Premier Manager 2002/2003 Season

"Hit and miss. You'll either love it, or hate it."

Introduction
Premier Manager is an interactive game where you are the manager. From the start you have to meet people and in an interactive world you are the boss and have control of everything. You talk to people face to face, and have to deal with agents. All this makes transfer listing players harder. You can manage clubs from major European leagues, but unfortunately for some they seem to have missed off the English 3rd Division. Now that's not right.

Gameplay
This game is very easy to handle. At the start of your first job you have a secretary who helps to handle first team duties. This helps to tell you how to play the game outside of match day. These really help you, I found that after they tell you how to use the controls, it becomes a lot easier. The game itself is easy to play, but difficult to master. It all depends on your team, which is down to you. The top down view can be quite annoying for some people, but it changes when a goal is scored, or a near miss has happened. You get really good graphics then. There is good gameplay, although this depends on whether you like Management sims. If you do, then you may find the interactive part fun to do.
However this game is extremely time consuming. It can take hours to do a month. I find this frustrating, you cannot have a quick 5 minute go. It also gets boring going through your schedules, especially when you have no meetings set up.
There is also EuroSport news. This too, is fun at first but it is repetitive. The same news on my game stayed for 3 weeks. This slows down the game, although there is an option to turn it off. 7/10

Graphics
The animated graphics of the characters, such as your staff, chairman etc are quite good. They are quite lifelike to a real person. However, I feel they could have made more use of the Playstation 2 capabilities. There mouths just move in a random way. They don't follow as what they are supposed to say. The top down graphics aren't particularly good either. The two teams run up and down. When a goal is scored you get a different view, but this is too quick to properly take it in. You may also be too busy cheering of having a goal scored. 6/10

Sound
There is unfortunately little sound. When you talk to someone there is just subtitles, no sound. There is a little bit during the match, plus the crowd. I found this disappointing. With the Playstation 2 capabilities, they could have used sound. 1/10 (I don't want to give a 0

Replayability
As this game never ends, there is a lot of replayability. You go from club to club taking up new challenges. This means that you get great value for money. There are also other countries for you to explore. Use teams from the bottom leagues and give them success. Even then there are other options. This game basically goes on and on. 8/10

Final Recommendation
I would rent this game first. You may not like, it may take up too much time for you. Rent this first. This is a hit and miss game, like Marmite. You will either love it or hate it. There are other management sims, for those of you who hate it, try LMA Manager or Champ Manager. Make sure you rent this game first.

Overall
Overall I will give this game: 4/10

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 01/06/03, Updated 11/18/03