a brief history of footy games

The PC Years

Bringing us right up to date. As I said earlier, I am now a well rounded individual with a hectic social life, so I no longer have time to spend all weekend playing football games. Hmmm. Or at least I am doing my best to resist the temptation to buy dozens of the things. So as of yet, I only have three……

Football Masters 98… am I missing something with this game? I mean, it got good reviews & stuff. But, well first of all a game that’s released in 1998 which won't work properly with Windows 98, I ask you. Sounds anyone? Never mind, sounds don't matter. But the match sequence? What the hell is that all about? Please? Explain someone? It sucks like a starving leech my friends. Plus, although after the game all the players get rated, these ratings are not averaged & stored, just forgotten about. So how do you know who is playing well or not? How can you tell which of the players on the transfer list are worth buying? You can't really. You just look at the pitiful number of stats which, as any player of CM2 knows, is not always the best judge of form. The redeeming feature of this game is that you can alter the size of the pitch to accommodate your tactics. A nice touch, but you wouldn’t buy a game just for its "pitch adjusting" features. Or else the shops would be full of games called "Championship Groundsman" or something.

Championship Manager 2 … or rather 97/98 which is the only version I have played. Seeing as you have come here from my CM challenge page means you must have a vague idea of what I think of this game, but twas not always so. After my experience with the Amiga version I was rather difficult to convince. And even now you know I think it concentrates too much on transfer stuff & too little on anything else. And although the huge database of players is impressive, personally I'd rather skip the stats for the Bolivian national squad et al and have the game run a bit faster. And I understand earlier versions of the game were bugged to buggery. But as it stands it’s the only game around that has that little bit of fairy dust sprinkled on it. I love the simplicity of the match sequence & the fact that you can edit the commentary to say "EAT MY GOAL!!" or "What an absolute twatter of a shot". Top stuff. Hopefully CM3 will be better, early indications are that it is. Can we have it running from Windows now please?

Ultimate Soccer Manager 98… now then, now then. I thought this was gonna be the one, really. Its like the original USM but oh so much better. You can switch off the crappy commercial stuff altogether if you want, which is good. I quite like the animated match sequences and commentary, as it happens. And it has one truly excellent feature…. stats for reserve team games, so if you are not sure about a new signing let him run out for the reserves once or twice & see how he gets on. BUT there's a hitch. Yep, it’s the old sacking = game over problem again. Which is bad enough in itself but when the sacking is due to financial difficulties caused by a totally arbitrary & random event (in my case, "violence outside the ground" leading to a very hefty fine) it is rather annoying. So, although I will play it again, its lost my vote a bit I'm afraid.

Okay so that’s my trawl through the past done with. There are other games that I have not mentioned here, and others that I can't remember the names of or whatever. If you have played a footy management game not mentioned here (on any platform) write me a few lines about it and I will insert it with a credit to you! Or if you have any comments to add on any of these games ……..

Email Me......

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