Football Management Simulations (4) CHAMPIONSHIP MANAGER '93 - Domark RRP œ29.99 Upgrade œ 7.99 (For ST, PC and Amiga) ST version reviewed by Piotr Tyminski I was thinking about reviewing original "Championship Manager" which, honestly, I enjoyed a lot (eeer... maybe except the fact it used to crash all the time) but then I decided to wait a while for the upgrade to become available. You shouldn't be scared off by RRP; it's just a matter of shopping around (Special Reserve is selling version '93 at GBP 17.49 + postage so try them before spending thirty quids elsewhere). Some of you might have seen a review of the game (or was it preview?) in ST USER (issue 88, June'93). In case you have, you'd better forget about it since the guys were trying to bullshit the public totally. Screenshots shown were from the old version and the number of disks mentioned was 1 while in fact there are 3 of them. Oooops! This one could possibly be the shortest article in the Management Sims series as it would be enough to say the game "has it all and more". What is it, then? Eeeer... It has it all and more. It's so incredibly packed with features that Sue would have to produce a two disk version of SynTax this month if I wanted to list them all. So let's assume it has everything you may only expect from a good quality football management sim. All the Cups? They are there plus Anglo-Italian Cup featuring teams from English 1st Division battling it out with their Italian equivalents. Plus Coca-Cola Cup for everybody. The game features all the rules like play-offs, away goals, draws, etc. There is a printer support, too. Is there anything which is not there? Not quite. Players do have their "skills rating" (i.e. stamina, influence, heading, tackling and many more) but these are just basic guidelines. It may actually happen that a guy with average skill ratings performs much better than someone who'd be expected to be another Maradona (I personally dislike him a lot). The point is that there's a strong pressure towards creating a team which would work well as a whole. There are things to care for which are not to be found in any other game currently on the market. You should keep your players happy, i.e. paying them decent salaries so they wouldn't become unhappy. If you keep on neglecting certain players their morale may drop and they are unlikely to perform well. They may simply request moving to another club. You can still tell them to stay and that's OK but only until their contracts expire; then they become free agents and there's no damn way you could prevent them from leaving. Once I had a great defender who decided to leave just because he felt he deserved a better team. His contract expired and I had to put him on the transfer list. I set a very high price to scare off any potential buyers and survived till the end of season. I was lucky to get the promotion and at the beginning of the new season the guy simply came up and said he had changed his mind. We negotiated a new contract for him plus a higher salary and all was good. Get the feeling? In fact your players are almost REAL; at least they act like real humans, not just on-screen numbers. Suppose you lose an important match just because your top forward spat at their 'keeper (yes, you do get this kind of info: "he spat at Howard") and was sent off. You may then fine him a week's wages or more. If he thinks he deserved that he won't say anything. But try to do it with somebody else and you may get a message "he cannot believe that!". Or, better, "he feels it was not fair". In case he gets very unhappy he may decide to leave the team. You may still beg him to stay, i.e. increasing his salary but beware, the board may refuse to spend too much on a particular player. You may need some artificial boost for your team (suppose you play in semi-final of the FA Cup) so why not setting up a win bonus of GBP 5.000 per player? It may be more but watch out, the board is still there. You are not the OWNER of the club, you are just a MANAGER! They look at you and sometimes can tell you "we find your current team selection somewhat questionable". Of course it's not your damn fault your team is just about to be relegated, it's probably a kind of Communist conspiracy, but they watch you. The board will not interfere (well, except for giving you the sack if they got fed up with your brilliant achievements) but they do tell you what they think from time to time. What about "we think buying a big-name player would be profitable", etc.? It's all about real people. They just play football and your job is to be in charge of them. What about insuring a precious player? In case he gets his leg broken the insurance company will pay his salary. They'll also cover costs of basic medical treatment. You can still decide to pay for more advanced treatment (i.e. high-tech) - it pays but it costs. You may even strike a deal with a renowned surgeon from, suppose, Switzerland, who's going to revive your without-him-the-whole-thing-collapses player. It usually costs a fortune, so the board may... You may loan in a particular player if you feel it's better to check him before forking out a million or two. Again, even if his board may be ready to make business with you the player himself may refuse to join you. You cannot blame him, who wants to play in bad teams? It may happen that you spot a good young player on the transfer list (suppose he's even recommended by your youth scout), you look at his past record but it seems he hasn't played any matches last season. So you try to loan him in and he agrees to join for two months. Then it turns out he's really brilliant and you greedily expect him to play even better in the future (the guy matures all the time) so you want to buy him. What then? His club thinks "What the hell we've done? This youngster's gonna be great!" and they say "Sorry, he's not for sale any more" If they notice that he performs well they may even cancel his loan before you happen to get any stupid ideas about buying the boy for good. Or they may not notice anything. Or they may be in desperate need of cash. Or something. Don't think buying players is easy. You know this Williams guy would be great in the midfield but your scouts say he's also targeted by Blackburn and Aston Villa. You still pop up with your offer (you may offer more