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And he's running with the ball, he beats one defender, two, three but finally gets brutally taken down by a vicious tackle. Not before he passes the ball to the striker though, who boots in into the back of the net. Ah yes, it's another Sunday afternoon's frantic football antics.

Italy 1990, as the a might suggest, first arrived on the scene during the 1990 World Cup, among a plethora of other football titles in what was without a very mixed bag of ball games. Although Italy 1990 didn't stand out from the crowd on most fronts it did (and still does) have one advantage - it's fast.

While other games have you happily plodding around the field kicking the ball when you're good and ready this one provides real speed challenge. This can be a good thing or a bad thing. It does increase the game's competitiveness but because there's no stop and hold facility, allowing you to actually stop with the ball and pick a player to pass it to, it can lead to frustration too.

There are a full a of international teams available, so take your pick from the best, including (the now sad) England, (the truly international) Republic Of Ireland, (the very Ruud) Dutch and the (nutty) Brazilians. The gameplay includes heading the ball, chipping the ball, normal and sliding tackles and penalty or corner set pieces.

Graphics are more than reasonably clear bu a little plain during actual gameplay. The game is, however, punctuated by frequent visits to the nice man in the tv commentary box and the digitised scoreboard, which announces corners, free kicks and scores (usually for the other team for the first few game but you'll soon get the hang of it).

Italy 1990 is not the perfect footie simulation but if you're interested in obtaining yet another one it's worth a look as a fast arcade style footie sim with no managerial frills.

Label: Kixx Memory: 48K/128K Price: £3.99 Tape Reviewer: Garth Sumpter

Lots of fast paced action marks Italy 1990 as a very playable game. The best game off the recently launched Gary Lineker collection has now been launched as a standalone re-release budget title. Worth a look.