Super Sports Challenge
Copyright/Publisher: Codemasters, Release Year: 1991,
Genre: Various, Number Of Players: 1 or 2

Here we go again. One of these days we're going to be able to fill a whole issue of CF with just compilations. There have been so many of the things released recently that you could be fooled into thinking that the softies are having a good spring clean. The latest features various Codies sports games, and one of them, Cueboy, is brand new.

Slicks is a bit like Carnage (which was reviewed last issue) in that it's an overhead-viewed motor racing game. But unlike Carnage, your car is at all times in the centre of the screen while the scenery scrolls by. There's a fab two-player mode that's worth buying the game for alone, but there are loads of other great touches that give Slicks the edge over your average motor racing game.

Wrestling Super Start is a pretty bog standard wrestling game. With large sprites and good use of colour it looks pretty, but it's a bit lacking on the gameplay front. To beat your opponent you have to waggle your stick faster than the computer thinks one of the top wrestling stars could waggle this.

One of these days a Californian university professor will publish a report on how waggling is good for your health, but until then I'll stick to games that need a little skill to beat rather than just a swift wrist.

Although the next game is called 1st Division Manager you can actually chose to manage any team in a British league from the Premier to the Third (which is a bit like calling it 2nd Division Manager if it had been out a couple of years back). You start fresh at the beginning of a season, with a nondescript bunch of players and no games to your name. You then have to start building your team into a cup-winning squad, and there are various ways to do this.

Turn on your (in-game) PC, wince at the meagre talents of your team, and start to train them up. Either that or you can contact the outside world, via a cute-looking girly on the other end of the phone. She'll arrange a bank loan for you, buy a player or sell one of yours - versatile little miss (makes you wonder what she does with the players she buys! - Ed).

1st Division Manager looks luvverly but plays slowly and without any real kick. All it needs is a bit of tightening up - buying a player is particularly tedious - and some more options. You've got to have a lot of patience to be able to progress.

International Speedway's not quite like taking a Harley across America: it's more like go-karting around your driveway. You race around a simple oval circuit, against four simple opponents. The main problem is that it's just too easy. On top of that every race feels exactly the same as the last - the names of your opponents and the tracks change, but that's about it. Admittedly it feels good at first but after a few goes you'll be as bored as a pyromaniac in a swimming pool.

THE CUE BUY IN TOWN
Cueboy is the newest game in the collection, so new, in fact, it hasn't been released before. It's a pool simulator viewed from where you'd normally put one of those big rectangular light things (you mean from above? - Ed).

Occasionally, the movement of the balls suggests that the table is suffering from subsidence or that you're playing in the middle of an earthquake. But most of the time it does its job fairly well. The graphics aren't overly impressive but then in real life a baize-covered table and a few balls hardly rates on the visual excitement scale. An average sim.


INTRO SCREEN

POWER RATING 73%
THE DOWNERS
International Speedway.
Unless you're a sports sim fan there's nothing to get too excited about in the pack.
THE UPPERS
Slicks.
Two-player mode on most of the games.
Cue Boy has never been released before.

I think maybe it's time to start thinking about substituting the goalie.
Lay back, ride wide. The best tips are always in CF!
Dig the subtle 'chequered flag' imagery. Anyway, Blue wins yet again and we're off to the World Championship next.
Who's that player at the bottom? M Khan? Not the M Khan? Not the M Khan immortalised in graffiti on a London railway bridge? We all know what they say about him.
Come on. It must be somebody's go.
I don't know who he is, but he's a stickler for the rules.