Football Management Sims (3) Professional Football Masters - ESP Software (For ST and Amiga) ST version reviewed by Piotr Tyminski How many of you can still remember "Football Crazy" released back at the beginning of 1990? At that time it was definitely the best game of its genre on the market. The whole story is a good example of what can be done by an independent software company in terms of quality and software support. Surely "Football Crazy", as well as further versions, has sold very well for the last few years so those nice guys from ESP worked busily on updates. Finally, somewhere last year I guess, they came up with "Professional Football Masters" (please note the one reviewed is version 3.19, I understand it has already been upgraded since in the newest edition there's European Mini League added, which I don't have, plus probably some more enhancements). So what's it like? Well, everything about it says quality. It comes on one disk with an excellent, very well printed manual with lots of diagrams. It's nicely written, very informative and interesting to read. Apart from usual technical things related to the game itself there are hints and tips included to get you started, there's an offer for Play By Mail League and also a brief explanation of other ESP games. Additional program, "The Editor" is available separately, which gives you a chance to experiment to your heart's content with all the data. I don't have this one but what the manual says about it is enough to guarantee lots of fun. The game is unboxed but personally I do not consider this to be a drawback, I definitely prefer a great game with a good manual to come in a jiffy bag than those MIG-29 SUPER FULCRUM types with huge boxes with just one disk and poor manual rattling inside. The whole thing is mouse operated and the response is very good, i.e. you do not need to click seven times to get the option working. This may not be something to get excited with but the reason why I stress it is that it happens all too often that controls are sluggish and unresponsive. Up to four players can participate and, after typing in their names, they choose their squads. No restrictions here, i.e. you can jump right into the Premier League and take Liverpool. Then you can either stay in the original league or, in case you're a masochist, your favourite team may start from the bottom of the ladder, i.e. Crap Division (or is it called Fourth Division?). In such case it will be swapped randomly with the one from the last division. Bad news for pervs (those who'd like to start with Arsenal in Div.4 in order to slaughter those poor what-is-their-name teams) is that if you do choose to start with a Premier League team in a lower division all the ratings of your players will be adjusted to a reasonable level, i.e. they're going to become REALLY crap. No tricks here then, but if you're a die hard fan of Manchester but still want to experience all the orgasm of promotions to higher leagues you've got it all. Next thing is to choose the level of play; easy, medium or hard. The difference is kept at reasonable level but it wouldn't be wise if you jump straight away to the hard one. It will then take some two or three minutes for your ST to set up all the information and off you go (that's actually a kind of achievement since it takes half an hour for the ST to do the same thing in "Championship Manager"). Although screens will change very often the main thing is a box in the lower left part of the display which gives an access to controlling 90% of the game. I will not list them name by name (Sue wouldn't agree to a three-disk SynTax issue) but trust me, there's more to it than in an average management sim. Before you check on your players there's still plenty of possibilities for you to set up (if you wish, since the program chooses some of them by default). These include "show goalscorers" (this will show each team's goalscorers when displaying results of the matches in all divisions), "transfer news" (in case you want to be up to date with the market; that's especially funny when you're out of cash but love to see what kind of money are paid for foreign mercenaries - that's what we call masochism), "approach affordable" (the computer will mercifully list only those players who are within your financial range), "financial reports" (gives, to your horror, full breakdown of your bank balance misery), "match reports" (displays analysis of the game after each match, that's great for masochists, too - what kind of analysis can help you if you lose the matches 0-5 all the time?). These are just some of the options but one of the nicest ones is "penalty participation" - this is an arcade element which guarantees your personal involvement in penalty shoot outs. Honestly, I hate all arcade bits but this one (to much of my amazement) I always set up as "ON", since this is really great fun to control the goalie. This may help you to understand why (in real life) those idiots always seem to defend the wrong corner. Shooting is even more fun and despite the fact that's it's actually you doing the job you can't move mountains and if your top forward is an unlucky paralytic it's damn difficult not to overshoot in a horrible way. OK, if you think that serious sims shouldn't include arcade bits just turn it off and forget it. If you care for "games" option this will give you access to several sub-options (basically all options in the control box reveal lots of sub-options), i.e. cup draws (not for you; you're gonna be out at the very beginning), tables, weekly and yearly results, etc., probably more than you need to know. What is probably of some importance for you is "teams" option. You can fiddle with your team here (more about that later) but it also gives you a chance to check on your nearest opposition, i.e. their squad, formation, etc., you can even check on the size of the pitch for your next game (my brother, who's a football expert, says the size is damn important