"The Best and Most Original Manager Game Ever"

Game Play
Basically, you choose a team from one of 6 European countries and 25 different leagues. You then select a difficulty level between grandmother and real hard, which determines how much money you begin with. Then, the fun begins. There is a great first person view, which allows you to navigate around the stadium and select different options. For example, in the dressing room, you can work on training schedules, change tactics and pick the team. And in the board room, you can negotiate player contracts and new signings.
When you've chosen the players and the formation, you can go into a match. There are 3 ways of watching a match on this game. You can watch a 2d view with the players represented by dots, a 3d view with the players running around. Albeit, with only average graphics. The third option is an instant match, which just gives you the result and saves time if you can't be bothered to watch the matches.
Game Play = 9/10

Features
This game has some great, original features like these:
- Mobile phone, which allows you to place bets on your teams matches, rig games and offer bungs to other teams. Don't get caught if you use this.
- Move and Set Piece Editor, which lets you create your own set plays, which will create brilliant goals for your team.
- Data Editor, which lets you update players stats and keep you playing with up to date teams 7 years after this game was released.
- Sierra Text, Basically teletext that lets you look at all the latest fixtures, results, league tables and top scorers.
Features = 10/10

Graphics
This game actually has pretty good graphics when navigating the stadium, but the one weakness is the graphics of the 3d pitch. By 1998 standards, its great, but some of the player movement is unrealistic and it doesn't look great, compared to other games.
Graphics = 6/10

Sound
There is some reasonably good music playing in the background most of the time and the sound effects when you click on various things are realistic. The in match sound is very good, as there are realistic crowd noises and decent commentary. The commentator says the names of even the most obscure players, which is a nice touch and is probably better than the in match commentary of some of today's football games.
Sound = 9/10

Lastability
With so many teams to choose from and so many challenges to complete, you could easily keep playing this game for months. The multi player option also helps this, as beating your friends is even more satisfying than beating the computer.
Lastability = 10/10

Overall
This is a great game that all football fans will enjoy. Data updates and patches to solve minor flaws in this game are available on the Internet and even the entire game may be available to download as abandon ware. This game will be difficult to get hold of from shops, so I'd recommend looking out for it on an Internet auction site, as it is a real gem.
Overall = 10/10

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 06/24/05