Football World Manager

If while at Villa, 'big' Ron Atkinson had been asked how much the pies should be, his answer would no doubt have been short and to the point. Like Ron, we at ZONE believe football management games should be just that. That's why we like Champ Manager - that plus the fact that it's deep and easy to use.

Scarify enough, Football World Manager is also deep and easy to use. Or rather, it pretends to be. Instead of concentrating on the English leagues, you have the option to include every other major league around the world.

It could so easily have been the game to knock CM3 out of the competition. It won't, of course, and the reasons are easy to spot once you've played games for any length of time. While there is undoubtedly a lot going on under the surface, the way everything is displayed onscreen is enough to send Champ Manager fans running. The game screen takes up roughly two thirds of the screen, and the most important areas are crammed full of tiny buttons. It takes so much getting used to that's it's easier to give up rather than plough through a second season.

A serious mention has to go to the wealth of options you can make use of during match day: the way you can buoy up your team is a nice touch, and the ammount of information at your disposal is almost overwhelming.

But all football magament games should have but two main concerns: to be deep, and accurate and easy to use. Although full of features hitherto unseen in this type of game, the developers have failed to deliver a user-friendly game. Shame, really.