It's been quiet on the football game scene over the last few months and the Sensi vs Goal war has died down, but there's a new challenger in town. Going by the name of Manchester United Premier League Champions, this new boy is ready to give it all and take the footballing crown. It's been produced by Krisalis and is in fact their third Manchester United licence. The previous two efforts were viewed from the side and Krisalis thought that they weren't going to gain anything by producing yet another one.

Unashamedly inspired by Sensible Soccer, Krisalis have created a football game that is viewed from above. You might think that there's nothing new about that because Sensible did it first and did it best, but you would be wrong because Manchester United Premier League Champions is the game which Sensible should've been and never was.

Whereas Sensible Soccer was a cartoon-like and more arcade-based game, Krisalis' new piece of software is a true football game for true football fanatics. It could almost be called a management simulator and this is because it has a huge strategy element to it. This is all thanks to Krisalis' Tacti-grid system. The grid lets you decide where and how you can want your players to play. For instance, you can make up any formation you want and unlike most football games they will stick to this formation.

You could have all your team in attack which will leave massive gaps in your defence, but at least your team will stick to this system until you decide to change it. That's just one way of playing that perhaps you'll never use, but it illustrates the point that your team will do exactly what you tell them.

A much better and more practical example would be to tell your full-backs what they should do. Should they stay back in defence or do you want them running up the wings to put crosses in for your forward men? The choice, as they say, is yours. Manchester United Premier League Champions has every team from the Premier, Ef you're a dedicated enough games player.

You start off with your fresh squad of players and take part in the League, the Coca Cola Cup and the FA Cup. As you progress your players will get injured and you'll have to change your team selection accordingly. You can also keep on eye on your league position, your squad, top goal scorers and injuries from a whole wealth of statistical information. Weather conditions play a big part in football games and also in Manchester United Premier League Champions. As the months progress the pitch conditions will change from a hard and dry pitch in August to a frosty pitch in December and so on.

I guess you're wondering about what the actual game part is like. Well, there is obviously a huge Sensible Soccer influence to Krisalis' third Manchester United game as you can guess from the screenshots, but they do play differently. Sensible had very 'blocky' player graphics, and although they did the job well enough they weren't exactly realistic. The sprites in Krisalis' effort are slightly smaller, but much more well-defined than those seen in Sensible Soccer.

There aren't any fancy graphics around the pitch like a stadium or dug-outs, but this doesn't really matter because you'll be so focused on the game that you'll not notice. The pitch surfaces can be varied; all the usual pitches are in there like the mud surface, but there are a couple of new ones like the foggy- and frosty pitch or the 'this game should've been abandoned' as we in the office like to call it!

At first control over the players is quite difficult, rather like the sensation you got when playing Sensible Soccer for the first time, but practice makes pefect and within no time at all you'll be spraying balls all over the pitch like Eric Cantona. You can make the players shoot, lob, pass head, chest and volley the ball. Volleying is particularly impressive because the balls roar across the screen like a nuclear missile and, of course if you manage to get the ball in the back of the net you can look very smug indeed.

Manchester United Premier League Champions has lots of little nice touches, like the replay function. Not only can you rewind, play and watch the action in slow motion, but you can watch your goals going form the opposite viewpoint. This was always a problem in Sensible Soccer when shooting down because you missed most of the action thanks to the goal being in the way. You can substitute your players, but normally in other products you have to wait until your players' legs are half falling off. Krisalis have rectified this problem because when a nasty tackle goes in it actually tells you what state your player is in, this makes those important managerial decisions a lot easier.

Another interesting little feature is the ability to name who takes the defensive and attacking free-kicks and more importantly who takes the penalties. OK, so it's maybe not that important, but it's a lot more realistic than having the player who got fouled take them.

It's all these nice touches which turns a very good game into a brilliant piece of software ant he only thing which I noticed that was left out was the ability to transfer players, but hey you can't have everything can you.

