Game Review (written by Steer_) Added on: 03/17/2007
In the days before Championship Managers huge database of real players with 20 or more different attributes, killer tactics, Internationals & European competitions and half time team talks, budding football managers had to make do with this vary basic little game (and I use the word basic advisedly, as that is what the game is written in!).
Apart for keepers, players do not have positions or any set skills apart from an overall ratings, there are no formations of substitutions to worry about, there was no commentary other than to advise you who has scored, you could not score more than 4 goals in one match at home, and only 3 when playing away!
Despite its obvious limitations, back in the day I played this game for hours and hours. Why? I think the answer is that, just like todays amazing Football manager and Championship manager games, the best fun was imagining what is happening on the pitch, holding press conferences and team talks in your head and dragging you favourite team into the “First Division”.
Players do not have an age, or set position, they merely have one skill rating of between 0 and 9. This rating raises or drops over time, and sometimes it is necessary to assume that they are now past it, and should be released. Buying players is simply a case of having a look at the transfer list (you cant see other teams squads or buy their players). The transfer list slowly changes each week. The players cost £10,000 per skill level, so a player with a skill of 4 would cost £40,000 for example. There were no injuries to worry about.
I preferred this to the other games on the market at the time. Even though it had obvious limitations, I still found myself addicted. Even though the matches lacked any kind of commentary, crunch matches were still very exciting, as the minutes ticked past and you waited for the screen to flash to announce your players have scored. For me, the length of the game was extended by being able to hack into the code and put my mates names into the game. Although I doubt anyone would play it now, next time people moan about minor bugs in today’s mammoth FM or CM games, they would do well to down load this little beauty to see how far we have come.
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