than the others but it must be within the maximum limit set by the board for the particular transaction) and the big boys immediately follow with theirs. It's not your fault you're still in the Paralytic Division no. 1897 so don't blame Williams that he would rather play in the big team. At the end it's the player who decides where to go. Even if you impress him enough and he agrees to join it's not finished yet. You still need to negotiate the contract and his salary. He may want too much and your pocket may not survive that. So he says "Thanks, I'd rather stay in my team". Yes, the people. I said scouts. You've got couple of them. You may employ them and sack them. You may want to try those unemployed with "superb" reputation but who says they must agree to work for you? You may spot a good team coach in the lower division and attract him with the glory of your team only to leave the poor idiots with the problem of talking someone into filling the empty post. They are there to do what they are told. They can be assigned to watch a particular player for a month or two. They will go to matches and will report to you. Did he play the whole match or just 20 minutes? How did he perform? And maybe that damn scout from Man Utd was present, too? And more. Most promising players can be put on your shortlist so you wouldn't need to dig through hundreds of names on the official transfer list to find them. If you shortlist them you're to be immediately notified if someone approaches them. You may then take immediate action, i.e. offering half a million more for the player. Hey, what am I talking about? What half a million? You're not going to see this kind of money so quickly. So back to Earth. So you're sacked because you're completely useless. What then? The whole simulation goes on in front of your eyes. Somebody was offered your post. Matches are played, everything works as usual, except for the simple fact that you cannot interact. But what do you want? You are unemployed now. Actually there's one option available for you - JOB NEWS. You may look through all the divisions to see if someone else was sacked or is in a bit insecure position with his board just about to give him a kick. You may then happily apply for a job but wait, it's not that easy! Want to see the list of other applications? Almighty God! There are twenty seven of them! Now it's up to their board to pick up any fallen angel and give him a job. Imagine the stress: you may wait for a quarter or half an hour (real time!), you're unshaved, your clothes are dirty (your real wife is out for holiday), you're drunk (sure you are!) and it's all so hopeless! Then, after all the waiting, all you get is a message "Q.P.R. decided to chose Mr X as their new manager". Damn it, I'll better try St Helens. So off you go and beg elsewhere. It may not be that bad though. Suppose you're in the 2nd Division and doing very well. You see a message "Some-team-from-1st- Division has given the sack to their manager". And then "They have shortlisted YOU as a possible replacement". And after a week or two (game week this time) you cannot believe to see a message "XXXX want you as their new manager". You may then have a look at their squad, league performance and tons of other data. You may negotiate the salary (Once I got an offer of GBP 125.000/year while I was getting GBP 70.000 in my current team). So, will you join or rather struggle with your hopeless team hoping to bring them to the top? Your players may have days off. Like you or me - we all have them. They all have their personalities; some are thoughtful, some are withdrawn, some may be rebellious. They may not be able to work with your team coach because of his personality. Nobody's going to tell you if a particular guy is a high scoring one or not ("skill ratings" don't tell it - remember, they're just basic guidelines); it's up to you to test him. I once had a player who was quite awful for a season or two but I still resisted a temptation of selling him. Why? I don't know, I just KNEW he'd be great one day. All the data said so. Maybe it was an injury responsible for the poor performance? Or maybe they treated him in a bad way in the former team? Or simply was it a season-off? Or maybe he should still mature a bit? Want to know? It all paid at the end. I was right! But there were cases when I spent lots of money for the useless ones - it proved they were useless at the end. What else? There's no sound at all in case you wonder. They say it would be too much to add sound and I'm ready to believe that with all the incredible database of players crammed into those disks. But it's a simulator not a soundtracker so who cares? I don't miss the sound at all, honestly. The display? Not a CD photo - just good enough to do the job, nothing else required. The match itself? Just bars for the defence/midfield/attack showing possession. And, yes, lots of in-match information which builds up the tension incredibly. "Linighan with a great chance!" and then "He rounds the 'keeper!". And finally "And it's in!". But just afterwards "But it won't count! The ref saw a handball". Just as you start to think ------------ uhm! about the ref the message pops up "He waves away any protests". Just as if they knew you are here, swearing in front of the monitor. Dear me, there are so many things I have to skip here! I'll only add that while setting up the game you are given a choice of real players (current season) or randomly generated. The only minus of the game is that while playing for the first time you have to sit back and watch the installation - it's all about half an hour. Same is at the end of the season when the program has to make all the necessary updates, generate new players, etc. But I can still live with it, knowing that the amount of data to be calculated is absolutely unbelievable. And it's hard disk installable. It was all a bit chaotic but there's so much in CM'93! It's a serious game with incredible amount of data to fiddle with. It's VERY real and you may starve yourself to death in front of your machine just because you forget to go to the kitchen. It's more addictive than any other game of this genre in the market. It's just damn great, that's what it is. If you're into management sims you'd have to be mad not to buy it. It beats the competition hands down.