Producer: Budgie
Retail Price: £1.99

This sports simulation takes you into the compact world of table football, a game where a football pitch has been squeezed onto a table and then peopled by midget Glen Hoddles and dwarflike Brian Robsons.

The pitch has goals to the left and right. Lined up against each other on a grass-green pitch are two teams of six players. Each team stands in three rows, with three players in midfield and two in attack, and the ultimate line of defence, a goalkeeper.

Players can't be moved individually - they go together as a row. But any player can kick the ball forward or back, or pass to the side. The ball is not blocked by a player unless he attempts to kick it - usually it passes straight through his legs.

Once kicked, the football can bounce off the side and end walls of the table. A ball cannot go out of play, except when a goal is scored. When this happens a message is displayed, and another of the game's nine footballs appears on the centre spot. A score is kept for both teams in this two-player game.

COMMENTS

Control keys: Player One: CAPS SHIFT left, Z right, 1 up, Q down; Player Two: M left, SYMBOL SHIFT right, O up, 0 (zero) down
Use of colour: reasonable
Graphics: too simple
Sound: spot FX
Skill levels: one
Screens: one

Why anyone would be interested in this I don't know - it's poorly represented with bad graphics, and offers hardly any compulsion and pleasure. Table Football is very poor value for money.
MIKE

Table football was never one of the most inspiring activities. Now the sticks have been replaced with keys and the table with a VDU - and whatever fun there was has been left in the pubs and arcades where the concept comes from. Table Football is spoiled by terrible collision-detection, and it's impossible to judge angles properly; hitting the ball can send it absolutely anywhere. It's one of the worst sport (?) simulations I've seen in a long, long time.
PAUL

The graphics don't stop flickering and the colour clash is terrible! On the sound front, there's just a blip now and again when the massive ball hits the side of the table. This ball must be magic because it never stops! After hitting a wall it moves in the opposite direction till it hits another. And the collision-detection is bad - you can score by just hitting the post. Table Football isn't even worth this cheap price.