Although I detest Manchester United I have to say that Krisalis' Manchester United Premier League Champions would make it onto my top ten Amiga games ever. I've thrown away my copies of Sensible Soccer and Goal because Krisalis have created an ultimately more satisfying football game that will appeal to the true football fan.

The graphics are nicely presented and highly realistic. Couple this with its level of playability and addiction and you've got a hell of a game on your hands. The management element is what really makes the game for me because it makes the product far more interactive than previous football software.

You might have a problem in controlling your players at first, but over a short period of time you will start to master it. Krisalis have produced same damn fine footy games in the past, but this surpasses them all. I don't know how the games-buying public will take it, but I've not been able to put it down and I'm off to play it again as soon as I've scribbled these last few words down.

I could enthuse for most of the magazine about how good it is, but space forbids me doing that. I put my hand on my heart I advise you to buy it. I promise you will not be disappointed.

Prepare for an Amiga footballing overload in the coming months. Why? It's World Cup year don't you know, and because our lot didn't get there we jolly well won't be watching it. So there. Come Summer, there are likely to be another five, six, maybe even seven new footer games released and the burning question is, will we still be playing Sensible Soccer or is there a pretender to the crown? To find out whether Manchester United Premier League Champions is that pretender, read on. It isn't.

This is Krisalis' third in the er, trilogy of all three Manchester United licences. Unlike the previous two which used a side-on is viewed from above. Essentially, Manchester United Premier League Champions (from now on we'll call it MUPLC) is a mix of Sensible-style arcade action combined with elements usually found in footie management sims. So you can either play a single game, or manage and play for a team throughout a season which involves both league and cup runs. Sounds OK so far?

Manchester United don't actually play a huge part in this. The club badge is on the credits along with Incie and The Boy Born With a Silver Football in His Mouth, but it's more a general footer game, so whether you love, loath, or are completely indifferent to Fergi's Red Devils it matters not a jot.

East Fife four
Mind, you have to listen to the crowd chanting: "Ferguson's red and white army". There's good news for fans of non-league teams because along with all the English clubs, there are a fair few sides from the lower end of the pyramid.

So you can play that Nortwich Victoria versus Witton Albion derby match you can always promised yourself. No Scottish teams though, which is a bit of a shame. But top marks to Krisalis for inputting a serious amount of team and player data. But no matter how many options there are, the important action takes place out on the park and if it plays badly, you really won't care how many blokes called Terry play for Bromsgrove Rovers. The top down view is tried and tested and it works fine. In fact, MUPLC visually resembles Sensible Soccer quite closely.

The first thing you notice is the speed - it's phenomenally fast, perhaps too fast. And although this can make for exciting action, it does make it difficult to play a short, controlled passing game. Krisalis really had the right idea (imitate Sensible SoccerMUPLC isn't as fluid or smooth as its Sensible counterpart, which is not to say it's bad, just that it could be better.

All the teams have differing abilities. Man Utd are real sharpshooters with superquick players whereas say, Altrincham, are a bit easier to turn over. Krisalis have included something called a TactiGrid which enables you to position and utilise your players wherever you wish. And it works quite impressively. If you want all 10 outfield players t hug the right touchline, you can do it. And if you fancy changing tactics during the game you can zip to your TactiGrid and have a quick reshuffle.

Anyway, here's a few bad things about MUPLC. The borders around the screen are a tad wide - why? Couldn't they make the pitch any bigger? Match length is a standard four minutes, no more, no less. Considering that this game has over 3,000 players, each with individual statistics, surely they could have given us an option to play for a little bit longer. Distributing the ball from the goalkeeper accurately is tough, particularly if you want to just roll it to the full block.

Forfar five
So where does MUPLC stand? Firstly, although it isn't as good as Sensible Soccer, its many features make it a viable alternative, particularly for one layer wishing to guide a squad through a season. But as a two player game, it falls somewhat short of Sensible pride and joy and after playing MUPLC for a while, I felt the urge to boot up the old Sensi disks and play that instead. And I did.

