Producer: Virgin
Retail Price: £7.95
Author: Kerian UK Ltd

Virgin Games are confident that their new football simulation program is true to life. Sports journalist Tony Williams came up with the concept for the game, drawing upon his football knowledge gained as editor of the League Club Directory and the FA Non-League Directory. Tony studied the form of the football clubs which appear in FA Cup Football and devised a set of performance figures for them. Once Tony's data had been incorporated, the Football Association was shown the game. The FA found it so authentic, that the program carries the Football Association's endorsement.

The program follows the course of the FA Cup, and allows up to eight players to manage ten teams each. No less that 124 teams are included in the game, and if players don't find their favourite Non-League team amongst them, they can enter further clubs.

At the start of the game the number of players has to be input - one person can play against the computer - then players enter a two letter code which is used to identify them for the rest of the game. Taking it in turns, the budding managers select teams from the paged list displayed on screen until everyone has a full complement of ten sides and the competition begins.

All the Cup matches can be played from scratch, or the players can opt to move straight to Round Three - when the First and Second Division clubs enter the competition, in which case the computer calculates which teams were defeated in the first two rounds.

Each round begins with the draw. Two discs bearing numbers corresponding to the clubs remaining in the contest roll across the screen. When they come to rest the names of the two teams they represent are added to the list of matches to be played in that round.

Before all the matches are played, managers have to choose their tactical approach to the games in which their teams are playing. Managers can encourage teams to play a Defensive, Balanced or Attacking game by selecting the appropriate key when the computer prompts them. Once all the tactics have been given to the computer, the matches kick off. The computer keeps track of the state of play, listing all the teams playing and updating the scores as goals go in.

The matches are played in accelerated time, as shown on a digital readout at the top of the screen, and the passage of time can be speeded up by pressing the SPACE key. In the first three rounds play continues to full time without interruption, but as the competition hots up more and more managerial decisions need to be made. In Round Four managers are given the option to change tactics at half time. In Round Five a tricky question is asked of every team's manager before play commences to test managerial ability, and a substitute can be played at three quarter time. Occasionally the option to look at a newsflash is given to the away teams's manager - if the news is viewed it may increase or decrease team morale.

In the last three Rounds managers have to deal with a barrage of tricky questions, update tactics at quarter, half and three-quarter time as well as decide whether to field substitutes. During the Final, updates on the pitch condition, humour of the crowd and the style and mood of the players are given at regular intervals during the match.

COMMENTS

Control keys: X to page the display of teams and matches, to continue to the next Round after Full Time, SPACE to increase the rate at which time passes, A selects defensive play, B for a balanced game, C for attacking game
Joystick: N/A
Keyboard play: follow the prompts
Use of colour: excellent
Graphics: not a great deal, but what's there is well done
Sound: various beeps and a little tune at the final
Skill levels: one
Screens: one for each function

FA Cup Football is a very well presented strategy game. The use of colour makes the screen display look attractive, and the graphics make what would have been an unexciting text-only game into a more pleasant one. The game itself is good fun to play, but is too easy when played alone. If you can play in a group, then do 'cos its a lot more fun with friends. Its nowhere near as involved as Football Manager, but it's good fun nevertheless, and football fans should be well pleased with this 'official' game from Virgin.

FA Cup Football may be mistaken for Football Manager as it is based on the same idea. So what if hasn't got ace graphics and wonderful sound? One minor niggle: I found the tactics keys a bit illogically chosen: why press C for an attacking game and A for a defensive one? It's still an entertaining game, though. The amount of player involvement is fairly minimal - I have to admit that I wasn't hooked for a long period of time - but it's fun trying to get your teams to the Cup Final.

Although it's not particularly brilliant, FA Cup Football provides quite a bit of fun. It's almost therapeutic in fact, just sitting there pressing the odd button occasionally and watching things happen. The graphics (what there are of them) are very nice and the whole game is excellently presented. For me Football Manager is still the definitive football game on the Spectrum, as it is more complicated and has more depth. This is more of a party game- it'd be great with a bunch of football mad friends - or perhaps one for the youngsters. Worth a whirl if you're nuts on footy.

