I've always been a big fan of soccer sims, but finding a decent one on a mobile device is like scouting for a decent English center forward - i.e. they are few and far between.

Ultimate Football is not a bad attempt at a mobile soccer game. In terms of the quality of its graphics and sound it's probably in the same league as console forerunners such as Kick Off and Sensible Soccer rather than the likes of Pro Evolultion or FIFA. The player animation may not be entirely realistic but the crowd noises are authentic and the viewpoint adopted is that 3D angled one used in modern soccer sims.

One of the things that impressed me most about Ultimate Football is its intuitive control system. You control a player simply by tapping on him and dragging the stylus to where you want him to run. Passing is done by tapping the player you wish to pass to, and to shoot you just need to tap on the goal. You can even hone your skills in Ultimate Football's tutorial mode before you start a match.

Ultimate Football lets you choose to play either an exhibition match against the PDA or take part in either the English or Italian league. Unfortunately though, there's no two-player option, which decreases the longevity of the game somewhat.

It's certainly one of the better attempts at a mobile soccer sim, but don't expect anything too realistic from Ultimate Football.

Download Ultimate Football 1.1 in Softonic

This year’s FIFA World Cup means different things to different people. To many, it represents the pinnacle of four years’ preparation – and the end to a glorious season of league football.

Others, not so enamoured of the beautiful game might well be trembling at the thought of four weeks’ worth of TV filled up with drunken fans, grown men crying and an endless stream of statistics.

Football fans will be impressed by the range of statistics and information available (going as far as the architectural styles of the German stadiums); while those who find the whole thing pretty dull – or impenetrably complicated – are assured an attractive, clean user interface which displays the most important information clearly for all to see.

By automatically updating match results, goal-scorers and other statistics, you can be sure that World Cup Mobile 2006 has a better grip on the tournament than a Norwegian referee (well, a Swedish one anyway).

Besides this, data from previous World Cups are also included in the program along with team profiles, team photos and extended team data for major national sides.

However, it’s let down somewhat with the fonts used in parts the program. Rather than use a typical newspaper-style font, Resco has opted for a futuristic ‘all caps’ font which was pretty difficult to read for longer than a minute or so.

This is a shame but given that it only affects some sections of the user-interface and is basically the program’s only flaw, it can’t be seen as too serious.

That said, an option to change the font scheme (or just the text size) would be a welcome edition in programs of this type.

We’ve looked at other World Cup applications this month, but none seems to offer the same wealth of information, attractive styling or ease of use.

The font issue which bothered us is by no means confined to this application but we do feel it could be remedied easily. We reckon that you’ll be hard pressed to find a better all-round solution for staying up to date with this year’s FIFA World Cup on your Pocket PC.

Download World Cup Mobile 2006 1.60 in Softonic