User Reviews
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 The most addictive game I've ever played+ |  4.5
0 comments |
by  RobtheGooner
from Loughborough, , England | Dec 13, 2004 |
THE GOOD:
Manage clubs from more than 40 different leagues from around the world or take control of your favourite national team.
The 2d pitch is excellent.
Player to player relationships
all data correct as of the start of the 03/04 season
In depth training system
You can become a tactical mastermind
Have total control over your players
THE BAD:
There are quite a lot of bugs which can be fixed by downloading patches, but If you're a 56k modem user, you wont be able to, unless you are very patient and no one picks up the phone.
It is quite easy at times if you know which players to buy
Processing time can be very long especially if you do not have a top end PC
SUMMARY:
Ever looked at Arsene Wenger and thought, "I can do a better job than him"?
Ever thought you had an eye for raw talent?
Ever wanted to take Barnet to European glory?
Ever wanted to fine Ruud van Nistelrooy 2 weeks wages for no reason?
Well now you can! Championship Manager 03/04 puts you in the manager's hotseat. You can take control of any club from over 40 leagues around the world with over 200,000 players available to buy. Send your scouts to Senegal to look for talented youngsters or assign them to search for players playing in the lower divisions.
Create your own tactics and training schedules and if you're feeling nasty,you can make your whole squad do cross country running all week.
You can handle the financial side of the club, taking care of things such as player's and staff's wages.
You can watch your team's matches using the top-down, 2d pitch, game engine. You will see all the action unfolding from above. The players are represented by coloured circles with numbers on. One colour for one team and another colour for the other team. The circles move around fluidly, much like the players would do on a real pitch. They pass the ball to each other, make intelligent runs and sometimes make mistakes. At the end of every month in the game, there is the goal of the month competition, and there is goal of the season at the end of every season.
The 2d pitch is so good that I would not swap it for a 3d pitch. It's that good! With the 2d pitch, you can see everything, you can see the moves building up, you can see your tactics working and most importantly, you can see where you are going wrong and then you have to put it right on the training ground or by adjusting your tactics.
The detail in this game is amazing. So many things can affect how your players perform. This could be the player's fitness, which can be improved by giving them a different training schedule. Perhaps their moral is low this could be because they think they are too good to play for your team and are unhappy because they want to move to a bigger club. Or they may not be happy with their contract. They could be unhappy with you for giving them a warning or a fine. Or it could be that they are unhappy at the size of the squad; not enough competition for starting places or too much competition for starting places. It is just like real life, anything can affect how the players perform. You just have to get the balance right. You can see the attention to detail and the painstaking effort which has been put into this game by Eidos and Sports Interactive.
But everything is not perfect, now it's time for the other foot to come down. There are some bugs in this game. Some thigns just happen too often. For example, I've lost count of the number of times in a match when the ball has "just skimmed the top of the bar" according to the match commentary. Players also seem to miss TOO MANY chances in front of goal, they baloon it over the bar. There are many bugs like this and the good thing is, they can be fixed by downloading patches from the official website, but if you have a 56k connection, you will have to be very patient. Also, the time the game takes to process the information when you click continue can be very long. At times you'll be twiddling your thumbs as the blue loading bar goes across the bottom of the screen. If I didn't have a good PC, I would probably not play this game as I would get so frustrated with the waiting.
But all in all, this is a superb game, which is very addictive and I think every football fan has to own it and even some people who don't like football may enjoy playing this game. There's nothing more addictive to me, than taking a control of a club in the bottom half of the conference, signing some quality unkown players, and taking them to the top of the top, to go down in the history books with the greats like Real Madrid.
Excellent game, 4.5 out of 5 |
| 9 out of 16 people found this review helpful. | Did you find this review helpful? YES NO |
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| How addictive can you get? |  5.0
0 comments |
by mike_spread88
from , , | May 29, 2004 |
THE GOOD:
More of a wide range of players and teams to choose from and loads more leagues. Great graphics and you can also have the option to use the data editor and create your own players and clubs and stuff!THE BAD:
Just the dotted players SUMMARY:
How is this game so addictive. People say "your so lame to play on that all the time, you cant even control the players" to me. I suppose its the quality of having your own team to manage and order the players to do what you want. Bringing in new players is great and controlling the player's team practises and improving their stats. You also feel slightly proud of your players when they win a league or whatever. The new leagues added just make the game even more ineresting because some of the teams you can play as you dont even know. |
| 9 out of 14 people found this review helpful. | Did you find this review helpful? YES NO |
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| What's Wrong With Posh? |  4.3
0 comments |
by  jespomo
from East Midlands, Lincolnshire, UK | May 28, 2004 |
THE GOOD:
Peterborough United are on the game.
Better than the last game.
The South African League is here.
Editor is back.
Commentary Edit.THE BAD:
Cambridge United are on the game.
The 2D view is a waste of time.
The Major League has dissapeared. That was my favorite. SUMMARY:
It seems that Championship Manager has made a triumphant return to the game after the total failure of hte £29 million signing of Championship Manager 4 which seemed to take two steps back from CM 01/02. What can you do? Well all those who bemoaned the lack of an editor for CM4 rejoice because it has been brought back so you can go bact to ruining Cambridge United and Arsenal and putting the Posh where they rightfully belong. (The Premiership that is) If you are after a bit of a challenge you can try managing in the little leagues of such countries as Indonesia and Singapore.