Virgin
£7.95

When the Ed heard Virgin's FA. Cup Football was the first Football Association endorsed soccer game and that Tony Williams, editor of the F.A. League Club Directory was writing it, he knew experts were needed to review it. Tough, you got me instead. Off he sent me to find 'added realism'. The Royal Box at Wembley, I dreamed. Oh no, he poured iced water down me wellies, gave me half a can of flat Skol and made me watch this game over the shoulder of a six foot seven Arsenal fan through a Rediffusion window. The glamour just never stops.

In many respects this text based simulation with a touch of strategy is the most accurate of football games on the market. It attempts to recreate the splendours of a complete F.A. Cup campaign. With an up to eight player facility it's a full family game. Each player can choose ten teams to manage, picked from the 92 league teams plus 32 non-leaguers, or you can program in a personal favourite.

At each round a draw is made but there are no rattling balls in a black bag, just a scrolling screen. If you want to leap (as all but the most manic Runcorn fans will) to the third round where top division clubs enter, then you can. Before each game in the first three rounds you can choose your basic tactic - defensive, balanced or attacking. In round four you can modify this at half time.

From round five you'll be asked an increasing number of managerial questions. Some are silly and rude (do you let your Nigerian winger see his witch doctor!!) to the crucial and practical (how do you re-motivate your penalty taker?). You also have the option to look at news flashes that might affect the morale of your team. At this stage you also get extra chances to change your strategy depending on the state of play.

The glory of the F.A. Cup though is unpredictability. And this simulation tries so hard to be accurate it ends up with the anonymous appeal of watching the pools panel sit. The F.A. Cup, thank God, is not programmed to the dictats of Don Howe. True there are little ripples of shock - Runcorn beat Wimbledon, Liverpool and Arsenal get involved in an unlikely eight goal shoot out - but nothing that's gonna make Saint And Greavsie take up tiddlywinks. This game's statistical background - who's done best in the last ten years - is severely weighted toward the big four - Everton, Spurs, Liverpool and (spit) Manchester Utd. I'd have relished a little more managerial control to make me feel thoroughly involved as the minutes ticked by - the only action ever seen on the screen.

For sheer variety the Rothman's World Cup is a better bet, but this walks all over Bryan Robson's Football Manager (which is something I'd like to do). I refuse to knock this game. As someone who flew half way round the world to watch the Cup Final last year I've taken great joy in managing Everton to three successive Cup victories. Eat yer heart out Big Ron.

Publisher: Virgin
Programmer: Kerian UK
Price: £7.95
Memory: 48K

Only the most bone-headed of Arsenal supporters could conceivably enjoy playing this much-hyped Virgin production. Play, did I say? Crush my cartilage for a liar, but there's sweet FA to play in this game, if you'll forgive the pun.

There's lots and lots of teams, and you pick eight. If you have eight players each picks one, if you have four each gets two and so on. Wonderful stuff, and I'd tell you exactly how many teams there are if I had the energy to load the game up again and check. It's over 100 anyway.

To give the game its due, it does claim to be an accurate representation of the FA Cup, has FA Cup official approval, and the top teams tend to make it to the later stages. Unfortunately, you get to do very little. Unlike the marvellous Football Manager, this sorry little apology for a strategy game merely requires you to decide your general tactics - defensive, balanced or attacking - and in later stages offers you the chance to make a substitution or answer questions about decisions. Those are of the form, "What sort of boots would you wear for wet weather?" I didn't spot wellies as an option, but by this stage I was groaning at the sheer tedium of it all anyway.

You think I'm exaggerating? That is, literally, it. You watch as the draw for each round takes place, you then decide the tactics for your teams, you then watch the seconds tick away and occasional goals flick up on the scoreboards. No graphics chum, nothing like that. Eventually you go to sleep.

Liverpool managed to make it to the final, playing Everton. The robotic rendition of Abide With Me - nothing is spared in this game, not even your ears - jolted me out of slumber for long enough to record a note about the sinister hissing that passes for the roar of the crowd afterwards. Perhaps they were having a go at Grobelaar again.

I can think of absolutely no good reason to buy this game. It's got to be one of the worst things Virgin has ever done, and that includes some all time turkeys. It's even worse than Sheepwalk. Ignore it.

