Ultimate Soccer Manager 98/99 came free with many Packard Bell PCs of around that era. That's how most people got into the game, me included. The graphics are excellent for the time the game was created, but obviously not a patch on today’s games. The thing that sets USM 98/99 apart though is the absolute playability of it. It's something that just can't be explained, everything about the game feels right. Everything is in the right place, you have many options regarding controlling the club as well.
Plus, you get a huge choice of teams, and a statistic editor to keep your teams up to date with current transfer, or even just to "cheat". There are varied difficulty levels, which change the amount of money that you have at the start of the game. Each team has in-depth parameters about how many fans turn up for games, what they willing to pay for tickets, and how much money they expect merchandise to cost. This is by far the best football management game I have ever played. It does have graphics problems under Windows XP, which virtually renders it unplayable, but I'm hoping that DOSbox (a free download on this site) will sort out this problem. Time will tell,
of course.
This game is available on Amazon and the like, but at a ridiculous cost with the game now being so rare. The last time I looked, it was about £35! Having said that, it is probably worth that much. If you've never played it before, I highly recommend that you do. You will soon get addicted though, be warned! Obviously, for many people the XP graphics issue will be a big thing, but I will test it out under different Windows operating systems for you and report back. It currently works for definite on: Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 98 SE and Windows Millennium Edition (otherwise known as Windows ME). The disk for this game has since been long lost, so I'll download this now and try it on Windows 2000 Pro and on Windows XP with the DOSbox Emulator and see what happens. Fingers crossed, I'll be back on the best, most addictive Football / Soccer management of all time. In my opinion at least, but you can't go wrong trying it, it is a free download after all!
