Review of Manchester United Interactive: The Ultimate Quiz

Introduction

So, by means of introduction, what more do you need to know about Manchester United? After all, football is mega-business these days, and even a non-fan cannot help but know the basics.

Well, Manchester United are regarded in many circles as the world`s biggest football club, and are indeed one of the richest sporting franchises. In terms of football, only Real Madrid - whose income has surpassed the Old Trafford club`s only in recent seasons - can come close to rivalling the history, the success, and the worldwide support of Manchester United.

In the UK and often beyond, Manchester United`s players are celebrities. No one player has ever been more popular worldwide than David Beckham - sold to Real Madrid for £25m, no less - but the likes of club captain Roy Keane, Ryan Giggs, Cristiano Ronaldo and Rio Ferdinand are all household names. Even the manager, Alex Ferguson, is these days a "Sir" on account of his remarkable success at at the club since his arrival from Aberdeen in 1986.

To answer my own initial question then, if there is more that you need to know about Manchester United, this may well then be the DVD for you.

Played out almost like a home version of "A Question of Sport", the Manchester United Ultimate Quiz DVD allows fans to compete against each other, or on their own, with different types of questions being put to them. These include Spot the Ball, Mystery Player, and Missing In Action questions, many of which put United`s video and image archive to good use.

Over the Christmas period you are bound to speak to someone who thinks they know more about United that you do - here`s the chance to prove them wrong!

Video

Video is presented in full-frame 4:3 PAL & is more than acceptable for a DVD of this genre. There is some video footage contained within the game, the elder of which is hardly pristine, but that is a legacy of the source footage, and not of the DVD transfer.

Audio

Audio is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 and is more than acceptable for a DVD of this genre.

Features

Extra features on this disc come in the form of a short behind the scenes tour of Old Trafford (quite interesting if you have never had the chance to take the tour in person), as well as the "Video Vault" & the "Data Bank".

The latter two are a collection of classic United clips, some of which are fabulous to watch again, such as United`s 3-3 draw with Real Madrid in 1968 or - for the somewhat younger of us - their 6-2 thrashing of Arsenal at Highbury in 1990. I wonder do viewers of Celebrity Love Island realise that Lee Sharpe was actually a great player back then...?

Conclusion

As a Manchester United fan (hey, I have an excuse: being Northern Irish, I was brought up on tales of George Best`s genius...) and a world football fan in general, I very much enjoyed the Manchester United Quiz Game. However, I do have a couple of reservations.

Firstly, I wonder how many fans will often return to this DVD, just to test their own knowledge, or to compete with friends. I say this not because of a lack of questions or interesting footage, just that I cannot imagine a quiz DVD of any kind becoming regular viewing.

Another issue that concerns me regarding this release is the speed at which the quiz moves along. It`s hardly slow, but you`ll hear your DVD player furiously reading the disc and some viewers may become a little impatient waiting for the next question, especially since after a bonus question is answered correctly, a classic Utd goal is replayed to highlight the fact.

And one final note is that this DVD has clearly been marketed for the more mature Manchester United fan. Certainly, there are questions about current squad members, but the average 12 year old Man Utd fan is unlikely to know which team Jimmy Greenhoff left United to play for in 1980. That one flummoxed even me.

Aside from these minor points, this is a good release, and it will be interesting to see how it fares against the also-released-for-Christmas FA Premier League Quiz. Well worth a look.