Lifelike - but too slow off the button

DREAMCAST owners have waited in vain for their own version of the ever-popular FIFA football sim. Sadly, Electronic Arts decided early on not to publish for Sega's last console. Once, when asked what would make the company change its mind, an EA executive remarked: "They'd have to sell five million in America alone".

That decision gave Sega a major headache. It deprived the console of several leading franchises. Americans missed out on the John Maddern series and a game licensed by the NBA.

Europeans never got the FIFA football simulation the Dreamcast deserved. Until now. 90 Minutes, probably the DC's last footie sim, is the FIFA game Electronic Arts declined to make. It may have been developed by a team working for Sega, but it's clear the programmers took a long, hard look at FIFA on PlayStation before they started work.

So, 90 Minutes has all that is good about the FIFA series. Unfortunately, it has also picked up one or two of the things that critics loved to hate about the EA franchise.

First the good. It looks terrific. There was nothing wrong with previous DC football sims in this respect - the Sega machine is still capable of outshining the PlayStation 2 - but 90 Minutes takes things to a new high.

The default camera angle is slightly lower than the FIFA isometric perspective and closer to the players. Although the angle can be changed after some experimentation, I stuck with the default as most of the alternative views are just confusing.

The players (national and international sides are available from the start) are generally accurate (Dave Seaman has a daft moustache, Barthez is bald, etc) and the stadia look good.

As with FIFA, there's a lengthy build-up to the game. Players emerge from the dressing room, the commentator runs down the teams as they pose for a picture and there are shots of the keeper talking to his defenders before the kick-off. You can skip some - but not all - of this if you want to. The button configuration is FIFA-lite. Four buttons control shooting, passing, tackling, and selecting a new player. The right hand trigger gives the player under control an extra dash of speed and that's it.

FIFA titles have become progressively more complex. The latest makes use of every button on a PlayStation controller. 90 Minutes lacks the more elaborate moves of its Electronic Arts template. Match speeds can be tweaked via the set up screen. So can the difficulty level and the time per half.

When the game kicks off, you'll be amazed and infuriated in equal measure. Amazed at the graceful player moves and their life-like representation on your TV screen, infuriated at the poor button response at key moments.

The biggest criticism levelled at FIFA remains the response time to your button stabs. Sadly, 90 Minutes suffers the same fate. Initially there's a delay then, when a routine has started, say a shot on goal, it's impossible to interrupt until the player has carried through that order.

Until you get used to the delay, that makes for some agonising moments. Several times I lined up a shot on goal with a man clean through, only to watch in horror as he performed as though in slow motion, while a defender or the keeper nipped in to steal the ball. After a couple of hours solid play I became accustomed to pressing the shoot button earlier and soon the ball was slamming into the net satisfyingly every time. The "easy" setting really is exactly that. Gamers after a challenge will be switching to hard after a short acclimatisation period.

So what do we make of 90 Minutes? Undoubtedly it's the best football sim on the Dreamcast. Sega Worldwide Soccer was hobbled by its ridiculous shooting and passing, UEFA Soccer was even slower than this latest game.

For most DC owners, starved of software this summer, that will be recommendation enough.

I can't help wishing a sequel was in the works, however. 90 Minutes feels like an early FIFA title and look how they have improved in recent years. With a bit of extra work it could have been the FIFA-killer Sega must have hoped for.

STICKING with the beautiful game, the football season is only a few weeks old and already some 20 managers have been given their marching orders.

The Manchester United of football management sims on the PC is the redoubtable Champ Manager series. This season, the game is back again and it's as formidable as ever. Director of Football is more of an Aston Villa - plenty of talent, lots of ambition but still facing an uphill struggle.

Being a football manager is a tough job. In Director, you are responsible for motivating your players and making sure they train properly, as well as selecting the squad. So far, so Champ Manager.

The Empire title goes further. A director of football does all this plus taking charge of sponsorship packages, keeping the stadium in good shape and balancing the books. No wonder so many managers - faced with the prospect of being kicked upstairs with the director of football title in real life - prefer to walk away rather than take on such a daunting task.

The Empire title offers up 400 different clubs for your perusal and a database of more than 11,000 players. Tactics can be as sweeping or careful as you like, involving the team as a whole or players on an individual basis. One nice little gimmick is the editor that lets you scan a picture of yourself into the game.

Unlike Champ Manager, the matches are played out on screen. You can watch your team perform and make matching-winning decisions in real time. Generally this works well, although one glitch did see my substitute disappear seconds after coming on! Football fans just love these games. The tactics and wheeler-dealing make them incredibly engrossing, even if you only have a passing interest in the sport. With so many on the market, however, it takes something really special to surpass Champ Manager. Director of Football shows promise and - coming in at less than £20 - it's one transfer deal that's guaranteed not to break the bank.

CHEAT OF THE WEEK:

Trouble scoring in ISS Pro Evolution (PS One)? Press square as normal but press and hold the X button at the same time. Get it right and your player will shape up to shoot but shimmy around the on-rushing goalie instead, allowing you to slot it in the back of the net with ease.

GIZMO OF THE WEEK:

A SCANNER is pretty much de rigueur for PC owners these days. Once upon a time even the worst hand-held scanning device cost a small fortune. The Bearpaw 1200TA from Mustek is a full-sized A4 scanner on sale for considerably less than £100.

Don't think the low price has led Mustek to cut costs, though. The 1200TA is a full-feature machine that offers true 48-bit colour resolution.

It also has a built in transparency adapter for scanning 35mm film negatives - unusual at this price point.

Ulead Photo Express SE won't frighten the better imaging editing packages, but it's just the job for beginners, and the Fine Reader OCR software makes it a doddle to scan text into your word processor. Oh, and it also looks kind of funky in its smart blue and white livery.

The Bearpaw 1200TA is available from all good PC retailers now.