Developer: Rebelstar Without a Cause
Genre: Sports Management
Platform: Spectrum 48K
Language: BASIC

Rebelstar Without a Cause (RWaC from here on in, if only to save my keyboard) presents this Football Management Sim which comes complete with a 'celebrity' endorsement from David Moyes.

This title screen doesn't even begin to hint at the effort that's clearly gone on behind the scenes which, I'm afraid, is somewhat lost on me. Unfortunately I really don't get Management Sims (including classics such Sim City, Championship Manager, even elements of SWOS as I recall) and, in general, just find the number tweaking and statistical updates a bit of a yawn-fest.

As if that wasn't enough to render me an inappropriate reviewer it also turns out that, amazingly, I'd never heard of David Moyes until I Googled him for this review - apparently he's neither a popular, nor particularly successful, football manager.

With that in mind it's on to the review... Good luck RWaC!

You start the game selecting your skill level, ranging from 1 - Beginner through to 5 - Expert and finally 7 - Genius.

Next up your team 'colours,' 0 - Black or 7 - White. I instantly misread this as Speccy Colour Codes and thought it might be nice to play in Magenta, however, when I suggested '3' I was instantly chastised with the message; "0 or 7 please!"

The game proper begins with the Options screen from which you can list/sell your players, manage loans, change your skill level or even change the names of all the league teams - potentially allowing the game to be easily modified into a World Cup Edition, perhaps?

You can also see a scorecard screen which lists your current financial status, team's league position and morale, your managerial rating and progress through the leagues and season.

Also present on many screens is the mysterious phrase; (h=copy) which, looking at the code, I think is supposed to send output to the ZX Printer. I've tried this in various emulators, and I'm sure it's my misconfiguration, but it just seems to lock up the game?

Moving on from the Options we get our first match announcement, in this case, Manchester United vs Blackpool. We get some ratings about each teams' Energy, Morale, Defence, Midfield and Attack and also the opportunity to edit your team roster - benching rubbish players in favour of the latest star acquisition!

Finally it's onto the match itself - or rather the match highlights. For me it's also the highlight of the game as various Goals and near misses are represented in a gloriously poorly animated UDG format. I would go as far as to say I almost got excited when I saw this.

With the match over - almost consistently 1-0 to the opposing team in my experience - the Final Score and Gate Receipts are displayed as well as a summary of Other Matches which I can't help feeling I would have preferred to watch. This is followed by an uncomfortably long pause as the league table is recalculated and, finally, displayed.

Next we get a summary of the Weekly Bills, including Wages, Rent and Loan Interest and then a screen in which we can purchase players who've come onto the Transfer Market.

After this it's back to the Options screen and onto the next match. The game continues in this loop indefinitely until either you win the FA Cup or get sacked for owing too much money - which I suspect is the weak gag on which this entry is based.

I never got my Managerial Rating above 0 and my team's Morale quickly nose-dived to 1 with shocking consistency, however, I've looked through the BASIC listing and it would appear to be possible to do well, win matches, run a confident team, paint Mr Moyes in a positive light and even win the FA Cup (Line 5214.) Fans of the genre, I dare say, may even enjoy doing so!

So, in conclusion, RWaC appears to have written a sparsely presented but ultimately half decent Football Management Simulator which, as far as my ill-informed knowledge allows me to work out, is absent of any topical or otherwise particularly smart-arsed joke? The question is, then, why has this been entered into the CSSCGC rather than being touted for £9.95 in the Spectrum User classified ads?