A game designed, apparently, around a vast database of footballing statistics. Like Football Manager it is not a game of graphics and movement but rather of menus and selection.

The trouble is, unlike Football Manager it doesn't crack it as a game. In fact it's barely a game at all - as though someone built up the database of real team performances and then wondered what to do with it.

It may be true that a certain team plays a certain type of game much better than another but simply to be 'given' that factor as a fixed variable hardly makes for an exciting game.

An interesting program for those absolutely addicted to the hard facts of footballing statistics. Otherwise avoid.

Label: Ricochet
Author: Virgin
Price: £1.99
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: None
Reviewer: Chris Jenkins

It says just about everything about FA Cup Football that the insert is illustrated not with the usual screen shots, but with some lovely photos of athletic footballers. The game itself is so graphically dull that only the most fanatical footie follower would enjoy the process of guiding ten chosen teams through the FA Cup.

You can begin in the first round or go straight through to the third. The league and non-league dubs have home end away performance ratings decided by their real-life results in the last ten years. You choose 10 out of the 128 clubs, and up to 8 players can compete.

The matches are than played to a thrilling background of text, and this happens for round after round until you get to Round Four, where you get the chance to rethink your tactics at half-time. At later stages you also have the chance to bring on substitutes and so on, but you never get involved in the complexities of finance, team lineups, transfers and so forth, as you do in more sophisticated sims.

Overall, I'd say this one deserves the red card.

Various
Virgin Games
Football Manager Simulation
£7.95

Which game still sold sufficient copies to earn a place in the 1985 overall top 20 three years after it was released? The slightly surprising answer is the Addictive Games Football Manager. Surprising because it is written in Basic, the graphics are crude, and the action proceeds at a snail's pace. It offers you the convincing illusion, however, that your shrewdness as a manager determines the outcome.

That is just what FA Cup Football is lacking. The idea is to take one of 10 teams through eight rounds of the F.A. Cup competition to the final at Wembley. Along the way there is very little scope for showing your managerial skills. You have no say in the team selection and matches are not decided on the quality of the players. Instead, the game bases the results partly on the "real performance figures" of the teams concerned in the last 10 years.

In other words, if you select a Fourth Division or non-league club you probably will not survive more than a few rounds.

It may be realistic but it does not make for riveting game-play. Taking a team to the top of Football Manager's First Division can keep you up all night. In FA Cup Football, if you are in a hurry the whole business can be wrapped up in less than 20 minutes. After selecting 10 teams you have only one major decision to make before and during each match - whether to adopt defensive, balanced or attacking tactics.

Virgin Games
£7.95

Not so much a variation on Football Manager, more a case of team shepherding as with Virgin's officially endorsed FA Cup game, you have ten sides to guide through to the Wembley final.

Up to eight players can choose the ten teams they want to manage from a list of 124 league and non-league sides and there's also an option to include a really obscure team of your own invention. Once you've chosen there's an option to bypass the first two rounds and start with the third when all the big teams enter. However some of your potential giant killers may have been eliminated on the way.

If you choose to play the first round, you sit through the draw and then the individual matches flash up so you can make your tactic selection. Any unchosen teams are managed by the computer. Tactic selection is rather limited; there's an option to play either an attacking, defensive or balanced side. In the later rounds there are more options, such as changing tactics at half time and in the last three rounds there are opportunities to change strategy during the game as well as making a late substitution.

As for the games themselves it's a question of watching the scores flash up as the clock ticks away. The clock can be speeded up with the space bar if you can't stand the tension and want to know the results pronto.

If any of your squad of teams make it to the later rounds there are also managerial questions to be answered which may effect the outcome of the match and newsflashes appear sporadically on the screen to bring morale-breaking or boosting items.

But for all the attempts to convince you that you are controlling a team's fate it doesn't really come off. There is no indication of just how momentous decisions actually influence the results. So, if you are looking for a really in-depth football management game this isn't it. On the other hand it is a very enjoyable group game because the results (which often look like Rugby scores) seem to rely entirely on the computer's pre-programmed whims. FA Cup Football is a game which makes few demands on you but if you know a lot of people who like football it could be a winner. It's really a game that needs an audience to get the best out of it.