At a glance...

Reviewer	Platform	Publisher	Developer	Players
	PC/Mac	Eidos	Sports Interactive	1
Requirements				Buy from Amazon.co.uk
At the time of writing, we did not have a requirements section.				Click here to buy Championship Manager: Season 01/02.

Championship Manager: Season 01/02 review

The latest version of the greatest football management game ever is now here on the PC. Season 01/02 is based on the CM3 engine, and will be the latest update until the completely new CM4, which is currently in production. It contains all the updates to CM3 that patches and the previous update version Season 00/01 brought, plus some new ones of it's own that I will talk about later. I would first like to remind you that this is not an add-on pack for CM3 or CM00/01, but another new version. You can, however, get a free pack to update stats to the latest season from Sports Interactive's website, www.sigames.com. And as the 02/03 season approaches, be sure to check out the latest updates from the unofficial group - CM sorted - at http://cmsorted.thedugout.net/

Now, a lot of you out there probably like football, but many of you don't, and I would like to warn you that this is a football-fans-only game. You don't need to be any sort of dedicated fan, just someone who likes the game in some way or another. Football haters will probably not enjoy this game, but may find if worth a try due to the fun it offers.

Anyway, on the game - it consists of thousands of screens of precise football data that can be used to make you the ultimate football manager. As expected, you lead a team from one of 26 nations (each with more than one league), and guide the team to the top. Whether this be the Premiership, Serie B Promotion, or Champions League victory, it's your choice, and you can make any team go all the way if you're good enough. You can play for as long as you like, and watch teams change stadium, managers, and staff, predicted from real-life situations.

The game does not feature a graphics engine at all. Instead, the games are played with flashing commentary. This isn't a bad point, however, as games using a graphics engine for the games have tended to be poor, and this feature in Champ Man has always worked fine for many. The advantage to this, however, is that the game runs on very low spec: 166MHz, 16MB RAM and a 3D card is below the average computer in the UK today, so nearly everyone should be able to play it. If you can't, then your computer is in serious need of an upgrade.

As previously, the game features pictures behind the menus, but for the first time, they are not of the clubs the stats are about. This is due to Sports Interactive getting sued by an unnamed Football Association over the data being used in Championship Manager: Season 00/01. So, you get pics of the SI team and pics licensed from their local club, Manchester City. However, the game comes with a picture editor allowing you to add your own pics in the game, so you can make it what you like. Also, you could always copy the pics from a previous CM3 version into the CM01/02 pics directory and get back what you lost. It's not Sports Interactive's fault, so we cannot fault them for this.

The sounds are pretty good in game, with cheers from the crowd when you score, but not having a graphics engine could have been made up with full commentary. But then, decent in-game commentary has yet to appear in a computer game.

The gameplay in Champ Man has not been beaten. It offers so much depth that you don't know where to start. All the vital statistics that complete the game are there are can be used by you to buy the best players around.

Championship Manager: Season 01/02 is a game you'll come back to again and again. Even after this review I will continue to play this game, and improve my team's performance, and the inclusion of the player editor allows you to create your own teams and take them to the top. Put yourself into the game, your family, your colleagues, your pets, put their pics in with the picture editor and you have a game that offers limitless lifespan as well as self-customisation. This is football heaven.

Ratings

Graphics	It's not about graphics, which is good, because this has no 3D whatsoever. But who needs that anyway?!	4/10
Gameplay	Cannot be beaten. It's what this game is about.	10/10
Value	At the time of writing, we did not have a value for money ranking.	0/10
Lifespan	You can always do better, and you will always try!	10/10
Audio	Great sounds, pity about lack of commentary.	8/10
Overall	Not for football haters, but a dream for someone who vaguely likes the sport	9/10

Click here to buy Championship Manager: Season 01/02 from Amazon.co.uk.

Copyright Information

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License, except where otherwise noted.

Smileys taken from Crack's Smilies.