Krisalis have made an admiral, it flawed attempt to combine addictive, arcade action with the rigours of management. And with a little more attention to detail on the arcade side, MUPLC could have been a real beauty - it is considerably better than the first two. As it is, it's my second favourite football game and if you're looking for a change from Sensible Soccer, MUPLC is the best alternative.

Sometimes, in one of my other lives, I find myself reviewing games for various console magazines. Quite often console games being what they are, I'll be playing some Street Fighter 2-clone one-on-one beat-'em-up, and when I do, there's one recurring thought that comes to my mind. Why? What's the point?

WHen a game so far out in front at the top of its genre exists, why does anyone bother writing games which are just a pale shadow of it, identical in every meaningful way but diluted and inferior and bereft of what imagination there may have been in the original? And that's the thought that keeps on forcing its way back into my head when I'm playing Manchester United Premier League Champions (MUPLC from now on, thanks). It's not actually rubbish or anything, indeed it's probably one of the Amiga's top three football games. But we've already got one Sensible Soccer, thanks - we don't need another one with half the features taken out.

Actually, on second thoughts, that's a little unfair. While on first attempt this feels like playing Sensible Soccer six months before it was finished, a little persistence reveals its true nature - this is Sensible Soccer. for Kick Off fans.

It's true. After my first few games of MUPLC, I found myself travelling back, back in time to the almost-forgotten days before I worked on AMIGA POWER, when I first tried a new and enormously popular football game called Kick Off. I'd heard so much about it that I was almost beside myself with excitement, but when I finally got hold of a copy and started to play, I was crushingly disappointed.

It was stupidly fast, the ball flew around like it was ona pinball table, and nothing I seemed to do to the joystick appeared to have any kind of predictable effect on the on-field proceedings. It was one of the most intense and frustrating let-downs in my long gameplaying life, and I thought I'd seen the last of it.

But it's back. Holding 'up' on the joystick and pressing fire only to see the ball shot off diagonally backwards, overhead-kicking free kicks into my own net, giving away penalties, while the joystick sat unattended on the desk, all of these horrific experiences returned to haunt me while playing , and I'm not best pleased about it.

ONLY SING
MUPLC, you see, features a control system far closer to Dino Dini's original - kicking is actually triggered when you let go the fire button, not when you hit it - and it's so unnatural the game's almost crippled from the off. Sensible Soccer's one-tap automatic passing has consequently gone for a button too, and with it that game's possibility of smooth, flowing, skilful football, MUPLC is a much more reactive affair, where you have to belt the ball into space and then do the best you can with where it lands, rather than planning any clever stringing-together of deliberate passes.

Except it's all so fast (noticeable faster thanSensible, and rather too fast for my liking) that you don't get a chance to react properly either - you just have to waggle the joystick optimistically in the general direction you want to go and hope something useful results..

TRAGEDY
There's a far more unwelcome intrusion even than this, though - reality. You see, while MUPLC's players all have a wide range of statistical attributes roughly in line with their reall-life abilities, they're also human beings, and hence not infallible. Hence, while,MUPLC broadly adopts a ball-sticks-to-feet policy compared to Sensible's demanding dribbling, it's prone to realistically failing at random in the middle of a run.

So, you can be weavering down the wing, beating defender after defender on a wonderful mazy breakaway when suddenly you'll just lose control of the ball and it'll trickle away from your fee,t although you haven't done anything different to what you've been doing in the past 10 seconds when it was stuck to you like glue. This is a deliberately built-in feature (it also applies to aftertouch - better players can bend the ball better and more often than less-talented ones - and refereeing decisions), and it's the most annoying thing I've ever experienced in a football game.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - if I want an accurate and authentic simulation of real football physics, I'll go down the park with a sodding football. Always, always, always, the point of a computer game is that skilful players should do better at it than crap ones - when you start throwing in random elements, you completely knacker the whole shooting match. If I take a goalkick with my goalkeeper with the joystick held diagonally to the top right, I want the ball to go in that direction every single time.

