Football Manager 2005 (PC)

Football Manager 2005

Price: £17.99 (play.com) ( if you shop around locally anywhere from £20 to £30 generally)

Fomat: PC, Mac

Minimum Specs: A Computer with a hamster whirring around in it. Some Rams and a Partridge In a Pear Tree. (Or Minimum: Windows 98SE/2000/XP 600MHz processor 128MB RAM DirectX 8.1 compatible sound card 4x CD-ROM drive 1024x768 32-bit display 650MB hard disk space Keyboard, ...
...Manager Series:

Football Manager 2005 - the latest instalment in a popular series of management simulations, more popularly known as “Championship Manager” that started off life on the Amiga back in 1992 and created by two brothers, Paul and Oliver Collyer. They had the idea to create a football management game with a much wider range of options that had never been offered to the average gamer at the time of its inception.
... more

Football Manager 2005

Price: £17.99 (play.com) ( if you shop around locally anywhere from £20 to £30 generally)

Fomat: PC, Mac

Minimum Specs: A Computer with a hamster whirring around in it. Some Rams and a Partridge In a Pear Tree. (Or Minimum: Windows 98SE/2000/XP 600MHz processor 128MB RAM DirectX 8.1 compatible sound card 4x CD-ROM drive 1024x768 32-bit display 650MB hard disk space Keyboard, mouse Recommended: 1.8GHz processor 256MB RAM 8x CD-ROM drive)

Over A Decade of Joy: The Championship Manager Series:

Football Manager 2005 - the latest instalment in a popular series of management simulations, more popularly known as “Championship Manager” that started off life on the Amiga back in 1992 and created by two brothers, Paul and Oliver Collyer. They had the idea to create a football management game with a much wider range of options that had never been offered to the average gamer at the time of its inception.

In its first incarnation the game was simply a massive database of players and teams. The original Championship Manager started of with just the English Leagues. And an option to purchase a few European players.

The format was pretty simple, it had all the aesthetic value of an excel spreadsheet and basically ran on number crunching, but was highly addictive. The earliest version was English league only, but due the games overwhelming popularity, it was also released for both the Spanish and Italian league. By the 1995/96 season the English version of Championship Manager had those 2 major European Leagues, Italian and Spanish built in to the game.

1996/97 – by now Championship Manager series was definitely the most popular management simulation ever created, and for the first time it included other foreign leagues, in fact 7 in total. The user could now become a manager of any team based in England as well as teams in the top leagues of Spain, Italy, Germany, France, and Holland, Scotland. This was then taken further when more leagues as well as extra competitions were added in CM2.

The first version of CM2 was created by Sports Interactive, a company created by the Collier brothers on the back of the huge success of the franchise. They have produced all of the Championship Manager titles since (although will no longer). The sequel was to really launch the successful series as the look of the game changed and the game now included 12 leagues and all competitions and players involved in those leagues.

Championship Manager 3 was released in 1998 to the delight of the huge fanbase it had now acquired. This title was to break gaming history and at the time had sold more copies world-wide than any other PC game. The game itself had been completely revamped, hardly recognisable from the previous instalment, with an increase in the features, leagues and players; it became a huge hit as well as enormous commercial success.

Championship Manager 4 followed suit, surpassing its predecessor in every respect. The sales figures again were huge, new features, interface and options again brought the game one step closer to reality. It was followed by what some regarded as the most popular in the series in the 00/01 update. Which was then followed up by what was to be the final game featuring SI’s involvement with the “Championship Manager” licence (03/04), and which has now passed over to Eidos who are independently working on Championship Manager 5, although most fans will agree that the real Championship Manager will always be the one produced by SI.

Go Your Own Way….

The latest version, Football Manager 2005 is undoubtedly the best. Before we start its fair to say I am already moderately addicted after just a few days of play. I have experienced the highs and lows of Football Management and come out the other side a better man. Want to know more about the game still? Then read on….

The list of features inherent in the game are endless. Chances are that even after a fairly engrossing few days of play when at home, I haven’t experienced everything that this beast can throw at you. The new “trump card” is billed as the ability to play mind games with other managers. I have to admit that the thought of telling Alex Ferguson he has no clue on how to manage a team was appealing, and for the first few weeks of the season was fun, but is not entirely the mainstay of this fantastic game. Still, it can help to upset the opposition or lull them into a false sense of security, gaining an all important advantage – or backfire completely and leave you looking like a managerial novice (ala Kevin Keegan’s “I’d luuuve it if we beat them” in his Newcastle days!)

