The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 54

The Guardian Thursday December 7 1995 iLine Soccer set to top the Christmas league Jack Schof ield gets in the mood for some festive kicking, shooting, killing and wagging than 15,000 words of real-time commentary by the doyen of commentators, John Motson. (OK, so most of the words are 3,500 players' names repeated four times, but if you get bored with Motty there's a German commentary recorded by Wolf Dieter Poschman.) EA has been developing this version of FIFA Soccer for a couple of years: it began on the CD-based 3DO console. Its main rivals Drive, Nintendo SNES and PC. The latest version has been improved still further, having larger and more realistic players. The most dramatic changes have been made to the PC version, where the huge storage capability of CD-ROM has enabled the programmers to include lots of things that just can't be squeezed into a cartridge.

Examples include 15 minutes of digital video footage, and more Country last year, but Electronic Arts' FIFA Soccer 1996 looks a good outside bet. Indeed, many of the best sellers will be football games. FIFA Soccer does well every Christmas, partly because it is available on multiple formats including Sega Mega- CHRISTMAS is the main selling season for computer and video games, and as with pop records there is lots of industry speculation about which title will top the charts. This year there isn't an obvious blockbuster like Nintendo's Donkey Kong 7 COMMUNICATE. 1 al NEC.

A few years ago, NEC unveiled one of the world's first modular notebook computers. Its hard drive and RAM were easily upgraileable and, by simply swopping the floppy disk drive for a second battery, overall battery life could be doubled. Now this innovation is taken even further by Versa 4000 and its incredible VersaBay II, the slot that lias changed the face of notebook modularity. The built-in CD-ROM drive it usually houses can quickly and easily be exchanged for a second battery to give over 10 hours of battery life. Or for a second hard disk drive to produce over 2.0GIJ of storage.

Or for the floppy disk drive that comes as standard. Most important of all, with Versallay II, there's no need to open up your Versa to make these changes so its major components are alw ays protected. Versa 4000. The notebook that adapts to your needs. For more information on the amazing Versa 4000, phone 0345 300 103.

1- prirt i i i'tn-1 I- l' I I include Rage's Striker 95 which started life on the Amiga and has just topped the CD charts in a Sony PlayStation version. Striker 96 and Gremlin Interactive's Actua Soccer, which has most impressive 3-D graphics. Both offer "live" commentaries: Actua has Barry Davies; Striker uses Andy Gray. Part of the appeal of soccer games is that you can play against other people, not just against the computer. Here, Actua Soccer seems to have to the edge.

It lets four people play on a single PC two can use joysticks while two share the keyboard while on a network, up to 20 can play. However, I bet the forthcoming PlayStation version plays better: soccer games are never as good on PCs as they are on consoles, where the joy pads offer better control. Where PCs score, of course, is in football management games. Here the main choice is between Gremlin's Premier Manager 3 and Domark's Championship Manager. Both have their disciples.

PM3 has barely been out of the top four since its launch last year, and the new De Luxe version (PC, PC CD-ROM and Amiga) should be a huge success: everyone wants the up-to-date teams and stats. Championship Manager 2, which is now out on PC CD-ROM, has 4,000 player histories with amazingly detailed statistics, photographs of every English league ground, and more than four hours of commentary by Clive Tyldesley. BEYOND football, most Christmas favourites are new or upgraded versions of familiar games. Examples include EA's NHL 96 and John Madden Football 96 (MegaDrive), Acclaim's NBA Jam TE and Mortal Kombat 3. Codemasters' Micro Machines 96 (MegaDrive), and Hudson Soft's Super Bomberman 3 (SNES), which my 10-year-old says is "brilliant." All should do well.

Sometimes the connection is less obvious, as with id Software's latest smash, Hexen. The subtitle, "Beyond gives it away. Like Heretic, the game has been developed by Raven Software using id's Doom And if that's the sort of thing you like, you'll like Hexen a lot. Similarly, Microsoft's hit, is based on the engine from Terminal Reality Inc's Terminal Velocity. Sometimes the new game is more of a repackaging job and none the worse for that.

Nova Logic, for example, has rcreleasod its two popular helicopter battle CD-ROMs in one box as Werewolf vs Commanche, and they now have multiplayer options via a modem or network. Also look out for PC CD-ROM games being republished as budget titles: The White Label range includes some real bargains. Sometimes games are merely jumping formats. For example, Time Warner has hit paydirt with its PlayStation version of Rage's Striker 96, while EA is doing well with SNES and MegaDrive cartridge versions of Bullfrog's great PC game, Theme Park. Psygnosis is going both ways, with PC versions of PlayStation hits such as Wipeout, and PlayStation versions of PC games like Disc world.

Part of the problem is that games now cost so much to develop FIFA Soccer cost $3m that software houses are wary of -wgSSjKjlBBBBBIM BBBB tBBBBBBU fwBB IBB JiHB 'sHHhHUIH mtlw'' 'tBBHt BBBBBBBu BBkBBBKBBBBBBBBBBBBBBKBBBBBBIIBB NEC.