[{"TitleName":"Graeme Souness Soccer Manager","Publisher":"Zeppelin Games Ltd","Author":"Brendan O'Brien, Tink","YearOfRelease":"1992","ZxDbId":"0002110","Reviews":[{"Issue":{"Name":"Your Sinclair Issue 82, Oct 1992","Price":"£2.5","ReleaseDate":"1992-09-17","Editor":"Linda Barker","TotalPages":60,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"YOUR SINCLAIR\r\nABC 59,059\r\n\r\nEditor: Linda Barker\r\nArt Editor: Andy Ounsted\r\nStaff Writer: Jon Pillar\r\nEditorial Contributors: Craig Broadbent, Stuart Campbell, Dave Golder, Andy Hutchinson, Tim Kemp, Rich Pelley, Adam Waring\r\nArt Contributors: Phil McCardle, Anthony Colbert\r\nAdvertising Manager: Alison Morton\r\nSenior Sales Executive: Jackie Garford\r\nProduction Co-ordinator: Lisa Read\r\nProduction Technicians: Chris Stocker, Jerome Clough\r\nScanning: Simon Windsor, Jon Moore, Simon Chittenden\r\nPublisher: Colin Campbell\r\nPromotions Manager: Michelle Harris\r\nPromotions Assistant: Tamara Ward\r\nGroup Publisher: Greg Ingham\r\nCirculation Director: Sue Hartley\r\nAssistant Publisher: Julie Stuckes\r\n\r\nYour Sinclair. Future Publishing [redacted]\r\n\r\nManaging Director Chris Anderson\r\n\r\nSubscriptions: Future Publishing Ltd. [redacted]\r\n\r\n©Future Publishing 1992. No part of this magazine may be reproduced without the permission of a Scottish Jimmy Hill fna. (Quite why you should want to reproduce any part of this mag is completely beyond us. But there you go).\r\n\r\nISSN 0269 6983\r\n\r\nYour Sinclair is nodded at, and occasionally talked to, by Commodore Format, Amstrad Action, Amiga Format, PCW Plus, PC Answers, PC Plus, Sega Power, Amiga Power, Amiga Shopper, Classic CD, Needlecraft, Cycling Plus, Photo Plus, Mountain Biking UK, PC Format, Public Domain, ST Format, Total! and Today's Vegetarian\r\n\r\nToday's tip - To make it look attractive, fill the bottom of the container with washed pebbles and wedge the vegetables between them."},"MainText":"Zeppelin\r\n£3.99 cassette\r\n[redacted]\r\nReviewer: Stuart Campbell\r\n\r\nY'know, Spec-chums, it's a confusing world we live in. Robert Maxwell, were-they-or-weren't-they-banned drugs at the Olympics, 'friendly fire', the painted-on crowd at one end of Arsenal's ground - all these things, and lots more besides, are a wee bit confusing. As if that wasn't enough, though, there are some people out there who try to make things even more confusing with a cunning use of words.\r\n\r\nYou know the kind of thing I mean - 'unbelievable arcade action' translating as 'horrible tedious monochrome crap with a big muitlioad, or 'the best game I've ever played in my entire life, translating as 'I' own the company, please buy this and make me lots of money'. So in the name of global understanding, I'm going to take you by the hand and lead you through the literary minefield that is the world of games. First though, I'm going to need the help of a volunteer from the audience. Yes, sir, step right this way! And your name? Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, let's hear it for Mr Graeme Souness Soccer Manager! (pause for cheering).\r\n\r\nOkay, let's take this from the very top and start with the front of the box. 'Graeme Souness Soccer Manager'. Well, yes, it's got a picture of Graeme Souness on it. Beyond that, though, the influence of Graeme Souness on the game is distinctly conspicuous by its absence. You can manage any team you you like (it doesn't have to be Graeme's Liverpool), and if you do choose his side it won't have any of the players you might be expecting. Perhaps the title Generic Football Manager Game With a Quick Licence Stuck Totally Gratuitously On The Top would be more appropriate.\r\n\r\nOver to the back now, and the first words we come across are 'a devastatingly accurate simulation of the trials and tribulations of taking a football team to the top'. Yeah, right. The day anyone has a heart attack brought on by the stress of playing with this unremarkable, simplistic and repetitive collection of menu screens is the day the world turns day-glo and we all start calling each other Ethel Merman. I think the phrase we want here is 'a devastatingly accurate simulation of a particularly boring day at an accountant's rather uninteresting office.'