The 2D match engine – remaining from CM4 although much improved, it no longer struggles its way through the 90 minutes, looking increasingly smooth and impressive. If one wishes watching the full 90 minutes is possible, although rather sensibly the options for key highlights or extended highlights have been included as to make it possible to finish a season in less than a decade.

But I digress. Starting at the start, you will be faced with the option of choosing which league to ply your trade in and how many (if any) other leagues to include, so that job swapping and continental travel may beckon if a change of scenery is fancied further down the line. This in itself may pose problems. Football Manager 2005 has over 50 countries (5000 playable teams! That’s more choice than anyone should ever need). Indeed a natural progression from previous series but is still impressive nevertheless.

Once all is set up and running, the game itself begins. The challenge starts. Most veterans of the CM series will be familiar to the layout, although tweaked and enhanced once more for this latest edition with news being brought to the managers attention through what is now a mock e-mail system. All media, personal, club and other news will be left here for the manager to take in at his or her leisure. Some items will of course require a response, such as a cheeky bid for a star striker or an agent who is touting his client around, including clips of good performances, in cases such as this, it is left to the manager to decide whether he is trying simply to make a few quid or he is giving you a choice to sign the next best thing. More importantly still, news can be filtered and searched so that any relevant items can be found making it easy when necessary to ignore the latest transfer saga at Chelsea and concentrate on internal affairs.

The day to day running of the club can be a large and complicated operation. SI recognises this and offers you support. This comes in the guise of the Assistant Manager. If the hands on role is not for you, then the assistant will take on training, contract renewals, managing the reserve teams, and a number of other things, all designed to give you the maximum time to tweak that formation and come up with the ultimate team in time for the kick off of a new season.

Everyone enjoys searching for players, to us armchair managers scouring the globe for the new hot talent can be extremely rewarding, when the prodigal striker you nurtured from 15 breaks into the first team and fires his way to glory you can’t help but feel fulfilled (its sad I know!) well scouting has never been more effective and filters can provide you with about as many options as you could ever need for discovering the next diamond in the rough. Either that or doing big business signing the worlds best for big money, all the options are there in the transfer market, its as fantastic as it ever was. If you can’t nab the player you want, you can always try to unsettle him by releasing a comment or two stating your admiration of his ability or that you would love to sign him for your team. It may work, it may not, but the fact you can try it is more than enough.

Tactically, things have progressed further from previous instalments even further, the tactics can now be altered using slide bars. Everything from the underlying style of the team to the amount of creative expression on the pitch and closing down of opponents can be altered here to varying extremes. The ability to individually instruct players as to what you expect from them can have you reaping the rewards come trophy time, if used properly. Giving Rio Ferdinand a free role will end in disaster, while applying a similar set of instructions to Ronaldinho will have you celebrating a historic success in no time at all. It’s all down to how you perceive the individual abilities of the players. And there is a lot to help with that. Players have more stats than ever before, both mental and physical. And at the high end of the game its important to analyse opponents before deciding which is the best way to break them down and run out the victors. No “Super-Tactics” can be used, and computer AI will have you vying for that league title right up to the last game of the season. It’s about as real as it gets.

Match day, the culmination of all your hard work. Will the new tactic work? Will the exclusion of my midfield general lead to a comprehensive defeat? Will the mind games pay off? This is where those questions are answered. As usual it’s a stat fest, but what is helpful is the ability to split the screen in two. A variety of different screens are available to the would be manger, detailing everything from player performance, to latest updates from across the league. It is useful to be able to see how results panning out will effect league placings or if preferred watch the game and player stats simultaneously, spotting ineffective players or the effects of fatigue on performance as the match progresses. With the likelihood being that this will only improve in future instalments the future is bright for Football Manager!

Game Speed, having been an issue previously, SI seems to have worked hard at improving the running speed of the game no end, the option to have matches played out in the background while you make the heady managerial decisions of the day or tweak formations, even go player hunting helps to reduce lags in the game where you may otherwise have been finding yourself twiddling your thumbs and reaching for the newspaper. Needless to say it will be a welcome addition for all.

For the tinkermen (and women) among you, there will no doubt be cheers of joy at the news that a pre-game editor comes bundled with the release. Quite labour intensive (requiring over 512mb ram alone to run at anything resembling a decent speed), the database has almost every one of the millions of stats available to the would be god to toy with, everything from how players like to play in matches, their favoured clubs and potential abilities to future stadium moves, club finances and manager relations can be edited, there is a veritable smorgasbord of options here which can leave the player spending almost as much time preparing the game data as playing the actual game (and for those that haven’t guess – that’s a long time!). A great add on for the game, which also allows the more pedantic player opportunity to make sure all the latest player transfers and club info is spot on before loading up a new game.

