[{"TitleName":"Multi-Player Soccer Manager","Publisher":"D&H Games","Author":"John Atkinson","YearOfRelease":"1991","ZxDbId":"0003319","Reviews":[{"Issue":{"Name":"Crash Issue 82, Nov 1990","Price":"£1.85","ReleaseDate":"1990-10-18","Editor":"Oliver Frey","TotalPages":60,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"EDITORIAL\r\n[redacted]\r\n\r\nEditor: Oliver Frey\r\nFeatures Editor: Richard Eddy\r\nStaff Writers: Mark Caswell, Nick Roberts, Lloyd Mangram\r\nArt Editor: Mark Kendrick\r\nPhotography: Michael Parkinson\r\nProduction and Circulation Director: Jonathan Rignall\r\nSystems Operator: Paul (Charlie) Chubb\r\nReprographics: Matthew Uffindell (Supervisor), Robert Millichamp, Robb Hamilton, Tim Morris, Jenny Reddard, Lisa McCourt\r\nGroup Advertisement Manager: Judith Bamford\r\nAdvertisement Sales Executive: George Keenan\r\nAdvertisement Production: Jackie Morris (Supervisor), Joanne Lewis\r\nMail Order: Carol Kinsey\r\nSubscriptions: Caroline Edwards [redacted]\r\n\r\nTypesetting Apple Macintosh Computers using Quark Express and Bitstream Fonts.\r\n\r\nSystems Manager: Ian Chubb\r\n\r\nColour origination by Scan Studios [redacted]. Printed in England by BPCC Business Magazines (Carlisle) Ltd, [redacted] - a member of the BPCC Group.\r\n\r\nDistribution by COMAG, [redacted]\r\n\r\nYearly subscription rates: UK £17.20 Europe £24.00, Air Mail overseas £37. US/Canada subscriptions and back issues enquiries Barry Hatcher, British Magazine Distributors Ltd [redacted]. Yearly subscription rates US$47.00, Canada CAN$57.00 Back Issues US$5.20, Canada CAN$6.20 (inclusive of postage). \r\n\r\nCOMPETITION RULES\r\nThe Editor's decision is final in all matters relating to adjudication and while we offer prizes in good faith, believing them to be available; If something untoward happens we reserve the right to substitute prizes of comparable value. We'll do our very best to despatch prizes as soon as possible after the published closing date. Winners names will appear in a later issue of CRASH. No correspondence can be entered into regarding the competitions (unless we've written to you stating that you have won a prize and it doesn't turn up, in which case drop us a line). No person who is related, no matter how remotely, to anyone who works for either Newsfield or any of the companies offering prizes, may enter one of our competitions.\r\n\r\nNo material may be reproduced whole or in part without the written consent of the copyright holders. We cannot undertake to return anything sent into CRASH - including written and photographic material, software and hardware - unless it is accompanied by a suitably stamped addressed envelope. Unsolicited written or photo material on 35mm transparencies is welcome, and if used in the magazine is paid for at our current rates. Copy published in CRSH will be edited as seen fit and payment wil be calculated according to the current printed word rate. The views expressed in CRASH are not necessarily those of the publishers.\r\n\r\nCopyright CRASH Ltd 1989 A Newsfield Publication. ISSN 0954-8661. Cover Design by Oliver Frey"},"MainText":"D&H Games\r\n£9.99\r\n\r\nGet hold of three friends and they can help you play the new D&H game Multi Player Soccer Manager, if not you can play on your own against the computer. As the manager of a struggling fourth division team you must lead your men to the top of the first division and try to win the FA Cup. But to start with Wembley is far away. You control the game with a set of ten icons - they include facilities to train players, buy and sell players, view the league tables and perhaps most importantly of all, check the bank balance.\r\n\r\nYour first consideration is to train your players, with this underway you can choose what type of talent scout, physio and coach you want. These go from useless to excellent (depending on price): go for average at first, you can always change later. When your lads are fit to play clicking on the Match icon brings up the results of the day's play. Gate receipts are then tallied and wages can be paid. Be careful, if the board think you're spending all their cash without results you'll be kicked out of the club.\r\n\r\nTen quid for a soccer manager game is expensive, especially with many similar games available on budget labels. So this is really for keen manager types. Don't expect much in the way of action, but a lot of text screens: this is after all that style of game. Still, despite the plethora of very similar product available, soccer management does seem popular, and this version compares favourably.\r\n\r\nMARK 50%","ReviewerComments":["Multi-Player Soccer Manager is yet another football management game. With so many released each month, all looking and playing almost identical. I sometimes wonder what the point is. The inlay boast features like 'crowd violence' and 'weekly balance', but these don't get me very excited.