superleague and Footy Manager 2 which, presentation-wise, have at least moved on a stage or two, still seem to feel a little thin in the playability department. With the type of games around today, this begs the question - can full-on management games still actually stand up? Methinks, with a game this poor, 'tis highly unlikely. In fact, if I hadn't already used the 'whopping great steaming pile of poo' methaphor this issue, then I think it'd be particularly appropriate to conclude with it here as well.
    THE BEST TEAM IN THE WORLD!
    Spurs are the greatest team ever, here's the reasons why...
    * Gary Lineker - a lovely boy!
    * Ozzie Ardiles - the most beloved Argentinian ever. Even during the Falklands war, the great British public were rooting for Ozzie.
    * Hoddie and Waddle - that hair! What plonkers!
    * Alan Sugar likes 'em - he must do, he owns them!
    * Linda had a friend at primary school who had a brother who was once a goalie for Spurs. QED!

Ratings given by other magazines

8/10

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