Football Mania

4-4-2, 3-5-2, the Christmas tree formation, high tempo, slow build-up and let's not forget the good old fashioned long ball game. We all have our own opinions on how the beautiful game should be played. With Football Mania, developer FDG Mobile proposes a more strategic brand of footy – in a very literal sense.

The game eschews the direct football action of a FIFA or a Pro Evo, and bears absolutely no resemblance to what might be termed conventional football strategy games such as Real Football: Manager Edition.

No, what we have here is a pure turn-based strategy game dressed up in a snazzy football kit.

As each game starts, the pitch is divided into an 8x7 grid, and viewed from a birds' eye position. Think of it as a football-themed chess board. The chess analogy can be stretched to the gameplay, too, with each team taking it in turns to move one of their six players towards the opposition's goal.

As well as moving one of your players, you have the opportunity to kick the ball once per turn – provided you have a player positioned in an adjacent square. As long as the player in possession has an unobstructed line to a teammate, he can pass to him. And this is where the game gets clever.

If your receiving team mate has an unobstructed line to yet another of your players, he can pass it on within the same turn. This can continue until either you've run out of team mates to pass to (you can't play it between the same two players repeatedly) or you've found a teammate with an open route to goal.

As soon as you realise how Football Mania wants you to play, the game's link to the beautiful game becomes a lot less tenuous. You'll work hard at keeping possession, switching the ball across your defence to the opposite flank, while you nudge your forwards ever, er, forward into shooting positions. Very much like real footy, really.

It is wholly absorbing, and when you score your first flowing, multiple-pass team goal, you'll find yourself jumping from your seat as if it were your own team sticking one in at the cup final. Which is very embarrassing if you're using public transport at the time.

It's a crying shame that there isn't more meat on such rock-solid bones, though. Such an engrossing game engine simply begs for a multi-tiered single-player campaign. The prospect of encountering a variety of formations and ever increasing skill levels made our mouths water.

As it is, you get three difficulty levels comprising one game each. That's three games in which you'll see everything the game has to offer for solo players. There are no tournaments, no continuous gets-ever-harder ladder of matches. Even for a budget offering, this really isn't enough.

As you might imagine, Football Mania lends itself very well to the multiplayer experience, but no Bluetooth jiggery-pokery is required. Just take your turn and pass the phone over to a buddy / interested fellow commuter / thoroughly uninterested partner. It really is that simple, and it works in the way that every decent boardgame ever has worked because of it.

Whether you'll have much opportunity to play the game this way is something you perhaps need to consider before buying Football Mania. Solo players will experience moments of genuine elation, tempered by a vague sense of dissatisfaction and wondering what might have been. But play with a friend and it nails the real football experience to perfection.