\r\nNick Roberts\r\n40%"],"OverallSummary":"A competent, if lacklustre addition to the soccer manager genre.","Page":"56","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Mark Caswell","Score":"50","ScoreSuffix":"%"},{"Name":"Nick Roberts","Score":"40","ScoreSuffix":"%"}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Presentation","Score":"50%","Text":""},{"Header":"Graphics","Score":"25%","Text":""},{"Header":"Sound","Score":"N/A","Text":""},{"Header":"Playability","Score":"55%","Text":""},{"Header":"Addictivity","Score":"60%","Text":""},{"Header":"Overall","Score":"45%","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"Your Sinclair Issue 64, Apr 1991","Price":"£1.95","ReleaseDate":"1991-03-07","Editor":"Andy Ide","TotalPages":92,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Andy Ide\r\nArt Editor: Sal Meddings\r\nGames Editor: James Leach\r\nStaff Writer: Linda Barker\r\nDesign Assistant: Andy Ounsted\r\nContributors: Marcus Berkmann, Jonathan Davies, Cathy Fryett, Mike Gerrard, Jon North, Rich Pelley, John Pillar, Matt Williams, David Wilson\r\nAdvertising Manager: Simon Moss\r\nPublisher: Jane Richardson\r\nPublishing Assistant: Michele Harris\r\nCirculation Director: Sue Hartley\r\nGroup Publisher: Greg Ingham\r\nManaging Director: Chris Anderson\r\nProduction Manager: Ian Seager\r\nProduction Coordinator: Melissa Parkinson\r\nSubscriptions: Computer Posting [redacted]\r\nMail Order: The Old Barn [redacted]\r\nPrinters: Riverside Press [redacted]\r\nDistributors: MMC [redacted]\r\n\r\nYour Sinclair is published by Future Publishing Ltd [redacted]\r\n\r\n©Future Publishing 1991. No part of this magazine may be reproduced without written permission."},"MainText":"D&H Games\r\n£9.99 cass\r\nReviewer: James Leach\r\n\r\nWhen I was a wee bairn I thought Football Manager was a classic. But you know how it is - you grow up, other things enter your life, and soon you've forgotten all about your first love and the cold winter nights you spent together trying to win the FA Cup (sniff).\r\n\r\nAnyway co you can recapture that wonderful feeling with up to 3 of your friends and Multi Player Soccer Manager. Each of you takes control of a crappy Fourth Division side, your aim being to steer it to the top of the First, and win the League and FA Cups. As everyone knows, in real life this is incredibly easy, so let's have a look at how D&H have rendered it on the humble Speccy...\r\n\r\nON THE 'EAD!\r\n\r\nThe first sensible thing is to select the 'team' option from the main menu. This allows you to train, pick and drop players, each of which has a skill rating. Then it's time to get on the bus and 'play game'. Instead of watching the match or anything interesting like that, all you see is the Divisional results, a bit like on Grandstand (boo), with all the matches played that week displayed on the screen. You can then look at the League tables, to see how we'll you've done.\r\n\r\nAs well as training, you can chuck out the crappest team members and put a bid in for some new players (who are still crap, but probably better than the ones you've just fired), and also decide how much you want to spend on your Coach, Physio and Scout\r\n\r\nOOOH! IT'S SO BIG!\r\n\r\nIn fact there's a stonkingly huge amount of detail incorporated into Soccer Manager - you can improve your ground making it bigger or safer (a good idea if you're having crowd trouble), visit the bank, look at the fixtures list, or even (if you've had enough) resign. You'll protably spend so much time fiddling about with the tiny little details of your team (and waiting for any other people to do the same) that when it's time to play it'll be a bit of an anticlimax! But it really does seem as if your improvements lead to greater success on the field - so it isn't just a waste of time doing them.\r\n\r\nMPSM is very easy to get the hang of because it runs from a child-proof main menu, and tends only to use single keypresses. Occasionally random event swing into action. You might get a load of dosh for having the game televised, or you might get half your team injured in some goalmouth unpleasantness. These occasional events are usually bad news, so can be a lot of fun if they happen to one of your mates!\r\n\r\nIndeed the game itself is better when 2 or more people are playing. There is more of a competitive element, though it naturally takes longer (because everybody spends hours making tiny adjustments to their teams just to annoy the others!).\r\n\r\nYep, MPSM is one of the best soccer management sims in a quite a while (even though I only managed to reach the bottom of the Second Division!). It's the kind of thing most people would immediately think was crap but then if they played it they'd change their minds pretty sharpish. Give it go - you might be surprised.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"A management game, but good fun nevertheless.","Page":"84,85","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"James Leach","Score":"85","ScoreSuffix":"%"}],"ScreenshotText":[{"Text":"All the details you'll need on your team (including the colour of their boxer shorts!)."},{"Text":"Check out the state of your ground, and carry out any improvements."},{"Text":"Find out who's going to be thrashing you."},{"Text":"Make changes and plan training for your team."},{"Text":"Play the next game."},{"Text":"Pre-match data. Oh dear. They look better than me."},{"Text":"Saving and loading your position."},{"Text":"See how much dosh you've got left."},{"Text":"Select between human players (up to 4)."},{"Text":"The fixtures list for the mighty FA Cup."},{"Text":"The market for buying and selling players."},{"Text":"Time to start training the squad for Wemberley."},{"Text":"View any of the League tables."},{"Text":"Who's beating who at the moment."}],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Life Expectancy","Score":"76%","Text":""},{"Header":"Instant Appeal","Score":"83%","Text":""},{"Header":"Graphics","Score":"0%","Text":""},{"Header":"Addictiveness","Score":"81%","Text":""},{"Header":"Overall","Score":"85%","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]}]}]