CodeMasters
£3.99 cassette
0926 814132
Reviewer: Andy Hutchinson

I absolutely adore pinball. There's something about sending that little silver ball into bouncy pads and down holes and up wire runways that's completely entrancing. Pinball tables are a noisy, throbby, hands on treat. However these days you only see them in really crappy cafes and at the odd fairground. I say, bring back pinball tables, because they're one of the few things I'm any good at.

Any road up. What we've got here is a pinball game with a sprinkling of soccer aspects. In other words you get to take throw-ins, avoid the defence and score goals by whacking the pinball up the table and into the nooks and crannies which litter the edges.

The game can be controlled with either joystick or keyboard, although I strongly recommend the latter. Once you've defined keys you can pull the funky plunger back and let the ball fly into the upper table zone. At this point it's worth remembering that you've got two sets of flippers, rather than the more usual bottom of the table bog standard two flippy friends, in order that you can try and score some points immediately by keeping the ball at the top of the table.

ON ME HEAD

Each portion of the screen shows a different aspect of football. For instance, in the middle of the pitch are three defenders, plonked right in front of the goal. Knock these lovely chaps out of the way and you can have a shot at goal. Zip the ball between the posts and you'll be informed of your flipping prowess with a message at the bottom of the screen. However, there aren't any graphics of footballers snogging each other.

The graphics are relatively smooth and clearly defined, although the movements the ball makes are, on occasion, completely and utterly stupid. This can be most off-putting and often leads to the loss of a ball. When this happens a little graphic of a crying football manager appears and you can ready the plunger again.

Soccer Pinball's not brilliant. It looks like the Codies have slightly modified their Advanced Pinball Simulator, simply replacing the graphics of castles with graphics of goalposts. Soccer Pinball's fun for five mins, but I wouldn't make a career out of playing it.

Label: Codemaster
Memory: 48K/128K
Price: £3.99 Tape
Program By:
Reviewer: Cyril Herelle

It's strange what some people get addicted to. Hitting a little metal ball with two plastic flippers then building up a sweat as you watch it disappear into tunnels, bang off bells and light up flashing messages sounds like a pretty odd and boring pastime, only for the saddest of people. However if you've ever played pinball, you'll know... It's unbeatable.

Code Master's latest pinball offering combines this highly addictive pastime with that other great British pastime. Soccer. Not a bad idea, but just how successful can the marriage of these two completely different sports be, especially on computer?

With a strong pull of the spring the ball goes shooting though the tube, bounces off a few (not very exciting) objects and ends up balancing on top of the flipper. A light touch of the button on the Spectrum's keyboard makes the flipper jump sending the ball zooming up the pitch and into a empty net. The crowd are off their seats! The whistle goes, it's all over, Cyril Herelle has won the cup! (Get on with it! - Ed)

Now this is what I call fun. Although the basic object of the game is to score goals and prevent the ball from going down the drain there is a lot more to the game than just this. You must score three goals to progress to the next level, defeat the keeper by knocking down players or by sheer skill aiming and reach the mind boggling final in level eight. A host of real pinball bonus features make the game very interesting indeed. These include mystery lanes, a bigger ball (you can get more balls by hitting these), a half time hooter and much more.

Other features include nicely drawn pictures which pop up after you or the computer score or when you finally win the game, objects to hit for special bonuses like waking up two footballers with a good bang of the ball and hitting the trophy to advance to the next level. There is also a very dangerous alley which makes your keeper disappear if you let the ball go down it.

And that's really it. Soccer pinball owes more to the game of pinball than it does to soccer, it's basically "pinball where you have to score goals", but I can't really see any thing wrong with that. Competent but rather unexciting graphics and some very nice sound effects, combined with acceptably challenging gameplay make for a simple but addictive game which, if you're good at pinball you may be interested in seeing but if your interest solely like in soccer then you might give it a miss.

ALAN:
I really like playing pinball but I'm not so keen on soccer. Soccer pinball isn't very addictive and it tends to fall short of really good versions of both games but for £3.99 it's not a bad purchase. Fast and reasonably furious, pinball lovers will no doubt welcome a new version of their fave game on their fave computer. But let's be honest, it doesn't have much competition.