for selecting tactics and formation; who knows, he may be right). Finally, you can do all the horrible things to your squad now. Players will be displayed in different colours corresponding to their current position and will also have their national flag shown (ST. George's for Englishmen). When you highlight the player's name lots of data will appear in adjacent boxes, all corresponding to his abilities and these are: position, preferred foot (yes, you should take care when placing them on the pitch), age, games played, goals (wot, everybody has zero?), value (in case you decide to sell him to cover your poker debts), discipline (when this one is high it may not be wise to risk a great forward in an unimportant match; better save him for next forthcoming cup), wage (they all want too much), status (team, sub, dead, etc.), other (injury, for sale, etc.) and special (this is important; some of your guys may have special abilities like mobility, penalties, etc. - they may be very precious). Also seven regular abilities are listed for each player (control, passing, tackling, shooting, heading, stamina and speed), each rated from 1 - this is fat and crap, like me (that's what my wife says) to 10 - this is beautiful, tall, strong, quick, great, etc., like me, too (that's what all the other girls say). Finally, there's training setting for each of the abilities, ranging from "easy" to "hard"; the more they train all the time the bigger the chance that a particular skill will improve during the season. Bear in mind though, that if you overwork them they may be prone to horrible injuries; it's always better to have good forward with "medium" training setting for his shooting ability that to have the same one with a broken spinal cord just because you set it to "hard" for the whole year. Before you start the actual match you have to choose your formation. You will have the pitch displayed in all its glory and the job to be done is to place small colourful shirts (representing players) in crucial positions. To make things easier for you there will be another pitch displayed beneath with the opposition set-up so you could adjust your formation in a reasonable way. One more thing to do is to set tactics; there's so many options there that you may invent really weird things there. Actually, when it comes to team tactics "PFM" gives you total flexibility - this section is far better than what you can find in most football management sims. Inevitably, there are other options, which I will not describe in full (too much that would be) but they include transfers (with approach facility, negotiable contracts and wages), loans in (and out), free transfers, ground improvements (damn it, you can choose to build double tier seats on the west side of the pitch or seats over terrace from the east, or large terrace from the south; this option should be called Ground Builder Simulator). Loads of statistics are available all the time covering every aspect of the story, including past results, leading goalscorers, history, etc. What is absolutely cracking is an excellent printer support; whatever you want (well, almost) can be nicely printed out, that's really great for serious players who like to stick to a certain team over a period of time. Did I say anything about the match itself? No breathtaking animated sequences here (but who cares?). Instead you will be presented with an overhead picture of the pitch with a big ball bouncing all over it - that's where the action takes place at the moment. There's also a coloured bar nearby which represents possession during the match. During the match you may be presented with graphic/text information on important events. All the usual things like substitutions, change of formation, etc., may be done during the match. What I must tell you is that this particular game really appealed to me. I almost played it to death, really. I know that some people do not like games with "skill ability" system but this one seems to be more than just mere mathematics. At least it doesn't give you the feeling that you should accumulate lots of highly rated players to win matches. It's really rather a matter of maintaining a proper balance of different abilities (and special abilities, too), skill ratings, formation, tactics, etc. It all works very well and gives a feeling of a real thing going on. On the minus side is a usual hard drive problem (not quite installable for the ST version; Amiga OK) but that has nothing to do with the gameplay. The other thing that annoyed me a bit is that when you are unable to select proper number of substitutes for the next match (due to injuries for example) and it's already after the usual season deadline for transfers you are not allowed to play the match which results in immediate sacking. This definitely doesn't make any sense to me! Or, I don't know, maybe there are some strange rules imposed in England that you must actually have minimum two substitutes for each match, but I don't believe it. There's also a bit too straightforward way to make loads of cash, i.e. when in higher divisions it's a good idea to buy out young players from the lower (paralytic) divisions; they usually cost nothing but their value is immediately much bigger when they are transferred to your team. They're still crap all the way but you can resell them with profit. That's too easy for me and something should be done about it in future releases. Overall, it's a great game, I enjoyed it a lot (probably more than "Premier Manager" reviewed last time) and I'm sure that I will be getting back to "PFM" many, many times more for real enjoyment. It feels so fine when they all offer you a job when they see you are doing alright. There is a Scottish version available now from ESP Software, too, so there's nothing to complain about. At œ24.95 (incl. P&P to Poland) may not be the cheapest around, but still definitely worth the asking price. If you are into this kind of game this one comes highly recommended.