Whereas Football Manager 2 is one of the best football management games on the CPC, its sequel is very disappointing. As ever, you can select any of 92 teams and are automatically thrown into the 4th Division with a team that consists of a bunch of ageing thirtysomethings. Although there is a greater range of options available and the statistics are more detailed (for instance, there are eight skill and fitness attributes for each player, and full league tables are available), it's such a bore to play. The entire game is very slow and cumbersome, and the match highlights seem to last an eternity - and why do you usually get two or three players in your team with the same surname?

See also: Football Manager, Football Manager 2, Football Manager World Cup Edition.

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This was actually released after Football Manager 2, which may cause some confusion. You can take control of any of over 100 countries in their quest to win the World Cup. However, you don't really get to do much in the way of tactics - instead, you respond to questions asked to you by two commentators, which can affect the morale of your team. Now, if you ask me, that's a silly way to play a football management game. The match highlights are all right, though.

See also: Football Manager, Football Manager 2, Football Manager 3.

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Forbidden Planet
(Design Design, 1986)

The Evil Lord wants you to collect several parts of a message that he has left on the Forbidden Planet. The planet is heavily guarded with laser defences which fire at you, and there are also many plasma tunnels (basically, hollow rectangles) through which you must pass, or your ship's energy will be depleted. There are also 'dislocations' which teleport you to another area of the planet. It's a 3D space shoot-'em-up which is very fast, but actually it's a truly awful game; steering the ship using the map is very inaccurate, and your energy depletes so fast that you don't stand a chance of surviving for more than five minutes. As Amstrad Action discovered, entering swear words into the high score table is more fun than playing the game itself.

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Princess Mara has been captured by the evil wizard Zarn, and you have been sent to the forest to rescue her. However, many foes lurk within the forest. This adventure game is actually a bit easy, although there are several confusing mazes, and the exits from each room aren't logical - for instance, you can go north at the start, but to get back to the starting room, you have to go west! The vocabulary is also rather limited, but this isn't too much of a problem, and the graphics, while reasonable, aren't quite up to the standard of Interceptor's other adventures.

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As you are sleeping, you dream about being on a forest path... then you wake, and find that you are now on that path. You've entered some sort of fantasy world - Forestland. This is a text adventure which uses most of the clichés that are to be found in any standard text adventure - dark places which require a torch, doors to unlock, treasure to be found, and a complex maze. Despite the plot, the adventure is little more than a treasure hunt, and although I seem to be criticising it very harshly, it's actually not too bad - at least, if you're a novice adventurer. The HELP command provides clues at appropriate places to help you. Experienced text adventure fans won't find it much of a challenge, though.

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The third and last of Charles Sharp's sports-themed GAC text adventures sees you at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, as the coach for the women's javelin team. For some reason, Britain's two best female javelin throwers, Fatima Sanderson and Tessa Whitbread, have been performing poorly since they arrived at the Hotel Olympus. Has their food been poisoned or drugged? Well, those Lithuatvians look suspicious, and you've got only three days to solve the mystery... Thankfully, this is a somewhat easier game to get to grips with than the other sports-themed text adventures which I mentioned earlier, although the parser is still limited and you will occasionally have to enter exact combinations of words to achieve the correct results, which is rather annoying.

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The Emperor Bios and his minions have laid waste to the cities, turning them into forgotten worlds. You have returned to the cities and have to destroy the Emperor's minions and three monsters he has created. You have a jet pack at your disposal, so you can fly all over the screen and manoeuvre swiftly to avoid hails of rockets and missiles. You can also pick up coins and buy some power-ups. This is a very good shoot-'em-up, boasting colourful graphics and blistering action. It takes time to work out how to control your character, but once you master it, you'll really like the game.

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There are lots of Formula 1 racing games on the CPC, but Formula 1 management games are very rare. Up to six players can play as you battle it out to win the World Championship. You get to choose your team, which drivers to hire, and your sponsors. Before each race, you can spend money on improving both cars, and you must also choose which tyres to run with. The races are fun to watch, but you do have some involvement in them, as you have to get one of your mechanics to change the tyres and fix the car in pit stops! The graphics are mediocre and the sound basically consists of rather nice engine noises, but if you're a Formula 1 fan, you'll probably enjoy this game immensely.

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Qualify and race your car around any one of ten Grand Prix circuits. You'll first have to do a qualifying lap before actually racing against the other cars. You can choose whether to use automatic or manual gears, but if you use manual gears, make sure you don't over-rev the engine and blow it up! One thing you unfortunately can't choose is the weather, which usually ends up being wet, thus making the car more difficult to control. The game hasn't stood the test of time, though; the cars are just black silhouettes and there is no scenery of any sort, and the title tune is grating.

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Forteresse
(Loriciels, 1987)

Lord Angkor's beautiful daughter, the 22-year-old princess Gwendoline, has been kidnapped and locked away in a fortress. Can a brave warrior such as yourself rescue her? This is a graphic adventure which is very easy indeed to get into. Gwendoline is wearing a suit of armour, and you must find padlocks to remove the armour one piece at a time. Once you have found all of them, Gwendoline will be revealed in all her beauty... What struck me most was the quality of the graphics; each of the dozens of locations is represented by a beautiful, full colour, digitised picture. Hardened fans of French adventures might not like the relative simplicity of this game - there are only six types of objects to be collected and only a small set of commands which are represented by icons - but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

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