To surmise, the gameplay is as addictive as ever, and while I haven’t really touched on it during the review, preferring to focus on what the game does deliver (and that is a top notch closer than close to real life simulation of football management, in spectacular detail [a friend managing in the national youth league is even included along with the entire first team squad] like none have seen before) there are obviously some drawbacks. Some will say that the game is a statisticians dream and nothing more, a series of figures and not a lot else. In some respects there is a truth to this claim, however the utilisation of these stats has become something of an addiction for anyone remotely interested in football.

In a standard game review, this offering would undoubtedly score low marks in the sounds and graphics category, although in the case of the latter club logos and player pictures have gone a small way to sprucing up the game a little. The fact that neither of these are actually integral to the game itself however means that any negative feedback in such categories are inconsequential. This game is top notch, if you have the smallest interest in football, you should own it. Sooner rather than later.

The Road To Glory – My Football Manager Tale

Obviously you will all be dying to know how I have progressed during my first season of Football Manager, and for those of you still awake at this point here is the tale of my season in charge at my beloved Arsenal FC:

I had been appointed, much to the dismay of the Arsenal faithful. A 30 year old unknown with no previous management experience? The board must have been crazy. It was the best decision they had ever made! A lone summer signing – Vincent Kompany would step in to bolster the Gunners rearguard this season, at nearly 4 million pounds was the bulk of a transfer kitty severely reduced by the impending move to the Emirates Stadium in 2006. A few shrewd moves for youngsters such as Freddy Adu and Kasper Schmeichel helped improve the outlook for the future, but the present was a different story, a 3-way challenge for the title with Manchester United and big Spending Chelsea. The season got underway and the games flowed…..

……..It was the end of a long hard season, Manchester United drew against Charlton & Chelsea respectively handing me the title with a game to go. In my first season I had reclaimed the title for Arsenal in style with a game to go.

Then it was on to the champion’s league final, after thumping Barcelona, Inter Milan and Bayern Munich en route to the final I was confident that it would be double success. I met Manchester United (as if !!) in the final and despite dominating the match could only manage
0-0 after extra time.

Penalties.... it was a tense affair until Ruud van Nistlerooy missed and the Cup was mine!!! A double success in my first season at Highbury ?
Its the stuff dreams are made of. It led AC Milan to sack Ancelotti and approach me about the vacant position. The fans flocked outside
the ground begging me to stay - how could I leave my spiritual home? I decided that even though I was promised £38.5M in transfer funds at Milan I should remain at Highbury and build the team of the future.

The fans breathed a huge sigh of relief and many of the clubs players publicly backed me after picking up a huge array of end of season
awards and trophies for their first rate performances over the season.

It was announced that my achievement ranked me up there with the greatest managers of all time, and given my young age it was speculated that the best was yet to come! I sit 10th on the all time hall of fame, just 9 trophies away from Bill Shankley.... I'll surpass him in no time!!

My close season mission is to remove all the dead wood in the reserve and youth team, and slowly rebuild them by poaching the top youth
talent around the world. I have lost Bergkamp to retirement and have sold a 32 year old Robert Pires to Barca for 8.25M! I signed Chris Coleman, who was axed by Fulham after defeat to me as an assistant to Pat Rice. He still has a lot to learn. By the time the new season is starting Freddy Adu will be old enough to participate in first team matches after a steady period of progress in the reserves and Kasper
Schmeichel will be knocking on the door as first choice GK.

To further enhance the first team I have signed an unhappy Baros at a cut price 3.5M from Liverpool and Woodgate will join soon from Madrid as cover for Touré, Campbell and Kompany at the back. A lesser known tricky Argentine winger from Palermo signed in January through the Bosman will be arriving and will be hoping to impress filling the huge void that
Pires has left in his wake, Kieron Dyer arrived cut-price after another Newcastle fall out and with emergence of some youth players such as Lupoli and Cesc signals bright things for the coming season...

And that’s it, the tale of my first season on Football Manager 2005. Obviously I left out the low points of the season, early exits from
domestic cups and a problem with fitness throughout the season. All part of a managers ups and downs however, I am confident that more success is just around the corner.

Sir Richard (Just call me the finest manager of my generation if you please) Groves
 

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