Say goodbye to your social life (Championship Manager 03/04 (PC))

Member Name: elmosgotagun

Product:	Championship Manager 03/04 (PC)
Date:	18/02/05 (811 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: adictive, Great Depth, Long Lasting

Disadvantages: Too adictive

Unless you have been living in a mud hut on the planet Zog for the past dozen years you must have heard of the Championship Manager franchise as it is one of the best selling games in gaming history.

The History

If you are just emerging from your hut here is a brief outline of the game.
Championship manager (CM) is a series of football management Sims founded in 1994 by two brothers named Collyer under the guise of Sports Interactive (SI) and is published by Eidos. SI now boasts a large staff and 25000 researchers across the globe who are busy watching and gathering information on clubs and their players to be included in the game.
CM is an imersive data based game that allows you to take control of football teams as the manager and through your tactical and managerial skills take your team to success in league, cup and international competition.

There have been four incarnations of the game with seasons updates in between, the last one being CM4 and then the 03 / 04 update which introduced a 2 dimensional match engine for the first time.
Each incarnation of the game has become more complex, involving and tries to be as true to the real experience of running a professional football team as possible.

CM 03 / 04

As with all the CM games attention to detail is paramount thus making it slightly daunting the first time you play purely because of the volume of information available on every aspect of the game and where to find it in a large number of linked screens. I will endeavour to uncover some of this so deep breath, here we go.

Starting out

When you start a game your first decision will be which team you want to manage, not a small decision as you have the choice of any team in 96 professional leagues from 43 countries plus all the national sides. I like the majority of players however will tend to choose the team they support I would imagine.

So you have chosen your team, next you are faced with an almost daunting amount of information about your club, its finances, its players and back room staff.

Your players

The first screen you see is your first team squad. It also contains links, either buttons or drop down menu’s to all the other screens you will need to efficiently run your club. On this screen you pick your first team from your squad by dragging and dropping playing positions onto the name of the player you choose to play there. If you click on a player you are presented with a screen of stats for that player, giving you a run down of the quality of the player with ratings out of 20(the higher the better player) for 32 different attributes ranging from technical ability to mental and physical qualities. Links from this screen give you other information on the player such as his playing history, his value, whether he is happy at the club or what problems he has and his contract details
Each club has three squads-First team squad, reserve team and youth squad.

Tactics

So you have picked your best available team, now you need to tell them how to play. There are a wide range of options as to how you want your players to play with direction possible on such things as where and when to defend or go forward, where to aim crosses or how hard to tackle etc. All the tactics you use are dependent on which team you are playing and the abilities of your own players.

Training

You can create training schedules to help your players keep fit and improve their ball skills. On this screen you can also assign which of your coaching staff will be in charge of which one of your squads, this also applies to your physio’s.

Financial management

At the start of the season your board of directors will give you a transfer budget for the season. This is the amount of money you have available to buy players and settle new contracts with your players.
The financial screen also tells you what your weekly wage bill is and your other income, expenditure details such as gate receipts TV money on the plus side and ground maintenance, wages, bonuses etc. on the minus side.
Your board wants to see profits so you have to try to keep your balance on the plus side if you want to keep your job.

Back room staff

You have an assistant manager who you can assign various jobs such as running your reserve and youth squads. You also have coaches to train your players; physio’s to look after their health and scouts to help you find new talent.

Transfers

All the options of the real world are available for you to approach players you want to come to your club. You can get a scout report on a player and once scouted you can study their stats and history before deciding if you want to sign them. When you have decided you want a player you approach the club they play for. If they agree to sell him to you, they may not or they may haggle over the price then you can discuss personal terms with the player. If he agrees then you have signed a new player. This is my favourite part of the game.
Depending on your club and its financial position will determine which kind of player you can attract. For example if you were the manager of Man U you could attract players of quality like Beckham or Rooney and be able to afford their wage demands. If on the other hand you were in charge of Scunthorpe players of that quality would not be interested in playing for you and as for being able to afford to buy them or meet their astronomical wage demands, well forget it.

News

Every time you hit the turn button (each turn is one game day) all match results for that day are calculated. Also any transfer dealings or things of interest to you are shown on a news screen to keep you up to date with what is happening in the game world.

Match day

So you have picked your team got them trained and match fit. They know how to play and in theory know what they have to do to win so to the match.
The match is played on a two dimensional pitch with coloured dots representing your players. There is also a running commentary displayed at the bottom of the screen. You have a choice of game speed and whether you watch the full game or highlights or just key moments. During the game you have the opportunity to fine tune tactics, make substitutions and move your players to different positions or change formation.
The match engine is very good and the quality of the commentary certainly feed your imagination so as you feel like you are really at the match, feeling the joy when you score to despair when your team is not performing up to standard.

Miscellaneous

There are many screens giving you statistics and tables. Club confidence in your management abilities is also something to keep an eye on as a bad string of results or a poor financial position could put your job at risk. Temperature, weather and which referee is in charge all have a bearing on how you approach a match

The main improvements from CM4

CM4 was released in a bug-ridden state and a total of five patches were needed to get it to standard. Season 03 /04 however is the game CM4 should have been. If you are familiar with the game then the improvements over CM4 include-

Updated player, team and competition data
An improved match engine, which includes pitch, wear and weather effects
Improved training system that now allows you to see how your training regime is affecting your players, so if it is not having the desired effect you can tweak it to do so.
Information is now available on past meetings between the two clubs
Improved scouting on both teams and players.
Improved reporting and more realistic injury news including a new rehabilitation option.
International B team and under nineteen caps are now reported
Player’s relationships with other team members are now reported in more depth allowing the manager to deal with differences between players before it affects team moral.
If you are doing really well as a manager other clubs or national sides may approach you to take over the running of their sides.

The system requirements to run the game are not excessive however on less powerful machines loading and calculation times can be excessive.
Recommended
P4 1.2 Ghz
256 Mb RAM
600 Mb hard drive space

My View

CM season 03 / 04 is really addictive and absorbing. It will eat up large chunks of your life without you noticing if you are not careful but then if you are enjoying it who cares.It gave me a great deal of satisfaction to take Ipswich Town back to their glory days winning both the Champions League and the Premiership in the same season ( it only took me until game year2009)

The Future

Season 03 / 04 will be the last championship manager in the games current format after Sports Interactive split with Eidos. However this may not be bad news as Sports Interactive retained all rights to the game engine and will be releasing Football Manager later in the year. Plus Eidos who have the rights to the Championship Manager brand will also be releasing the next Championship Manager game at around the same time. So it will be interesting to see who comes up with the better game. Also it can be hoped that the competition will boost the quality of both games

Summary: