In the vast swathes of shovelware for which the DS has been a magnet for over the last year or so, I remember reading that Deal or No Deal has a mode where you play as the banker. This is unsurprisingly about as exciting as it sounds, a mode where you make cash offers to the contestant who is having the real "fun", for want of a better word. When presented with a game entitled Football Director, it's natural to wonder if this is going to be the latest foray into side-avenues of games like Programme Vendor 3 and Super Stadium Groundstaff. Thankfully, Football Director is a straightforward management game that has nothing to do with boardroom bartering or taking minutes; the choice of name is presumably so that it doesn't get confused with Football Manager while still managing to cash in that game's acclaim (like calling a third person, alien shooter Cogs of Combat). Not that we care, because DS gamers have been crying out for a football management sim while the PSP unfairly gets annual updates of the best one in the series. Can Football Director take advantage of the management simulation vacuum? Let's find out.

If Football Director doesn't have you shuffling papers, allocating budgets and enjoying generous corporate catering then what does the game involve? Anyone who has ever played a football management sim should know what to expect, as the aims and methods have always been the same. You pick a club to manage (England only in this title, alas), select the tactics, buy and sell the players and set the training routine to ensure that, come the end of the season, you meet or exceed the board of directors' expectations. Succeed and a bigger team will probably come a-knockin', wanting you to work your magic on them; fail and you'll probably find yourself fired and having to set your sights significantly lower for your next job. It's a simple formula that has kept us going for years but that has not been tapped into on the DS platform as of yet - and with stylus tapping ideal for working your way through menus, a DS football management sim would seem like the perfect thing for football fans to while away their commutes with.

Predictably, it's this control scheme that gives the best possible early impressions. Anyone who has played a football management game in the last decade will be right at home as soon as they figure out what the icons mean and the tutorial is amongst the best I've seen on the DS, pointing out very clearly the different options and what each button means. Should you forget, the question mark icon is ever present in the bottom left hand corner to give you a reminder of each function. You navigate menus using the stylus and you can always click on teams or people to find out more about them. It's intuitive, simple and quick - traits that are all welcome in this particular genre.

These positive early impressions continue into the player database itself, too. Although only English leagues are represented, there are no invented clubs or players here and a quick glance shows that each squad is at least an approximation of its current roster. Digging a little deeper reveals some out of date players though; my beloved Derby County's current top scorer Rob Hulse sits languishing on the Sheffield United bench when he could be flourishing in the glory of a mid-table Championship side's misfiring attack, for example. Although some transfers have been made after the database was written, there are other oddities like players on loan from last season still appearing for their temporary teams. I can only assume that a few players slipped through the net (figuratively speaking), something that I imagine is all the more prevalent in the less glamorous lower leagues. You can edit the game yourself but this option is distinctly limited and only allows you to rename players, leaving you wondering why the option was included at all. The game also carries out the traditional small-database management game trick of recycling player names for randomly generated people, a feat that is fine until you spot a certain S. Ebanks-Blake listed as an out of work forty-five-year-old coach. Despite these little issues, it's worth noting that early impressions of the game are extremely promising; the interface is slick and smooth, the controls are spot on and the licensing seems relatively accurate and up to date.

Unfortunately, this promising start does not continue into the match engine. Now, I wasn't expecting a fully animated pitch or anything (given that the significantly more powerful PSP can't manage this in Football Manager) and I have no problem with the old-school running commentary, but the sad truth is that the match description isn't detailed enough. In older Championship Manager versions you got a full description of a build up to an action point but this is not the case here; the first you'll know about a promising move is when you get a one line description of a goal scored - you have no idea how it came to your striker in the first place or even who got the assist. This in itself would be tolerable if it didn't make the rest of the commentary utterly redundant; I mean, what point is there in telling you that you've won a corner when you know you won't score from it (you get some text saying "Goal from a corner scored by...")? To this end, the match bounces all over the pitch; you can concede a goal immediately following on from a free kick at the opposite end with no knowledge as to what went wrong and thus with no idea how to retrain your bunch of misfiring mercenaries. There are other little problems too, but I'm just getting picky when I point out that scoring an own goal brings up your team's shirt when it goes in, making you think at a glance that it's you who has scored.

Disappointingly, this lack of detail is followed through all the way to the player details themselves. Like the early management games of the 1990s, players are measured simply on their overall skill and a few core areas: handling, tackling, passing and shooting. I accept that there's no need to match the sheer number of criteria that Football Manager uses when assessing players, but tactically speaking it's quite important to know whether a player is good at heading or crossing when picking your tactics. These limited statistics mean that you simply pick the player with the highest overall skill, throwing tactics out of the window and making team selection and transfer policy a simple case of comparing a single figure. This lack of detail makes the long saving screens positively baffling and it usually takes around a minute to save your game each time; not ideal for a handheld, but my experience showed there was no problem with closing the lid of the DS should you be in a particular hurry or get caught playing the game when you shouldn't.

The lack of detail becomes increasingly problematic and frustrating as you progress; you can edit training schedules, but to what end? With so few statistics to change and players seemingly fluctuating at random (I signed Giles Barnes for Bolton with a rating of sixty-four and after eight matches he was down to thirty-two, which is worse than a league two reserve player), the whole idea of editing training schedules seems laughably deep in a game that's actually shallower than a dinner plate. It's probably this lack of depth and realism that leads to a lot of unusual behaviour from players too. The simplified interface means that budding managers have only the size of their budget, rather than their current situation, to deal with when it comes to attracting players. Premiership strikers just outside the first team are quite happy to drop down three leagues to play on loan, making my Bradford side significantly more lethal up front than the opposition, and Tottenham was also happy to accept a bid of just five million for Berbatov, a player who recently joined Manchester United for six times that amount.

With this review approaching full time and the result all but determined, the presentation isn't much of an issue but I mention it anyway. The game doesn't go all out attack on this front either, seeming content to emulate its rivals' text-based screens. There is a slight nod towards a soundtrack and some basic but effective crowd noise but it's generally quite sparse, although this is no bad thing for this type of game.

With no other football management games for the DS and its lovely touch screen controls, I had (perhaps unfairly) high expectations for this game. Unfortunately, Football Director has more in common with the fairly dull management sims of the 90s like Ultimate Soccer Manager and Premier Manager than it does with SEGA's all conquering Football Manager series. While it's tempting to give the game a high mark to boost sales and perhaps push SEGA into making a port of their far better game, the unavoidable truth is that Football Director isn't deep enough to keep your attention for more than a season or two. Simplicity can be a great thing but this particular game needed a lot more depth to keep serious football management enthusiasts hooked. Like so many average football teams, we're left with the bitter mantra that is echoed by fans around the country come May: "maybe next season".

Reviewed by Alan Martin for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).