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Championship Manager: Season 00-01 (PC CD)
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Time to dig out your sheepskin car-coat and practise your half-time tantrums: Championship Manager with a new season and it's bigger, and better, than ever. This time round you can have up to 26 leagues running at one time (depending on the specs of your PC/Mac) and the wealth of tactics and options on offer are enough to test any budding Arsene Wengers or Alex Fergusons. True, the gameplay hasn't changed much, but it's the wealth and depth of stats on offer that brings back Champ Manager fans season after season. The other secret to its continuing appeal is it offers the chance to steer your beloved Third Division no-hopers to League and Cup glory, something that most Premiership-fixated arcade football games overlook. There are some new demands on your managerial competence: as well as the usual training, transfer market and staffing issues you now have to deal with the media, and the psychological well-being of your players is now as important as their physical health. As before the actual match is played out in text format, which sounds dull, but quickly becomes alarmingly compulsive. Championship Manager is probably not for the casual gamer as it is impossible to just dip into, but for those footy fans who KNOW they can run a football team better than 99 percent of professional managers, it is a must. Just don't expect much of a social life over the next few months. --Michael Bartley
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4/5 |
George Hammond's review of championship manager 00/01
(August 20, 2002) |
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As a computer and football addict,Championship manager was a god send right from when I bought one of the first versions of the game.When this one came out I played it nightly,picking teams and playing matches.As the game versions get progressively better this is only second to the new version.For would be footy managers this is the place to start. |
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2/5 |
No Graphics
(October 05, 2001) |
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cm 00/01 has got the best data base of any football sim around but is lacking in lots of other areas. There are absolutely no graphics instead there is a little bar in the middle of the screen which writes up what's going on in the match (a lot happens in one mins then nothing for 20 mins). This is very boring and you have to do this for every match there is know quick result like on most other football sims. In this day and age you would expect some improvment in the graphics field instead the only graphical difference between cm99/00-cm00/01 is a few extra match comments. The layout is also poor, and the game engine is very slow (even on a 1.4ghz Athlon). If you want to exit with out saving you can't you have to do Ctrl Alt delete. There are some good points the player stats are very detailed and there are lots of leagues to chose from, But the game needs a big overall in the very near future |
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3/5 |
Could be better
(October 02, 2001) |
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Game is as excellent as ever, but it is too easy to cheat. Hopefully the next edition will go back to how it was with CM2, where you were limited to a maximum of 4 managers in the life of the game.
It is too easy to create a new manager of say, Manchester United, then slap all the players on the transfer list, give them a couple of fines, so they all want out of the club. You then sign them for your club without having to pay excessive transfer fees and high wages.Other than this, the game is now looking a bit dated, and is in need of a good shake up, despite still being as addicitve as ever. |
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2/5 |
Its OK, but perhaps too much like Emperors New Clothes.
(September 25, 2001) |
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Where do I start....as a standalone game its OK, but hardly a great stretch of any boundaries.... Its a game with no animation/graphics to speak of, so you dont get to see the games or even a representation of them other than a sliding coloured bar. If you ever owned the previous versions stick with them the differences just arent that huge.
You still pick teams from lists, watch the sliding bar, then wait a few minutes while it updates the internals and start all over again. If you've never bought the previous versions then you may like it, or if you're one of the automatons who seem to enjoy the same game over and over you'll slaver over every detail. Its Emperors new clothes and in need of a big revamp and not just a new menu option or extra decision feature.....I mean a big revamp and new ideas - perhaps animation would help or a faster internal engine to avoid the painful waits while matches are decided.....(some of those waits can be very long especially if you decided [foolishly] to run more than 2 or 3 leagues simultaneously). The next release will likely be the same and if previous revamps have been anything to go by it'll be a rejig of rules to match current UEFA/FIFA/FA rules modifications and a couple of new options to add another set of decisions. Pretty soon you'll be able to decide what washing powder the team laundry facility uses along with how short the groundstaff can cut the grass, and whether they need to make it greener.
The game will be the same! And I am ashamed to say that it took me a few releases to realise it.....
If I ever do weaken and think about buying the next one I'll wait until the bargain bucket beckons. If I'm right I only waste a fiver, if I'm wrong I get a great game for a fiver and only had a couple of months extra wait..... |
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3/5 |
Not bad
(September 10, 2001) |
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I've been playing footy management games for years, including all the previous champ games, I agree with some of the other reviews that it is too similar to the last 2, but I think this is becoming it's "trademark". The game is very detailed, but I can't help still disliking it's layout. I also like to see the match (although this has proved to be very tacky in the past!), it just adds some more interest and a little bit of excitment to the matches. It's a bit slow, and sometimes a bit boring, I don't think it's as great as some people make out, but it's statistics hold it above any other management game - but is that enough to hold it there in the future? |
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