Football Management Simulations (2)

          Premier Manager - Gremlin/Realms of Fantasy
                (Available on PC, ST and Amiga)

                    By Piotr Tyminski

The game comes on one disk, with a good manual (plenty of
screenshots there) and a protection code wheel. This one works by
turning the wheel to get the proper shirt/shorts combination to
match the one displayed on the screen; then you just type the
proper number and off we go. Usual sort of thing.

A maximum of four players can play and the very first thing to do
is (that's really amazing) to type in your name and choose your
team.  There are some immediate restrictions here since you are
allowed to chose from the Conference League teams only, i.e.
there's no way to start with Liverpool right away.  This may come
one day if you are good enough and are offered a lucrative job to
manage some incredibly famous team.  But now it's only a cutthroat
struggle to climb up the ladder with one of those ultra-crap
squads.

Once you're finished with the above you will be presented with the
main options screen, you know, that sort of screen from where you
can access whatever you want. There are quite a lot of nice things
to check on so you do not even have to jump immediately to the
Squad Details screen to see what kind of hopeless players you
have.  Instead you can first have a look at your Ground
Improvements/Sponsors Screen (this one is represented by a
stadium's icon). What you can find here is a nice bunch of things
really, and it's a pity other management sims do not seem to care
about them (sometimes).  So you've got your standing/seating
capacity (eer...  not yours exactly, your stadium - that's what I
mean).  In case you wondered, it's really important; the more
people come to see your brilliant team playing the more cash you
earn on gate receipts.  You should also take care about safety
rating (this costs a lot) since if you don't the FA will fine you
heavily.  Basically, the higher you are the safer stadium you
should have but since it's really extremely expensive to keep it
at high level you can just work out some wise strategy, i.e.
having safety rating at a reasonable level and paying occasional
fines. It's all about money and you really do not care about the
5,000 guys crushed to death last Sunday when the seating section
of your stadium collapsed. Sure you don't care.

You can also invest in ground facilities, starting with basic and
ending up with excellent.  It's logical, too, the better the whole
thing looks the more people come to matches.  Things like
scoreboard, floodlights and undersoil heating (bloody expensive
this one) do their job, too, so give them a decent treatment.
There's also something called a Supporters Club, treat it nice and
it will pay - fans will be struggling to see your matches (eer...
maybe not that quickly as you would like but they will, trust me).
Last but not least comes the beautiful option of filling the
boards with advertisements.  There are almost 50 boards ready to
accept whatever you are paid for, so if ATARI ST REVIEW is
offering œ 49,500 for their name being glued there for 35 weeks
don't think twice (don't be insane, this kind of cash you can get
in the Premier League but not in the Conference, ha!). Still this
is a very nice option and just looks like a real thing - please
note this is the only management sim incorporating this. Great!

I know you've got a useless team (you just know it without even
having a look at them, don't you?) so you may want to check on
the Transfer Market Icon from the Main Screen.  All the usual
options are featured there; you can list players, examine them,
buy good ones and sell bad ones, etc.  You may want to invest in
a bunch of foreign mercenaries (they are usually both damn good
and expensive) but you should bear in mind that they will have to
be out for several matches each season since they must play for
their countries from time to time.

Then comes an icon which looks like the Daily Star and gives you
an easy access to dozens of league tables, position charts,
leading goalscorers (yours are, quite obviously, at the top of
it), form charts, etc.  You will "read" the Daily Star in panic
very often to see how many points you still need in order not to
be relegated.

And then, if you are brave enough, you can have a look at your
Squad Details Screen.  Dear me, all of your horrible players are
displayed here with their name and position along with ratings for
handling, tackling, passing, shooting, etc. Other usual info is
there, too, i.e.  goals scored, matches played, disciplinary
points, age, etc.  Oh yes, age is pretty important; sixty year old
players do not seem to perform nicely.  From here you can choose
your team, subs, formation (4-4-2, 3-4-3, 0-0-11, you know what I
mean) as well as selecting playing style, i.e.  attacking,
defending, long ball, passing, etc.