What I don't want is for it one time to fly off so far to the right of the pitch that it goes straight out for a throw in, and another time for it to go in a dead straight line up the pitch, smack off the head of a defender standing in front of the keeper who then falls over in surprise, and bounce right into the path of an onrushing forward who sticks it into the back of the net while my (computer-controlled) goalkeeper flaps around like a dickhead.

Once things like that start happening, what's the point of holding the joystick at all? Why not just press fire to start the game, then have the ball bounce around completely at random for 90 minutes and go off your diner, coming back only to see what the result turned out to be? It's crap. Really.

As I've said, though, this feels a lot like Kick Off in play, and you might like that (if you're mad). So let's look at some of the less subjective elements of the game, for information purposes. You get about 150 teams to choose from the various English leagues (no Scottish, European, International or 'wacky' teams, unless you count the Krisalis side). You can't customise the players, the teams or their strips (although, oddly, you DO get to choose which of their three kits your opponents wear), and you can't alter the length of games, but you can choose whether you want extra time or not (although, unlike in Sensible, it comes either with penalties or not at all, you can't have extra time and then a replay).

BLINDER
There are seven kinds of pitch, including a new 'foggy' option, and you can custom-build leagues (including awarding up to five points for a win and between nought and five for a draw) and cups, and give them names of your choosing, which you couldn't do in Sensible. Actually selecting the teams for competitions is a bit of an overcomplicated pain the bum, but that's hardly a major complaint.

MUPLC's big plus point is the TactiGrid™ system, which allows you to precisely tailor your team's formation. Each player can be individually assigned to a single square on the pitch (although obviously he'll still run around wherever necessary), so you're not restricted to five or six preset set-ups. You can even instruct your entire team to line up down the right-hand touchline if you like. You can access the TactiGrid™ at any deadball point during a match, which is great if you get into a 1-0 lead with 10 minutes to go and want to stick every single one of your men inside your own 18-yard box. (Of course, the unpredictable nature of the controls might make this a rather dangerous approach).

As an aside to this, you can even decide in advance which of your players you want to nominate to take penalties, attacking free-kicks and defensive free-kicks.

At the end of the day, though, eve the niceties of the TactiGrid™ are just window-dressing on an ill-considered and irritating game. Playing this, in both one-player and two-player modes, made me angry and frustrated, whereas playing Sensible had me shouting and pointing and jumping up and down in sheer excitement.

Down below in that On the Other Hand box, Steve's going to tell you this isn't as bad as I'm painting it, but remember - he still really likes Kick Off. As I said at the start, MUPLC is mostly almost exactly like Sensible Soccer but not nearly as good. So why bother?

If there was ever a good reason for a software company to experiment with various types of football simulation, it has to be a hit licence. Can there be anyone, apart from Audiogenic with their Emlyn Hughes' season of games, who made more use of a soccer licence than Krisalis? I could attempt to list all the ways in which they have used the Manchster United name, but I fear I would run out of room. Some have been amazing, some have been dreadful, but Manchester United Premier League Champions is one of the best.

THE STEP OVER THE CLIFF
Some would say that Krisalis went as far as they could with the old side on, forced perspective view. Others would say that particular style of football game went out with the Commodore 64. Both parties will be happy to know that the latest release is a top-down approach, as used in practically every football game since Kick Off. if you thought that arcade football games had run out of new tricks to play, Manchester United Premier League Champions which from this point will be known as MUPLC to save wear and tear on my keyboard, will most definitely surprise you.

At first glance, it bears more in relation to Sensible Soccer than anything else. The players are quite small on screen, there is very little on-screen information (no scanner, the score only appears at important points in the match, along with the current time) and it can get quite fast and frantic. The teams have distinctive strips, and the ball is greatly affected by the type of pitch it is rolling on. There is a school of though that says Sensible Soccer is as far as this type of game can go before it becomes unplayable. I agree, but this still gets a huge mark due to all the work that actually goes on behind the scenes, rather than on the pitch itself.

