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Championship Manager 4 Preview
Richard Amos
01/11/2002
Championship Manager is back in an entirely new game with new features and an all new real-time match engine.
For many the allure of Championship Manager must be a strange one, diabolical visuals, pages of numbers and a sedated pace arenāt exactly the staple ingredients of a classic videogame. However the fact remains that the Championship Manager series is one of the most lucrative franchises in the videogames world, why, because itās the ultimate football game for any football-loving fanatic.
Ever since itās conception over twelve years ago, Champ Man has succeeded by placing gamers right into the footsteps of managers up and down the country, everything youād want from a game of this type is in there and doesnāt get caught up in the tedium of managing your stadium, kits, and accounts that many of its competitors offer. No itās just you and your team, and how youāre going to win. To this extent Champ Man is the most anally retentive game youāll ever play, over 150,000 players from around the globe have been extensively researched and implemented into the games. Everything from a players injury proneness to how well they get on with other players is calculated, ensuring that the Championship Manager series is the most realistic game youāll play, if it was any more realistic youād have to be wearing a sheepskin coat and spouting useless football phrases!
New to the series and a feature that the guys at Sports Interactive have been looking to implement for a number of years, is a real-time match engine. Previously commentator phrases were used alongside a scrolling bar to indicate position. Now an overhead 2D pitch has been included showing you exactly how your players are playing. Whilst those whoāve yet to indulge in the delights of Champ Man may scoff at a 2D engine, compared to the likes of EAās Premeier League Manager and Codemastersā LMA Manager series, which both offer 3D interpretations of the game. However in both of these you could tell that itās just a bunch of pre-calculated routines running, with this offering from Sports Interactive you can guarantee it will be exactly like the real thing. To help things out Sports Interactive brought into the ex-Liverpool player, Ray Houghton, to ensure that every little detail in the matches is correct.
Another feature that Sports Interactive has wanted to implement for a while but have been limited by technology is network gamers over the Internet. Whilst Champ Man 3 offered a network mode, Sports Interactive didnāt advise using it and even warned against it in the manual. It seems the recent advances in broadband have allowed them to realise their dream, so expect fully functioning multiplayer leagues to form a large part of what number four is about. The developers have even been speaking to telecommunication partners in order to set-up organised leagues!
The game sports a slightly different interface with a curved appearance (think Windows XP) along with a new ticker-tape to keep you up to date with all the latest movements; thankfully it looks to retain the same structure as the subliminal Championship Manager 3 so itās not going to alienate fans like the step-up from number two to three.
Specific details are still being kept closely guarded, itās known that youāll have a lot more interaction with all other characters in the game, including players, agents, the press and of course the fearful board of directors. Every feature of the original now looks to have been enhanced, for example contract negotiations have been improved to include Roy Keane styled āMatch Highest Wageā clauses and the number of leagues has been doubled from 26 to 52! Hopefully weāll also have greater control over reserve and youth teams, so we can fully use the full strength of a large squad.