The screen has some sub-icons which enable you to have a look at
your opposition for the very next match so if you are in the
Premier League and want to boost your personal morale before some
unimportant cup match with the Conference team that's the place to
do it (then you lose the match 1-5, it always happens, don't you
know that?).  You can also display full statistics for the last
match including tackles won, shots saved by your goalie, shots
attempted, possession breakdown. Current team injuries are also
revealed here and estimated cure time is given. You can even
change names of the players in any way you want (you guessed it,
the top scoring forward of the Premier League is named Tyminski;
what, you mean it's not the same on your disk!?).

Watch out for skill ratings:  they range from fair through good,
very good, superb, world class, exceptional to the ultimate.
Those from fair to superb have also 5-star sub-rating, i.e.
player listed as good with four stars is better that the good one
with two stars.

Other icons on the Main Screen include all usual disk operations
as well as historical stats with tons of data. They are all quite
obvious.

Then comes the Finances Screen (in the form of cheque or whatever
it is), this one being quite important since you can crawl in
front of your banker's desk begging for a loan (they even let you
choose the repayment period; after you type it all in they usually
send you to hell).  Also full financial details are revealed here
with wages of your coaches (if you fancy employing some) etc. You
can also check on sponsors' offers to see how much cash they are
ready to waste on you.

Back to the main Screen: the next item is the phone (no, it's not
a self-propelled gun icon displayed here, it's just a PHONE). You
can call your physio to give relevant orders regarding treatment
of your injured players or you can tell him to send them to
Lilleshall in case of disastrous injuries (two sessions a week,
œ1,000 each, thank you).  It pays though, since your battered
players recover twice as quickly there than when your physio
treats them.  Depending on how much you are ready to pay him he
can treat 1, 2, 5 or more players at the same time.

There are also coaches to be called and there are four of them,
each responsible for certain area, i.e.  Forward Coach, Goalkeeper
Coach, etc. You can live without them, too, having just one Head
Coach but obviously he'll never do the job equally well. They are
pretty important since they can improve the skills of your players
in a nice way.  You can even have a scout who will search through
all divisions for certain players which you may want to approach
later on.  Your Youth Coach will sometimes promote young (and
crap) players to the first team (that's good, you can always find
a fool who's gonna buy them).  You will also use the phone in case
somebody calls you to approach your player, then you've got to
call him back to send him to hell, etc.

There are also two icons (on the Main Screen I mean) in the form
of fax machines.  These give you fixtures/results and transmit all
important messages (usually just after the match).  Anything can
happen here i.e.  you can be fined for poor health care (damn it,
who cares), receive income from TV stations for live
transmissions, get info from your Youth Coach about promotions,
read messages from other managers and those lovely notes from your
taxman (yes, you have to pay the VAT) and dozens of others.  It's
great fun to read some of them, especially when you're told that
your top forward got his leg broken and will be out for 41 weeks.

Finally, there is a whistle.  That's where the kick off takes
place.

During the match sequence all sorts of information are displayed
including players in possession, time, position of the ball from
one end of the pitch to the other, etc. You are even treated with
animated sequences from the match.  There are five speeds to
choose from and ULTRA is my personal favourite.  Honestly, if you
try NORMAL it roughly equals to the real match (OK, I exaggerate,
let's say it's just awfully long).  You can make substitutions at
any time, as well as formations and style of play can be changed.

