The best soccer manager sim ever

[Zibby]

Im a pretty big fan of anything to do with soccer, and Ive played a few diferent games where you play the manager of a team, which were all pretty good without standing out, but then I ran into the 'Championship Manager' series, this is by far the best soccer manager game ever (well, maybe not ever, but that Ive ever played), and anyone interested in those sort of games, I sugest you check it out. If your wondering where exactly you can check it out... well, just chuck "Championship Manager" into a half decent search engine and see what happens. If that still doesnt help just give me a yell and I'll see what I can do

Zibby

 

[kundor]

There's a genre of soccer manager sims? I can see a lot of games where you direct soccer playing, but how many games are there where you play the manager? i mean, wouldn't that get kind of boring?

 

[Dell19]

Infact no actually it doesn't but I think enjoyment is relative to how much you like football (or soccer). There is a great feeling when you finally win your first league, when you buy a player that you always thought your team should have brought, being able to respond to news reports about your players and to come back from 3-0 down with 20 minutes to go and then make an inspirational substitution and end up winning 4-3 with your star player scoring the winning goal. EVen better rename all your squad and watch as you power your side to success as well as manage them or see them crash into a lower division and then see yourself get sacked.

 

[Algernon Pondlife]

There are a large number of football management games. I have Championship manager (various editions), Premier Manager (ditto), Player Manager, Football Masters, S.A.A.P. (but deleted because the interface wasn't very good), Goal94, one-nil (the best) and two-nil.

Championship Manager comes a close second and its different incarnations have different plus points.

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Nothing is too wonderful to be true

 

[Az]

I'll go definitely for CM...

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[Dell19]

Like I said before, CM is the BEST. By the way I just won the Japanese J-league 1 with Kashima Antlers.

 

[Algernon Pondlife]

Have you played the others?

What makes a football management game good?

How do you balance different strengths and weaknesses in a design?

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Nothing is too wonderful to be true

 

[Dell19]

Mainly because me and all my friends agree that CM is the best, in magazines that I have read it has always been the best.

I think that having lots of leagues is not very important but its still good. Realistic valuations, Having media involvement and being able to respond. Being about to check how well you are doing. Being able to find out loads of information about your team and players etc.

 

[Algernon Pondlife]

what about watching the actual game progress and making subtle adjustments to a variety of tactical factors in your team depending on how things are going?
what about being able to directly compare the detailed profile of two players without having to indulge in mouse clicks and remembering what you have seen?
what about a graphical rather than numeric presentation of player characteristics so that you can see at a glance where their strengths and weaknesses are?

I have no objections to things like media involvement but that is mere chrome, not a necessary aspect of building a well balanced and successful team or devising tactics to overcome different opposition.

all the games have "loads of information about your team and players etc." it is the method of presentation and, even more importantly, the degree to which the information affects the play in a consistent and "realistic" manner that makes the difference. This is not a simple matter and it is not easy to evaluate. You need to get a feel for it over time.

Sometimes I'm happiest with CM and then sometimes I wish it had a little less off-field detail. Why should we have to bother with a player's tantrums? why not just abstract morale problems, since the solutions to all but a few eccentric cases are a combination of doing the right thing for the team (training, good results, consistent selections etc.) and making sure everyone is getting paid.

When I feel like that I go back to one-nil which also has the merit of never being slow-running because it was well (professionally) coded.

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Nothing is too wonderful to be true

 

[Dell19]

Well the search system is great on Cm because you can either use player/staff search or use find. Its easy to define the correct attributes you want and then using the shortlist is great to try buying players that you couldn't buy before.

I like getting news when players are injured etc, the awards are really great if you win them. Its great how it keeps you upto date with everything that is important.

The only problem with CM is massive harddrive requirements...

 

[Algernon Pondlife]

I know all that, even if you do exaggerate a bit. But do you know what you are comparing it with? Have you ever heard of one-nil? or goal94?

I've solved the space problems in two ways with CM: 1) I've got 40Gb on my new machine and 2) I've deleted all the pictures except the one of Hearts penalty kick in the cup final

But even going to 900 flegamops doesn't exactly make the game lightening quick!

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Nothing is too wonderful to be true

 

[Dell19]

Sadly I haven't heard of them and I did know I was exagerating when I was writing my last reply. My point is though that all the people that I know think that CM is the best management game and it was the only football management game that got in the PcGamer top 100 and it was in the top 20 (I think)