\r\n\r\nDown a bit past some more guff and we come to a bit about 'large animated icons keep you in total control of the running of a Professional Football League team'. If any of the icons in this game are in any way animated, I must have blinked and missed something, and if this really covers everything involved in the running of a football team then I'm surprised they don't get primary school children to do the job - if you can count to thirteen, you can play Graeme Souness Soccer Manager. So let's revise that to 'Moderately big completely static icons let you do nearly as many things as you could in the original Football Manager which came out nine, that's NINE, years ago.'\r\n\r\nLet's try inside the box, where it tells you about the 'Gameplay'. Apparently the game can be controlled by joystick or keyboard, and the instructions list a set of 'de-fault' keys which kinds of implies some redefinability. Well, I tried every joystick combination I could think of and did everything to redefine the key possible, but the only way I could control this game by anything other than the listed keys was to take all the plastic key tops off my keyboard and put them back on in a different order. Clearly the correct wording in this situation would have been 'The game can be controlled by these keys here, and if you don't like it tough blimmin' luck.''\r\n\r\nI could go on about the 'animated match highlights' which consist of a total of four different attacking moves carried out by players who all look exactly the same, whichever team they're supposed to be playing for, on about the 'sophisticated team/player data' which really means 'it tells you the name and age of each player and how many goals they've scored'. I could natter about the 'whole host of other excellent features' which translates directly as 'absolutely no excellent features at all' or simply on about how this game is less involved, less sophisticated, less enjoyable and inferior in every single identifiable way to the original Football Manager, far less any of the much better games which have come after it (of which, incidentally, I reckon the thoroughly spanky Football Manager 2 is still just about the best).\r\n\r\nDespite what I said at the start of the review, there's really nothing at all confusing about this game. It's complete crap. Simple as that.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"Uppers: Um, um, um... well, it doesn't have Graeme Souness in it anywhere, which has to be a bit of a bonus if you think about it.\r\n\r\nDowners: ...but then it doesn't really have anything in it full stop. Nowhere near as good as any other Speccy footy management game.\r\n\r\nGraeme Souness Soccer Manager has absolutely nothing going for it. It's a load of old crap. Basically.","Page":"14,15","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Stuart Campbell","Score":"24","ScoreSuffix":"%"}],"ScreenshotText":[{"Text":"Here's a rather rude picture of a footballer. We don't know who it is, he preferred to remain anonymous. So would you if somebody took a photo of you wearing only shorts, armbands, kneebands and trainers."},{"Text":"I didn't know K. Waugh played football. He wrote Brideshead Revisited. It was all about posh people throwing up. (Actually that's Evelyn Waugh, Ed) Oh."},{"Text":"Why don't footy managers ever buy anything sensible with their money? If I had that much money, I wouldn't waste it on a bloke. I'd buy boxes and boxes of crisps."}],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Overall","Score":"24%","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"Sinclair User Issue 128, Oct 1992","Price":"£2.2","ReleaseDate":"1992-09-18","Editor":"Alan Dykes","TotalPages":52,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Alan 'Paint Psycho' Dykes\r\nDesign: Yvette 'Easel' Nicholls\r\nSU Crew: Graham 'Brush' Mason, Steve 'Palette Knife' Keen, Pete 'Water Colour' Gerrard, Garth 'Silk Screen' Sumpter, Marc 'Detail' Richards, Gaz 'Squaddie' Harrod\r\nAd Manager: Tina 'Broad Stroke' Zanelli\r\nAd Production: Tina 'Potty' Gynn\r\nMr Marketing: Mark '18th Century' Swallow\r\nMarketing Ladies: Sarah 'Impressionist' Ewing, Sarah 'Madonna' Hilliard\r\nPublisher: Mike 'Modernist' Frey\r\nManaging Director: Terry 'Old Master' Pratt\r\n\r\n(c)1992 EMAP IMAGES\r\nPart of EMAP PLC\r\nTel: [redacted]\r\nFax: [redacted]\r\n[redacted]\r\n\r\nColour by Colourtech\r\nPrinted by Kingfisher\r\nTypeset by Altyp Inc\r\nSubs [redacted]\r\nBack Issues [redacted]\r\n\r\nAbsolutely no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in an electronic retrieval system or copied without the express permission of the publisher. So there! And believe me, this Mike Frey guy is a really nasty piece of work so watch out. Many thanks to Messrs Hals, Gogh, Holbien, Da Vinci and Dobson. Please don't turn in your graves as it's only a joke, honest. Many thanks to Rudi who came all the way from Slovakia to show us the Brava demo. Always wear your head in the right place and keep your toes warm."