And that's how it looks.  Now let me tell you how it works. Since
the whole thing comes on a single disk there's no disk swapping
(this is the ancient Communist way of telling nothing with lots of
words) but instead you've got lots of disk accesses which slows
down the gameplay quite a bit.  It's not something which can kill
you but it's annoying enough for anyone who's used to the hard
drive way of doing things. Unfortunately, there's no way to
install the game on a hard drive so forget it.  The real shock for
me was an absolute lack of printer support, quite strange for
a footy management game.  Somebody forgot to include this thing
apparently.  What makes me really mad about the game is the
injuries system. The most common injuries are broken legs, broken
arms and slipped disks; they all mean 20 - 40 weeks out of action
for the unlucky one.  I've never been to England so I may be
ignorant when it comes to a real football game but it seems like
the rules are not to score goals but to inflict the heaviest
possible casualties.  Is it really so?  It happened to me when in
the Premier League and still with some 12 matches to go that THREE
of my top scoring forwards (yes, out of THREE of them) and TWO of
my great midfielders got injured and all of them had broken legs
and arms.  Looked like they all travelled to 'Nam and triggered a
huge booby-trap.  The ST version has no international cups (and
that's really stupid!) and I wonder why.  Apparently, both the
Amiga and PC versions are fully equipped with it.  At least that's
what the manual says. Probably to make things less painful for you
all icons which normally should give you access to international
cups data, when used give a message "available on 1 Meg machines
only".  They probably think there are only 0.5 Meg machines around
but the trick doesn't work with my ST (currently 2 Meg) and I know
they just didn't include it.  Maybe international cups are gone
together with the printer output, who knows.  Just don't get me
wrong, there is no printer support for either version, not for
the ST only!

You would probably like to know how real the whole thing is, eh?
Well, it's definitely great fun to play but I'm not sure if it's
extremely real. At least it doesn't give me this kind of feeling.
All in all it's a good game incorporating some very nice options
(like sponsors) and plays well in general, but still it makes me
think it could be much better.  Probably lots of effort was made
to make the game "feel real" with players getting old, youngsters
developing, etc.  Those "real" touches are that players with the
sky high shooting rating don't immediately score hundreds of
goals. They usually score a lot but sometimes they seem to have a
couple of matches off or even a whole season.  It happened to me
that one of my excellent forwards, usually scoring very high, had
a bad season; one of my midfielders scored more goals than him.
It happens in life, doesn't it?

Also style of play has some influence on the overall score, having
several players with high passing skill you may want to choose
passing or long ball style and it will, in most cases, work quite
well.  In moments of desperation, while 5 goals down, you may want
to switch your guys to attacking style.  They will be more
vulnerable to counter attacks then but, in case you've got one or
two sharpshooters, they may turn the tide in a split second. It's
good to check statistics after each match to see how your players
were doing; possession time and shots are quite important since
you will know who is doing his best and who's not.  You should not
jump to conclusions too quickly though, as there may be brilliant
guys who do not seem to have lots of possession and tend to make
one or two shots per match but they always score. It's good to
ensure that your midfielders have lots of possession; depending on
your style and tactics they may be excellent workhorses who just
pass the ball to your forwards in the right time.

A nice thing is that when you are doing really well you may get
offers from other, and usually better, clubs.  It's up to you then
to stay with your current team but if you are crazy about
Liverpool you have to work hard and hope they notice you one day.
In case you are doing really bad, the board of directors may not
offer you another contract and you will be very happy to get any
offer at all.  That's life, eh?

It's all fine but again you can reach a certain point when there's
not much to do there except making more cash. I've played 27
seasons (with no cheating, honestly!!!), I'm in the Premier League
now and always the first at the end of the season, I've won both
the FA Cup and the League Cup several times, I've got the biggest
stadium, some œ 8,000,000 in cash, no debts and just nobody can
beat me since all my players are at the ULTIMATE skill rating.
Once you've got a huge stadium you earn a fortune on gate
receipts, once you've got all that cash you just buy out the best
players around and once you've got them all you win all the
matches, so people come to see you and your gate receipts are
again bigger and since they're bigger...  Oh, dear that's how it
now works for me.  Well, I do lose matches sometimes but all in
all I beat them all hands down.

Will I play it again?  Yes, I will, since despite all the
drawbacks (and the fact there are much better games of this kind
on the market) it was a real challenge to bring those crap
Altrincham guys to the very top of the ladder.  It took me a long
time and gave me some real fun, so I do not feel like I've wasted
my money buying the game.