Time was that reviews of the desperately addictive Football Manager series would say things such as "you'll never leave the house" and "you'll see so little sunlight you'll get rickets". No longer, in the mobile digital age: now you can step outside your front door, go places, interact with real people and still guide Lincoln City to the Barclays Premier League within three years.
You can make Getafe bigger than Barcelona, while standing in a supermarket queue. You can outwit Arsene Wenger in the north London derby - while actually sitting at White Hart Lane, watching the north London derby.
Following on from the release of Football Manager Handheld 2010 for the PSP last year, Sports Interactive is now launching the game for the iPhone and iPod Touch for the very reasonable price of £6.99 (available from the App Store). The game's like a software equivalent of Lionel Messi: how is so much brilliance crammed into something so small?
It's a pared-down version of its PC and Mac big brother, for sure, but the level of depth and detail remains impressive and the graphics and menus are nice-looking and well organised. Players choose a team from one of 34 leagues in 11 countries and the tactics, training and transfers options you'd expect are all present and correct, along with FM's famously large and accurate player database. Given the limitations of the hardware, the match engine is particularly impressive.
For the large-fingered or those lacking dexterity, the small touch screen can take some getting used to, and the page where you pick the team is perhaps the most fiddly. It would be easy to be playing the game while a car passenger, go over a speed bump and accidentally enter into a game with Hilario up front for Chelsea instead of Didier Drogba. (Though if it was a key Champions League match, maybe that would help you keep eleven men on the pitch.)
Something to while away long journeys, or to make the time pass quicker when real life annoyingly interferes with your virtual management career back at home.
Tom Dart