Everyone is happy to play pre-season friendlies against you. A testing time is ahead for Plymouth

We all think that we know better than the professionals do. Instead of shouting at the TV or professing this insight to your mates in the pub, prove your worth by wearing sheepskin and playing PM '99.
Ben Morris

Football management games have existed ever since the early days of gaming. Once crude affairs, they have evolved into giant databases full to bursting with thousands of players and enough variables to keep even the keenest statistician satisfied.

Premier Manager '99 is the latest incarnation of the somewhat ill-fated Premier Manager series. It comes as no surprise that the basic principle remains much the same. Choose your favourite team from any four of the English divisions and guide them to promotion and victory in the cup competitions. Gremlin have tried to appeal to the arcade lover rather than the hardened management fanatic. Perhaps too close an involvement with the PlayStation version is to blame for this.

Football may be a game of two halves but there is something for everyone in PM '99. The simple Arcade mode focuses purely on team dynamics, whereas the fully fledged Management option throws you into the fickle world of club finances and hotdog prices.

Pre-season friendlies can be arranged with teams from Europe, the Middle East, and South America. Surreally, the teams have no real problems with anyone you get them to play. The Italian greats, Inter Milan, for instance, have no qualms about jetting over to Devon for a quick friendly against division 3 minnows, Plymouth Argyle. Very sporting of them.