Again Again
£9.99 cass
Reviewer: Rich Pelley

Australian Rules Footie is supposedly the most violent 'sport' around - probably because there aren't actually any rules. As you may have gathered, it does in fact come from down under, although it's a lot closer to rugby than it is to football.

The general idea is to beat up as many people as possible, and perhaps get this odd-shaped ball through two posts at the end of the pitch. To achieve this you'll need to pass the ball to another player in your team by throwing or kicking it. If anyone on your side catches it without dropping it then they are 'marked', which means that no one can jump them until they've kicked or thrown the ball to another person. If the ball does happen to go either side of the two posts then you score one point, if it goes in between then you score two - simple enough really, and a great excuse for a punch up.

The Speccy version, however is rather less on the violent side, making it possible to play an entire game without breaking all the bones in your body, rather unlike the real thing. Putting this lack of realism aside, I surprised myself by actually enjoying Australian Rules Football.

It's a one player game in which you play against the computer for 12 minutes in four quarters (so that's, er... three minutes per quarter) in a number different games, trying either to win the Outback Amateur League or the Victorian Football - depending which side of the tape you load. The difference between the two involves the other teams you play, and how hard it all is.

You control one person at a time, running him down the three part flick-screen pitch. You control the same player until he has passed the ball, and then you move to another one - which can initially be a bit confusing 'cos you don't really know who you're going to control next. An arrow highlights your man, however, so things soon become clear. To gain control of a loose ball, or successfully tackle another player, you simply get into position and press 'fire'. You can then dash around with the ball until you are tackled or pass to another player. Everything's viewed from above so your men look more like animated goldfish bowls than people, but once you've got used to that you'll be laughing.

Controls are easy, graphics are clear and the whole thing seems to fit together quite nicely, although not quite up there with the likes of Matchday 2. As long as the fact it comes from the same part of the world as Kylie and Jason doesn't bother you, you cant really go wrong.

BARGAIN BASEMENT

RICH PELLEY goes dizzy over the latest batch of Codies games and JON PILLAR has quite a bit of trouble getting a word in edgeways.

Alternative
£2.99
Reviewer: Rich Pelley

Not being nasty or anything, but Australians must be pretty crap if they think this game's anything like the sport we all know (and love) as football. Unless that bit's a red herring of course. You see, in truth the game is far more like rugby (it's played with a funny shaped ball for a start) except with one factor missing - the rules.

Anyway, the chances of converting the shrieks and pains of the real thing to the Spec seemed pretty unlikely, and. alas, I was right (for once) as I reviewed it ages ago as a full pricer. It plays pretty much the same as your average footie game - you control the player nearest to the ball and run up and down the pitch, passing it along the way (although annoyingly you don't know whether there'll be anyone there to catch it). And the problems don't end there. Oh, by jove, no. It's hard to see where things are (the ball for example), your players move jerkily around and to be honest, it's rather hard to tell what's going on. And there's no 2- player option either (which is usually when these things are best). It's not a total disaster (it's undoubtedly the best rugby type game to date) but it just goes to prove that, until someone else proves otherwise, these sorts of game just don't seem to work half as well as footie ones.