the most addictive game of your life (Championship Manager 01/02 (PC))

Member Name: mr blonde

Product:	Championship Manager 01/02 (PC)
Date:	18/04/02 (2522 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: see review

Disadvantages: ruins your life because it's so addictive

Let's face it, the popularity of championship manager has become that huge that there are very few people who have never played it, and there are very few football management fans that have actually not became addicted!

The game itself does state that it is the most important game of your life, and like it's predecessors, the game justifies it's own title. The set-up of the game is amazingly easy, a click here, and few letters of a footballers name there (eg Edgar Davids, CLASS), and you are away.

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*Installation*
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Installation is easy, and there are no surprises with it, so you won't automatically recieve spam just for installing the game.

Once installed it is time to decide on what country (if not all of them) that you want to have a game running in. I normally choose England and then select Liverpool (as expected really), although if you just want to make an amazing squad in the first season them Real Madrid are your best bet, they have money in abundance, and it gets replaced after you have spent it all extremely quickly!

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*League Selection*
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Once you have selected your league, you can decide whether you want the attribute masking on , i normally choose to have it on, because it makes the game a tad more difficult because you actually have to scout players unless you have had them in the past, in which case you just have to chuck a bid in for them.

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*Team Selection*
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Righty, select your team, you may wish to go as your boyhood heroes, you may wish to be rich, you may wish to make a career of it, and start in the conference and work your way to the heights of europe, either way, you are set for a challenging first season with expectations from the board to fulfill, and your own personal targets to meet. I normally aim to either win the league and get to t
he semis of the champions league as Liverpool, although the past couple of times i have started a new league as them, i have managed to win both and the FA Cup, now that i know the bargain buys, and now that i have got my style of play perfect.

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*Transfers*
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Righty, let's make a couple of transfers before the season starts, if we can get them early enough, we mmight be able to bed them in before the friendlies actually start! Firstly for this you need to know who is interested in you, and how much it will cost to buy them. To do this go to the button that says your name, and go to player and staff search, in the top right corner there is a filter button, go into there and change interested to yes, and any others that you might want, then just ok it, and you will be given a list of players that wouldn't mind coming to you!

When you bid for a player, always bid higher than their value, unless they are on the transfer list, more often than not you will find yourself paying double or more for a player, such as Cannavaro, who was worth 12 million, yet i payed 37 million for him (and worth every penny too).

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*New Transfer System*
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Part of the way through the season, the new transfer system from FIFA comes into place, confusing at first, but once you have got used to it, you will just get on with things, in many ways it is an advantage because when someone is a couple of years into their contract you can get them far cheaper than you would have with the previous transfer system.

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*Tactics*
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The amount of variety in tactics is excellent, there are loads of presets for tactics, but there is nothing stopping you from creating your own tactics. I personally opt for the 5-3-2 attacking preset, this normally means a solid defence and keeper is needed, aswell as attacking players, although Davids and
Viera work exceptionally well as central midfielders, as they provide cover for the central 3 defenders. for this formation you also need 2 things especially in your wingers, namely speed, and good crossing ability, especially seeing as combined with your attacking midfielder, these will gain the most assists for you, aswell as score a few goals, often at crucial times throughout the season.

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*Menubars*
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The menubars in the game are quite boring in fairness, although thanks to some imaginative people on the internet, you can have all kinds of new ones, nice looking lasses, stadiums, teams, you name it, you can probably find it, i have a nice Anna Kournikova one currently, but they are easy enough to change just by going through the C:, then programme files, then championship manager, then in it's folder go to menubars, and create the path for it, for further instruction on that one go to www.cmanagercenter.com! We aren't supposed to throw links in i know, but that is a champ manager haven, and is a hell of a detailed site, menubars are on there aswell as any reviews you want on tactics etc.

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*Star Players-Bargains*
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As the title suggests, here are a few players that are really cheap, namely under 10 million, and are without doubt excellent!

Fabio Rustico, Defender, Atalanta, about 5 million.
Allesandro Grandoni, Sweeper/Defender, Sampdoria (I think), Bosman after a couple of seasons.
Assane N'Daiye (foreign), Defender/Midfielder, Shackhtar, about 2 million.
Julius Aghahowa (foreign), Attacking Midfielder/Forward, Shackhtar, about 3-5 million.
Jonas Lunden, Attacking Midfielder, 300k
Rosenqvist, Attacking Midfielder/Forward, 500k
Cherno Samba, Striker, 200k, Millwall
Taribo West (Foreign), Defender, Bosman right at the start of the game.
Richie Partridge, Winger, Liverpool Reserves, 2 million. r>Alan Navarro, Defensive Midfielder, Liverpool Reserves, 2 million.
Jerzy Dudek, Goalkeeper, Liverpool, 5 million.
Sander Westerveld, Goalkeeper, Liverpool, 2.5 million.
Chris Kirkland, Goalkeeper, Liverpool Reserves, 5 million.

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*Star Players Above 10 Million*
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Ze Roberto, Attacking Midfielder (excellent winger), Leverkusen, between 11-18 million
Edgar Davids, Defensive Midfielder, Juventus, 20 million.
Emile Mpenza, Striker, Schalke 04, 15-18 million.
Fabio Cannavaro, Defender, 32 million.
Patrick Viera, Defensive Midfielder, Arsenal, 37 million
Michael Owen, Striker, Liverpool 25-30 million.
Steven Gerrard, Defensive Midfielder, Liverpool, 15 million.

There are others, but there are too many to mention, these are some of my regulars, they have worked consistantly for me, I wouldnn't recommend them otherwise!

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*Players to avoid*
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As in any good management games, there are indeed players that are little more than a pain in the backside. I would say that Nicolas Anelka (PSG) and Sylvain Wiltord (Arsenal) are the worst 2 i have had for this, Anelka always ends up having personal problems and leaves, and Wiltord causes disruptions in the team. I would advise against buying any player that has teammates who dislike them, because they are almost gaurunteed to cause a stink at your team aswell. When buying players always check out their profiles and transfer details first before you part with your wedge, otherwise you might make a signing that on paper is a dream (Like Anelka was for me), but as a player for you is little more than a waste of time!