| ★ AMSTRAD CPC ★ GAMESLIST ★ TOUCHDOWN! (c) STRIKE FORCE DESIGN ★ |
Amstrad Action |
Now answer this question: if a game of American football consists of four quarters, each one fifteen minutes... no, listen... each one fifteen minutes long, why does it take half a day to finish a match? Let's face it, American Football is a weird game. But its also America's national sport (or is that baseball?) and it's gained a cult following in the UK too. And at Strike Force Design they are very serious about American Football. Serious enough to produce an incredibly detailed and deep American Football strategy game that tests your mettle as head coach of an NFL team. Uh oh, it's that word... 'strategy'. That's right, this isn't a sports sim. There's no 'joystick waggling' action, only tactical decision-making and nail-biting tension. So what does a head coach actually do? Well he calls the offensive and defensive 'plays'. He has to judge the abilities of the players in his own team and those of the opponents in deciding which of offense/defense is most likely to succeed. There's a lot of sec-ond-guessing involved here, as the other team's coach will be doing exactly the same thing. But chance plays a part in all sports, and the same goes for Touchdown!. Offensive and defensive plays only have percentage chances of success. Whether or not the play succeeds will also depend on the abilities of the players involved in the play (make sure you do your spying) and what the other team's coach does. Tricky stuff. Your ultimate aim is to come out as top team in the NFL. But there's a lot of football and strategy between you and your ambitions. The other teams (played by the computer) want to win just as much... Touchdown! is a very complex game. Apart from 'spying' on other teams, you can trade players, send your team off on training and carry out an annual college draft looking for exciting new talent. The trouble is you'd have to be a real fan to (a) understand what the manual was talking about and (b) sit through all those matches during a season (though you can save your position to disk). Arcade fans will find Touchdown! a crashing bore, but strategists and American Football fans will just love it to bits. BUT WHERE CAN I GET IT? This game is not available in the shops... Touchdown! has to be ordered by post direct from Strike Force Design. The address is: 28 Noble Street, Hendon, Sunderland, Tyne & Wear SR2 8LU. Remember, it's £4.95 on cassette, £14.95 on disk. TAPE OWNERS BEWARE... ...Touchdown! is available on tape, but in a cut-down form. Many of the options of the disk version are missing, and while the basic nuts and bolts of the game are still there, the tape version isn't as 'deep'. SFD recognises this - which is why the tape version is a full tenner cheaper than the disk version. Cut-down rt may be, but at £4.95, Touchdown! on tape is a bit of a barg. AA |
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