There have been many football management simulations that have caught my eye over the years and we have certainly come a long way in the last 20 years.
I remember the first that i clapped my eyes on was Football Director for the Amstrad CPC 464 loaded from tape cassettes (I am showing my age now ...) which was rather noddy by todays standards.
I must say that I am one of those who has stuck by Championship Manager from it's very beginning released by Domark, the very first version released some 15 years ago on the Amiga 500 which was a set of four 720 floppy disks.
In fact I still have the original version of this game on my Amiga 1200 which my father still plays to this very day - well, if that is not lasting power then someone please tell me what is!
The original game was based on the four english leagues 1st through 4th as it was back then. Each player had crude attributes and statistics assigned to them. In fact the game only had 6 attributes per player.
This latest version of the game has extended the player information to roughly 40 attributes (visible). There are also hidden attributes such as current ability and potential. This is perfect for the serious football manager such as myself! If you are the type of person who just wants to play match after match based purely on a team of players that have a recognised name, then this is definately not the game for you.
At the start of the game, the seasons data is generated based on the selections made by the player - these selections include the leagues that you want to include in the game. i.e. English, Italian, Spanish, etc.. However you are somewhat limited the amount of the leagues you can have depending on the specification of your PC - typically you will need have at least 16MB of RAM for each league, so if you wanted the three leagues above you would need to have at least 48MB of RAM. This is well justified based on the amount of data that will be handled throughout the season.
An excellent feature is the editor that comes with the software which gives you the ability to customize the teams and players in the game, from stadium capacity, average gates, players name, attributes, contracts, team colours and a whole lot more.
I have been playing this new version since the beginning of 2002 and have the following likes/dislikes about the game:
LIKES:
* up to date and realistic information, attributes and histories of players in all the professional leagues of over 40 countries.
* basic information available on the semi-pro and amateure teams (even my local town's football team is listed)
* enhanced match engine (as if the actual game is being played in the background/hidden)
* ability to manage international side if you are have a superb reputation (the ultimate achievement - apart from winning the wold cup of-course)
DISLIKES:
* matches take longer to play than previous versions.
* can take more than a day to play a single season.
* does not contain much quality sound and no good animation/graphics.
* can take a long time to generate the season data (depending on the number of leagues chosen)
* playing over a LAN inevitably takes longer to play and can be quite frustrating waiting for other players to finish their daily management tasks.
I do believe that the game could be enhanced by including a visualisation of the actual football matches being played - that would certainly be the icing on the cake for me!
I have only really scratched the surface with my opinions, but I would recommend that you download a demo version and give it a try.
The full version retails at about £30, but with no doubt this will be halved when the new version is relased later this year.
Detailed profiles and histories for over 100,000 players, managers, and coaches within ... more
twenty-six concurrent leagues Full implementation of the new EU regulated transfer system Choose to play in Attribute Masking mode - only the statistics and player...
Postage & Packaging: £1.94 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Detailed profiles and histories for over 100,000 players, managers, and coaches within ... more
twenty-six concurrent leagues Full implementation of the new EU regulated transfer system Choose to play in Attribute Masking mode - only the statistics and player...
Postage & Packaging: Free! Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours...
Advantages: Realistic football simulation game ~ The best PC football game on the market. Disadvantages: Addictive ~ Lack of sleep ~ You can become an ANORAK
Jul 14th, 2002
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