Computer Gamer


FA Cup '87
By Virgin Games
Amstrad CPC464

 
Published in Computer Gamer #26

Not such virgins at marketing, Virgin Games has re-released FA Cup '86 as FA Cup '87! Gordon Hamlett re-reviews it in best Brian Clough style

FA Cup '87

Well David, as you know, football is a game of two halves and I've got a strange feeling that this is the second half of something that was started last year. It's called FA Cup '87 and, as you know David (Coleman), the FA Cup stays much the same from one year to the next. Now if they had only called it the Full Members League Littlewoods Milk Freight Rover Vauxhall Conference Cup, they might have got away with it.

Yes folks, it's rip off time. Remember all the fuss when US Gold brought out World Cup Carnival which turned out to be the Artic game repackaged. Well, Virgin Games is trying to pull the same trick. To all intents and purposes, the game is identical to the one they brought out last year. Statistics have been altered to reflect current form and some of the managerial questions have changed - but not enough to warrant charging even budget price... let alone full price! It isn't even as if the game is any good!

For anyone who missed it first time round, the game is played by one to eight people who can select up to ten teams. You then sit back and watch the draw take place, which is even more boring than watching Arsenal. If you want, you can skip to round three, in which case you may well discover that all your teams have been knocked out apart from Neasden Toblerone which has been drawn away to Liverpool.

F A Cup 87 Football

Now comes the exciting bit... you get to press a key!! Will your team play 4-4-2, 4-3-3 or 4-2-4?

Here we go, here we go, here we go... Holding down the space bar to speed up the game, you can sit back and, first, watch the results come in and *then* sit through the replays, then it's on to the draw for the next round. Gripping stuff eh?

If you are lucky enough to enjoy a Cup run, the action really hots up - you get the chance to change tactics and you may even have to answer a question such as, what do you do if your leading penalty taker gets the jitters? But even here, scope for imagination is minimal. It's choose A, B or C.

You must follow the Cup through to the final - even if none of the players have any teams left! No speeding things up by pressing the space bar. You do, however, get a commentary. Every so often you get told that both sides have got early nerves or whatever, but nothing about the fact that, say, one team has gone two up in ten minutes. Goals, it seems, are not important. Play up, play up and play game.

Well, all I can say David is I'm really looking forward to FA Cup '88 so that I can complete my hattrick of own goals. If you lot do buy this game there will be an awful lot of not-very-well parrots next day.