Football Manager review

It gave you the chance to live out your dreams, take your team to the top of the league and achieve all the success that they were incapable of in the real world. Even to this day we can dream. Upon its release the game was nominated for the Golden Joystick award even though it was firmly keyboard driven and met with such praise.Football Managerwas the brainchild of Kevin Toms who designed this version and the sequels that followed. He did not limit his activity to the football sector either, creating another fine game in Software Star that we will review one day. They sold amazingly well and was guaranteed a place in all footie fans hearts forever. The options and game are so simplistic in comparison to the juggernaut that is Championship Manager therefore it is surprising that it held gamers attention for so long. Often dashing back from school the first thing that you would do was start the game from your last saved point. Could you win the cup or promotion or avoid relegation? The features of the game were a transfer market with ridiculous prices, full league tables, injury problems (more of them later), FA Cup, management rating, four divisions, team selection and seven skill levels. Most of the game was bland menus and statistics with some horrible choices of colours but it didn't seem to matter because at its core this game just wouldn't let go. The goal sequences are the stuff of legends, small matchstick players kicking a square ball into a goal the size of the Titanic, then followed by the goal tune. Laughable now (especially when you first saw Match Day) but back then you were so engrossed in it all! Even though you soon recognised each goal attempt (and if you would score) more often than not this game was an early indicator of Console Rage. Losing that all important cup game often meant resetting the machine reloading from the previous save point. For those who do not realise this often took 10 minutes or more depending on where the save was. For the more ambitious and conniving player you could quite easily hack into the code and alter things to your favour but why bother if that was the case? The game did have it's problems, among which was the fact that on a regular basis your team might only consist of 9 players due to injury. Funny thing is, you often won those matches! Unlike management games today or subsequent sequels the game was very much luck and not skill. No single formation, tactic or team could guarantee success and to this day Gamestyle remainsconvinced it was programmed to cheat anyway! Classic stuff.