Footballer Of The Year

Copyright : Gremlin Graphics | Reviewed by : Unbeliever

You?re a 17 year old apprentice in the 4th Division with only £5,000 and 10 goals to your name. Have you got what it takes to cope with the trauma of tranfer deals, injuries and other match day problems, while displaying skill and professionalism in matches throughout Europe.

Rise through the division, out classing rivals on the way to prove you are the best and gain the highest accolade...Footballer Of The Year.

Graphics

The actual play screen sees you I suppose in what would be a first person view with you controlling the football. Some great in-game menus are present and the action just keeps getting better as you progress through the game.

Sound

Superb introduction music from the moment the tape stops and the game begins, the usual high quality from Gremlin Graphics.

Gameplay

So the premise is this, you start at the beginning of your footballing career with £5000 and 10 Goal cards to your name. You can start in any of the four English divisions or a Super League composed of a number of European giants (this was well before any Premier League or Champions League natch). Being at the start of your career your player rating is naturally awful as is your potential earning power. You have the choice of starting in any of the available divisions but given your player rating and lack of money its best to start at the bottom and its going to be quite a ride trying to work yourselves up through the divisions.

Having chosen a team and a nationality the rise to stardom, or not, begins. Using the money you have you can purchase goal cards, try an incident card or buy a transfer card (which are very expensive and not a guarantee of a transfer). But lets get down to action. On the pre match screen you see your next opponents and how many chances a goal card will give you. Given the cost of purchasing goal cards this is were you need to weigh up the merits of using a goal card. If the goal card offers 3 chances (the maximum) in the next match then you would be wise to use it. But if its only 2 or 1 chance then you need to be a bit more selective in the games you play as you will find your goal cards quickly running out. While scoring goals improves your player rating and your teams chances of winning this has to be balanced with the need to save goal cards for important and 3 chance games. While team success will improve chances of reaching the ultimate accolade its often better to play for yourself and wait for the transfer to one of the big boys.

Granted the range of shots is limited and if your fast and accurate enough you can find the unsavable corners of the net. But when the pressure is on can you find the sweet spot? Compared to modern games this action sequence is quite limited but its still functional and enjoyable.
But a team is never just a one man show. In matches that you score hat-tricks you can still be on the losing side as your defence leaks more goals than the current Manchester United team. Scores of 6-5 are not uncommon and in the higher divisions these scores tend to go against you more often than not. Likewise your team may record a decent win without your goal scoring prowess but I wouldn?t put many hopes on that happening often and in the big games never. And big games you have. As you progress in ability so do the matches you play in. European cup and international fixtures all available if you are good enough.

There is a little variety with the use of incident cards. If your low on money buy a incident card and you may win the pools or receive some free goal cards or get a transfer card and if the scout was impressed that transfer and the nice big transfer fee. Likewise you may decide to buy a new car or get married costing you valuable money. For the incidents you have to stop a moving icon on the option that gives you the best result.

The game is very repetitive but unlike so many games with this fault its also very addictive. On some levels this repetitive nature works for it but a modern update would need a few more options. Having spent many hours playing this game there are some obvious match fixing in some of the games programming. Like I said earlier winning games in the higher divisions no matter how many goals you score is a rare thing. But for all its faults its probably one of my favourite CPC games ever and yes I did become "footballer of the year", can you?