A staunch fan of Portsmouth FC and producer of recent PC and PlayStation title Viva Football, Simon Humber from Virgin explains himself...

Viva Football, then. What did you set out to do?
We set out to make a football game that recreates the real life sport rather than follow in the well-trodden steps of all the arcade-style kickabouts that have proliferated the market.

What are your favourite footie games and why?
Southampton 0-2 Portsmouth on January 3 1988, beating the Scum (he's referring to Southampton, readers) at the Dell. Bradford 1-3 Portsmouth on the final day of last season. Ummmm, that was what you meant wasn't it?

Any plans for a sequel to Viva?
Yes, we've definitely got plans to sequel the game in the near future. There are so many things that we wanted to do but couldn't as we ran out of time on the first game. The concept of open football is the way forward. Play the style of football you want to, not the way the game forces you to.

How difficult is it to 'break' a new football game into a market dominated by 'brands'?
It's hard and is not something that can be done overnight. You have to take a long-term view on products. A new successful franchise is likely to take three iterations before you make any significant in-roads into an established market leader.

Do you read your reviews?
Of course we read our reviews. Feedback is important to the continued development of the game. I felt the reviews were similar to marmite. Reviewers either loved the game for being different or couldn't quite get their heads around it. We'd far rather polarise opinion than be another, homogenous also-ran.

Kevin Keegan. England manager. Discuss.
Keggy Keegle is to be the only man for the job. It'll be great to have a manager who would absolutely "love it when we beat them".

What's the best game you've played this year?
Apart from my constant battles to stay top of the Viva league at Virgin I would have to say I've enjoyed playing the demo of Driver. As soon as I read about it I thought of an old Spectrum game where you drove through a city pursuing criminals, running red lights and knocking down pedestrians. This seems to take it into the next realm. I just hope the missions have enough variety.

PlayStation 2. What do you reckon to the spec?
What can you say? It's awesome on paper. The worrying aspect is that to take full advantage of its capabilities big teams will be needed. Big teams cost money. How many developers will be able to take full advantage of the spec? The biggest companies could get to triumph at the expense of the smaller developers who can't afford to compete.

What, if anything, will PS2 do for football games?
Football games have suffered more than most genres from the hardware they are forced to run on. At last we'll be able to have a fantastic-looking game, with excellent AI, and running at 50 frames per second. Sadly, up to now on PlayStation these three aspects have not been possible together. From a designer's point of view it's going to be fantastic. Instead of always having to make compromises and cut back on my ideas I can go mental.