If you have a licence of a real world team, then it makes perfect sense to set your game in the real world too. Every team in here, and there are hundreds to choose from, are all real teams with real players and, get this, real abilities. A Third Division team would never stand a chance against a Premier Division one, and that is shown in this game. Try to pit the two against each other, and you will discover for yourself exactly how outclassed you can be.

GET REAL MAN
The realism of the game has to be one of its strong points. By using real players, that are as up to date as it is possible to be, the game has its own built in difficulty level. If you are beginner to the game, then you should be able to hold your own against only the worst of the bottom division teams. As you progress through the game and become more competent, you will find the higher leagues easier and easier to play against until you can beat everyone.

Possibly this game's biggest strength is a single tactical screen called the Tactigrid. This marvelous invention allows you to tailor your formation and instruct individual players in a way never before seen in a computer football game. Forget programmed set pieces, throw away any preconceived notions about having fifteen different formations to play with.

The Tactigrid allows you to program the exact way your team plays, from how wide you want a defender to wing, to how many midfield players should run forward when it looks like game is going on the attack. On the Tactigrid screen you select your team from the full squad - not just the first team - by browsing through their statistics covering aspects such as stamina, speed and intelligence, and then you can set the overall layout of your play.

Thankfully, this screen can be pulled up at any point in the match, so you can change your playing tactics at any point. There is no better way to turn a match around, as I found when playing against an experienced human opponent for the first time. Within no time at all, I found that I could run the ball down the wing and then chip it into the box for an almost guaranteed goal every time. Half time cam, and my opponent moved his midfield players wide while bringing his defenders back into the box. In the second half I couldn't even get into the box, let alone score from it. This is really what makes the game as challenging as it is, and is the one facet that will bring you back to play it again and again.

Of course, you might actually be wondering what the game is really like to play. Surprisingly good, although the speed of the game might take a little adjusting to. It all seems to run a lot faster than previous games, particularly on the dry or frosty pitches, and the ball spends a lot less time in the air than it does in other games. What makes it so playable is the fact that the team works like a team. Players are where you would realistically expect them to be, responding to the flow of the game properly, instead of returning to some preset mark on the pitch as soon as they are off screen.

MUPLC is one hell of a good football game. Although the actual match itself might not be as smooth or fluid as Sensible Soccer, and the controls might not be as comprehensive as Goal!, the tactical side of the game gives you far more control over your team than either of those. One worth having in your collection.

It's hard enough trying to review this game on a whole page, let alone half a page. After all, with a name the size of Manchester United Premier League Champions, how can you find room to actually say something about the game? So from now on I won't actually mention the name, I'll just get on with telling you about it.

Take your basic, run-of-the-mill top view arcade soccer game, somewhere between Football Glory and Sensible Soccer. Now add a touch of managerial flair to it, throw in every type of league, cup and fixture group you can think of, and finally a large dollop of usable, logical tactics for good measure, and you've pretty much got this game in one.

Essentially there are two parts to this game. The first is the tactical section, which I have to say is brilliant. You are presented with a little gizmo called a Tacti-Grid, which shows you the layout of your team. With this you can reposition players around the pitch as well as show them basically how to play (attacking, defensive, winger, etc).

Then you go into the second half of the game, which is a very playable arcade soccer setup, a la Sensi, and you can see how your tactics have worked. If they're failing, you can jump back out to the Tacti-Grid and try again.

The nice thing about it all is that tactics really do make a difference. If you notice that your opponent always passes into the box, then you can pull the defenders back and he or she will always be foiled. Similarly, you can look for weaknesses in their defence and exploit them, and that's what makes this such a superb game.

Forget the great presentation, or the dozens of photographs that appear throughout the CD version. It's the tactics and the gameplay that will make this one a clear winner.