Game Review: FA Cup Football (ZX Spectrum, Ricochet)

Flippy Side

This game is a Flippy release meaning that both the Spectrum and Amstrad versions are on the same cassette.  One side for the Spectrum and the other the Amstrad computers.  Obviously, an even bigger bargain if you owned both machines.

Just for clarity, this review is purely written for the ZX Spectrum version only.

Configuring The Game

After the game has loaded you need to choose how many players there are, which can be between 1 – 8.  After that, each player puts in their initials.  You are then asked if you wish to add in a team name and depending on the number of players, it will ask you to add in a team name for each player.  The issue I found here though is if you select yes, each player must put in a name.

The next screens display the team names in alphabetical order (to a degree).  Rather strangely when you get to team 93 onwards, it seems to start in alphabetical order again and then in a bit of a random order.  Even after not putting in my own team names, this didn’t make any difference to the order either.  I therefore don’t understand why this is but I’m wondering if it was some sort of afterthought to add in more teams, perhaps?  Anyway, not a major issue but it does feel a bit odd.

After that, you are asked if you wish to skip to round 3 or not.

The Luck of The Draw

The screen goes red and white balls roll from left to right.  Once two balls are next to each other, the number of the designated teams are displayed.  The team names appear at the bottom of the screen (followed by the players initials) and then gradually up the screen.  This took two minutes to complete, and I couldn’t skip this part (which seemed a bit monotonous.)

You then go through the process of which formations the teams will play in.  The formations are A. 4-4-2 Defensive, B. 4-3-3 Balanced or C. 4-2-4 Attacking.  After each selection, a beep is heard.  This goes on for both the number of players and computer teams (which can take an extremely long time, depending on how many human players there are too due to the decision needed to be made.)  When it’s a computer team vs. another computer team, its thankfully done automatically.  Obviously as more teams get knocked out, this process does increase in speed.

Newsflashes

As the formation process goes on, you will see Newsflash appears.  The more rounds you go through, the more chance of a newsflash.  When there is a Newsflash, it’ll display some random things like your wife has gone into labour at noon or four of your players played a local prison or even threats to a player if they win!  This adds a bit of interest to the game but its’ all purely random and doesn’t seem to make much difference in my opinion to the outcome of the results from what I could tell.  It’s also not clear who the newsflash is for.  No doubt these do make a slight difference to the results, but there is no real way of telling.

Not all the games offer a Newsflash, but when you do get to choose if they happen, I usually pressed yes just to make it more interesting.

Kick-Off and The State of Play Results

Once you have gone through that process, you will then see the team names displayed with the scores as the time progresses in steps of 30 seconds at a time.  This can be sped up, should you wish by pressing the space bar down (trust me, you will want to do this).  As time goes on, the scores will change until you see the 90^th minute full-time results from the state of play screen.  Theres no extra time or messages to say when it is half-time.

Afterward you can press X to cycle through the full-time results (of some or all the teams if you wish) and then pressing Q to return to the formation part again.  Incidentally, pressing Q then makes crowd roaring noises (although it’s more like a pressure wash and jet sound) for a short while.  The further you progress, the more there are.

Unless you study every score, you won’t know which teams got knocked out unless you cycle through them for the next round or replay.

Managerial Decisions

In the later draws, however, you can change formation tactics more often during the matches.  These start with half-time and then a few other times throughout the later rounds.  It’ll also let you know what your last tactic was.

From the semi-final round, you will be asked if you want to make a substitution too.

Graphics

My first impression when loading the game is that has a very reasonable loading screen.  The F. A. Cup is detailed with good use of colour.  Also displayed are two England Three Lions Badges as well.  You can tell that they are clearly proud to have The Official F. A. Cup game, not just by it being mentioned here but also on the front and the back of the cassette inlay card too.

Sound Effects Only

There is no music and the game is mainly beeps with roaring noises after the games have finished.

The match at “The Old” Wembley made some terrible beeping noises and squeaks.

Catalogue Misprint

Strangely the flippy side (for Ricochet Spectrum and Amstrad) catalogue code shows RSA rather than RAS.  This must be a printing error.

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