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WORLD CLASS SOCCER: WORLD CUP 1990 EDITION If the phrase "Sick As A Parrot" holds meaning for you, then read on -- you are probably a true soccer fan who will appreciate the strategic aspects of this game. WORLD CLASS SOCCER (hereafter WCS) is a combination of strategy game and action/arcade game that allows you to "manage" your chosen team prior to starting play. The game is joystick-driven for both the Amiga and IBM versions but the IBM version also gives you the option of keyboard control. (This review is based on the IBM version.) World Cup Soccer, or football as it is known to the majority of the world, is coming to the USA in 1994. The WCS instruction manual is well-written for its intended audience (the average, soccer-illiterate American) and is aimed at preparing the uninitiated for the 1994 World Cup. An excellent summary of the rules of soccer along with a humorous, tongue-in-cheek glossary of soccer terms are included with the manual -- e.g., "GOAL!: Your team wants lots of these, but you don't want to give any away. Shown here in normal English spelling, it is normally pronounced by Latin American Commentators as GOOOOOOOAAAAALLLLLL!!!!!!" Play begins by choosing from one of the twenty-four international teams that competed in the 1990 World Cup that was held in Rome, Italy (and yes, the USA's national team was represented). You may play against another opponent in match play with each player choosing a national team. In this case, you should have two joysticks. Otherwise, you will end up sharing opposite ends of the keyboard under somewhat cramped conditions. Alternatively, a single player may select to replay the entire 1990 World Cup Tournament and try to finish higher than the chosen team finished in reality. To accomplish this, you must select the eleven player combination and playing formation that you think will win each match on the way to the World Cup. There are eight different formations to select. You may choose to pack your front row with up to five attackers and play an all out aggressive game at the expense of your defense (the basic 2-3-5 formation). Or you may choose the other extreme with a five-man defensive alignment and little fire power up front (a 5-3-2 formation). Six other formations give you the flexibility to mix and match according to the type of game you wish to play with the players you've chosen. The twenty players on your team are shown in their preferred playing position (goalkeeper, defender, midfielder, and attacker). Each player is rated on a scale of one to five for four different attributes -- skill, speed, strength, and aggression. You must choose a balanced team of eleven men who will best represent your coaching style and place them in positions appropriate to their attributes. After you have completed the strategy phase of the game, it's time to "Play Ball!" The team that kicks off is chosen randomly and play is shown as an overhead view of the action in the immediate vicinity of the ball. Your team plays up the screen in the first half and the direction of play is reversed for the second half. The score and clock are shown at the bottom of the screen. The player who is closest to the ball will have an arrow pointing at him and by moving the joystick in any direction, you may control his movements as fast as his speed attribute allows. A player in possession of the ball will have his name shown at the bottom of the screen. Should your team be playing defense, the closest player to the ball may change often along with the arrow. I found this bouncing around of the controlled player to be somewhat difficult to follow and gave up more than one goal by attempting to control the wrong player (but then again, I am not of the Nintendo generation who may have little difficulty with this particular quirk)! Kicking and heading the ball are accomplished by pressing the fire button. If you hold the fire button down longer, the power of the kick will increase up to the player's strength attribute. Lifting the ball off the ground can be caused by power shots or also by "chipping" (reversing the player's direction after pressing the power button). If the ball is in the air, your selected player can head the ball if he is close enough by pressing the fire button. A tackle (taking possession of the ball) can be made by confronting the opposing player head-on (the relative skill levels of the two players will determine the results). Another, but more hazardous way to tackle, is the sliding tackle. This is made by pressing the fire button and causing the selected player to slide in the direction he was running. If he comes close enough to the ball, he may take possession -- or he also runs the risk of fouling the offensive player. The goalkeeper can be controlled just like any other player if he is the selected player. You can also cause the goalkeeper to dive after the ball by pressing fire and moving the joystick in the direction of the dive. Once he has possession of the ball, the keeper will automatically kick the ball upfield. Free kicks, following a foul, are made by aiming the kick with the joy- stick and pressing the fire button for the desired power. Penalty kicks can also be controlled in the same way or defended against by controlling the goal- keeper's movements and dives. On the plus side, I enjoyed the strategic options of WCS. It is fun to participate in the World Cup Tournament and see if you can coach a team to play beyond its actual finishing place. I also learned quite a bit about international soccer from the informative and occasionally humorous manual. On the negative side, however, I found the players difficult to control using either joystick or keyboard controls. WCS has no statistical capa- bilities and records only the final score of the current round. You cannot edit, create or trade players. WCS comes packaged with one 3.5" disk and one 5.25" disk and requires 512K of RAM to play. It runs on IBM PC/XT/AT and 100% compatibles; Tandy 1000 Series, 3000, 4000; CGA, EGA, VGA, or Tandy 16 Color; joystick is strongly recommended. The disks are uncopyable and no hard disk instal- lation is possible. Sick As A Parrot? The glossary defines this phrase to mean: "You lost. You played badly. You were beaten by a fluke. You scored in your own goal. Mostly, you lost." WORLD CLASS SOCCER is published by U.S. Gold and distributed by Accolade.