Great Game (FA Premier League Manager 2001 (PC))

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Product:	FA Premier League Manager 2001 (PC)
Date:	20/06/01 (16 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great Gameplay

Disadvantages: addictive

Football Manager 2001, as the name suggests, is a football simulation game that lets you take the reins of your favourite team and lead them to league and cup glory. Although it is an official licensed product of four leagues - the Spanish Primera Liga, the German Bundesliga and the French LNF as well as our own FA Premier League - you can manage any team in the seven nations featured, irrespective of their divisional status. So whether you see yourself as Sir Alex Ferguson, leading Manchester United to victory in the Champions League, or Tommy Taylor, finally getting Leyton Orient promoted out of the Third Division, your dreams are just a few clicks away.

Once you have selected your side you must pick one of three objectives for the season, targets of varying difficulty for you to achieve with differing levels of funding from your board. Typical goals include league or cup success tied to financial stability, making the classic football management tactic of throwing money at the problem and bringing in a string of new players less likely to work in the long run than tight purse-strings, prudent team selection and the odd dabble into the transfer market. Your season's challenge and other information is relayed to you by EA Mail, the email system that keeps you in touch with your club directors, coaches, scouts and players as well as rival managers. Whenever you make or receive an offer for a player, have a player injured or suspended, get a pre-match scouting report or other news, your EA Mail will keep you informed, and prompt you for an appropriate response.

The main menu system splits up the game into micro-manageable chunks, that let you run your team, buy players, develop your management team, stadium and facilities, scrutinise your finances and pore over your performance. These are further sub-divided, giving you precise control over every aspect of your club. In the team screens, you can manage your squad, view player stats, adjust your
playing formation, issue orders to your team, conduct training and nurture you youth side. Some of the options available are fairly novel - for example, as you can set individual as well as team orders for your starting eleven, you can tell issue your any of your players with any one of 10 specific tasks, such as dribble, cross, push forward and contain. Also, while training, you can issue boosts to your players, intensive workouts that temporarily improve their statistics but reduce their conditioning and increase the risk of injury - a real double-edged sword that can just as easily relegate a player to the physio's table as it can enhance his stats. The other area requiring your close attention is your club's administration. A management team, coaches, scouts and medical staff can be hired and fired, stands rebuilt and facilities added. No matter where you are, you start the game with minimal personnel and no buildings other than your stadium itself. Recruiting your support team and constructing the amenities that will attract them, such as a club shop, training and medical centres and a school of excellence, will be a top priority. Matches can be played out in one of four modes - 3D match, 3D highlights, fastview or quick match. 3D match is the most comprehensive, giving you a FIFA-like view of the proceedings, match commentary from the Sky Sports team and the ability to change your formation, strategy, attacking and defensive styles via hotkeys as the game progresses. The 3D highlights view is similar but, as it shows only a limited portion of the action and cannot be paused, it gives you less freedom to modify your tactics mid-game. Fastview dispenses with the audiovisual pleasantries, instead giving you a basic graphical representation of the game but full control over your team, while quick match skips all in-game interaction and just gives you the final score. After each match, you can view basic match statistics (goals, bookings and injuries), fina
ncial info, other results and a dream team of the day's top performers.

On the surface, all this should make for a good game. However, virtually every aspect of the game falls down in some small way, and the sum of these detractions takes its toll. The player statistics are just ridiculous once you venture into the lower divisions or abroad and silly player evaluations (over £20 million for Liverpool's Markus Babbel) are two major negatives even before you kick a ball. Unrealistic starting conditions don't help - for example, big clubs without training facilities, coaching staffs, pitch covers or even club shops. Also unhelpful is the lack of Bosman free transfers available, and players that supposedly have had their careers cut short by injury turning out for England internationals (as Steven Gerrard did in my game). Wildly fluctuating player ratings, development that is limited to one facility at a time and the dearth of support staff for you to sign are just a few of the other shortcomings that we came across.

Football Manager 2001's biggest problem though is its poor interface. EA Mails flood in constantly and, as there is no way to deal with them en masse, each has to be dealt with and deleted individually. This is a time consuming and tedious process, especially as a large proportion of your correspondence consists of unwanted offers for your players and minor issues that don't require your input (such as the new team doctor writing to say he's glad to be on board). In other areas, basic information is badly formatted, which forces you to click all over the place to get what you want - for example, trying to list young, skilful players that don't cost an arm and a leg on the transfer market is almost impossible. As Ron Manager would say, at the end of the day, all this is a terrible shame. Somewhere in EA's effort, there is a great game struggling to get out, albeit one that doesn't come close to matching t
he depth of Eidos' phenomenally successful Championship Manager series. Football Manager 2001 is a simple, no frills challenge. However if you find Champ Man too much of a challenge and want a simple kick-a-bout then this game could be for you.

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