},"MainText":"Label: Zeppelin\r\nMemory: 48K/128K\r\nPrice: £3.99 Tape\r\nReviewer: Steve Keen\r\n\r\nYou may remember Match of the Day, reviewed last ish - the official BBC footy sim. This was released by Impulze, Zeppelin's full-price label, and it took the SU Crew by storm (ie. It was rather good, missus). A big change from all the budget priced, budget gameplay management sims available. So can Graeme Souness Soccer Manager, yet another humble budget sim, create the same impression? Let's see...\r\n\r\nGraeme Souness, the top-dude manager of Liverpool FC, has not been a very healthy chappie recently. He's a lot better now though and it's just as well 'cos Zeppelin's latest management sim would tax anyone's ticker - yep, it's a good'un.\r\n\r\nUnlike Paul Anglin (sad man), I try to steer away from management sims. I find them too slow, boring and repetitive. Yet I actually quite enjoyed GSSM. You've got all your usual options and menus for choosing players, viewing the league tables and fixtures, dealing with club finances, buying and selling players and the like, all driven by very well defined and colourful icons.\r\n\r\nYou can choose to manage any team in the four divisions, though when you see the player lists you'll notice that the players on each team have all got exactly the same names! You have your own scout too, although he doesn't play as big a part as the scout in Match Of The Day. This time he only tells you what he thinks about the strengths of the opposition defense, mid-field and attack.\r\n\r\nDuring matches, you watch the minute counter ticking on until something 'exciting' happens. Then the scene changes to a 3D view of the goal area as someone shoots. This bit teeters precariously on the edge of naffness. The player sprites are pretty poor to say the least, and they run around the area like lost sheep.\r\n\r\nFrom what I could tell, the computer randomly picks one of four different goal shooting animations - two score; two miss. These are quite nice little routines but we could do with a few more - I soon got bored with the same old ones.\r\n\r\nHowever, this is still a very gripping part of the game. Helplessly sitting there watching the scores increase, hoping your team will be the next to put the ball in the back of the net is nailbiting stuff! Fortunately, if you don't like watching the highlights, there is an option to turn them off.\r\n\r\nAll-in-all, this is another pretty dam spanky footy management sim from the Zepps, which even people who hate the genre will get some enjoyment out of. It lacks a few features that MOTD had, like training options for your players, but for a budget title it ranks as one of the best of its kind.","ReviewerComments":["Once again I find myself actually enjoying a management sim! just about. Not quite as entertaining and accurate as Match of the Day, Graeme Souness is still the best budget version of the ilk that I've seen for a long time.\r\nEd Lawrence"],"OverallSummary":"Zeppelin are releasing some pretty excellent games at the moment, and this new soccer management sim puts a lot of other budget ones to shame. If you can't afford Match of the Day but want a footy man sim that's reasonably playable and addictive, Graeme Souness is the man (sorry, game) for you.","Page":"13","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Steve Keen","Score":"79","ScoreSuffix":"%"},{"Name":"Ed Lawrence","Score":"","ScoreSuffix":""}],"ScreenshotText":[{"Text":"All the squads look the same."},{"Text":"Is anything good in Wycombe?"},{"Text":"Looks more like the Hindenburg league to me."},{"Text":"No gate receipts and no interest. Where did that million come from?"},{"Text":"Take my advice. Sell them all and run away with the cash."},{"Text":"The sprites aren't too exciting."}],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Graphics","Score":"77%","Text":""},{"Header":"Sound","Score":"42%","Text":""},{"Header":"Playability","Score":"79%","Text":""},{"Header":"Lastability","Score":"80%","Text":""},{"Header":"Overall","Score":"79%","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]}]}]