My Verdict ... Buy this game as it is the last chance you will get of seeing Championship Manager in its proper form. |
| 11 out of 18 people found this review helpful. | Did you find this review helpful? YES NO |
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| Championship Manager 03/04 the best manager game ive played | 4.5
0 comments |
by  just 2 xtreme
| May 25, 2004 |
THE GOOD:
Great set-up, easy to use, realistic. THE BAD:
You don't get to see the players, all you see is coloured dots with the players numbers on. SUMMARY:
This has got to be the best championship manager game I have played so far, although if you are a supporter of a small club and plan on being them its is a big challenge to get the in higher places. I suppose this is realistic though cos I don't think clubs like Peterborough will be in the premiership any time soon.
This is a great game for any football fans and easy to use for first time players. So if you are a fan of football this is the game for you if not I wouldn't bother.
Thanx for reading
JuSt 2 xTrEmE
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| 6 out of 12 people found this review helpful. | Did you find this review helpful? YES NO |
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| A fine end to a fine series. |  4.9
0 comments |
by  Tehuti
from Portsmouth, Hampshire, England | Apr 12, 2004 |
The Championship Manager games have long been regarded as the best football management games around, this is reflected in the amount of games published and sold.
Incase you hadn't already known, this game puts you in charge of club from many leagues. You pick the team, buy the players, sack the staff and a whole lot more. But I'll go into further detail of that in a minute.
The basic gameplay is excellent. I've been playing Championship Manager for 6 years now, and there are only a few days when I haven't played it. The games are addictive as anything, and the easy-to-use interface means that you can play this complex game with ease. You can play this game in different ways, for example, you could take a small team up through the divisions, you could take a big team to bigger things, you could just have a game there for a quick challenge or one to try out new tactics, players and training schedules. I also find that you can play this while doing other things, especially if you don't mind moving slowely through the game. Often I find myself playing on the Xbox, watching a movie or doing my coursework while the game is running on the computer.
Once again, we find that every player at every club from more than 40 leagues are present; all scouted and included. This totals to some 200,000 players in the game, yet alone all the regenerations. The data updates are one of things that makes this game what it is. It is so comprehensive, it's the Oxford Dictionairy of sport/simulation games. The stats for each player have changed since the last game, and we find more suited stats for the players, which have been researched to the max.
The game engine has only had a little tweak since the previous game, but it stills runs very well, and you'll have no problem adapting to it if you've never used one before. In the demo, the 2D Match Engine was quite blocky and sluggish, but this was only a demo and has been fixed. A lot of bugs have been fixed from the previous game, CM4, which was released and shortly followed by an enourmous patch. This, thankfully, hasn't happened with CM03/04, but you can download the data updates like before.
The interaction with your team, staff and the media has developed nicely over the past few games, and now we have a level nearing total realism.
Tactics can now be finely tuned for each team, giving team instructions, and a whole host of player instructions, down to what you want them to do for a free-kick (you could ask them to disrupt the wall for example). Some people have already created tactics that will make you win, no matter how poor you team is, by expoiting the match engine. However, there is nothing better than working hard on a tactic, perfecting it, and watching you team win game after game.
The same happens with training, in which you can create as many schedules as you want, and combine many different sessions. A bar graph is now present which shows the effectiveness of your training schedule within different catagories (Attacking and Fitness for example). It can take quite a while to get your desired result, but getting it right and training up youth to become world class is something you just need to do, again, giving the player some enjoyment.
And isn't that what games are about? Enjoyment?
Transfers are now more detailed, giving you more options on how to obtain a player. Co-ownership has given people the opportunity to share players with other teams, but this can only be done in Italy as far as I can tell. There are more extras to go into transfers, like league goals to pay another £500,000 or whichever.
The staff, finances and fixtures have all been improved, giving more odds and a better look at the finances of your club. Showing you more info than just gate receipts.
Unfortunatly, the Championship Manager series as we know is basically gone, with the contract between Eidos and SiGames coming to an end. Both are going seperate ways, with SiGames creating Football Manager 2005 and Eidos creating Championship Manager 5. To be honest, Eidos have no chance of competing with SiGames this time, since all they have is the name.
But for a finale to a series, you can't get any better. |
| 7 out of 13 people found this review helpful. | Did you find this review helpful? YES NO |
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| Championship Manager 03/04 (version4.1.1)i think.... | 5.0
0 comments |
by Gamezman Oli
from Didcot, Oxfordshire England, | Feb 18, 2004 |
THE GOOD:
Too many things...Improved graphics,Player profiles.You can also find the training screen easier now.Last year you couldn't even see what they were up to!!!!!!!!!!poor peeps lolTHE BAD:
Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...Nothing bad except 1 thing.The player values.Martin Keown is not worth £110,000!!!!!Or is he...<img src="/a_tongue.gif" border=0 vspace=2> hahahahehehe(being a Man U supporter swings that...) lol. SUMMARY:
The game is almost perfect.If they change the player values,it will be perfect.You can also find out the other team's tactics.Believe me,it helps lmao.The player profile's are updated too,and you can see the squad numbers.If they sorted out the pricing problem.Although it does seem to fit Keown lol.It would be nearly perfect.In fact, it would be perfect,hehehe.I also think that there sould be more clubs,like for example,Wallingford AFC, or Abingdon Town, who are in then same League as Didcot Town, but you wouldn't know it,would you???Also there should be more league's,like the Ryman League, or the Hellenic League.I mean,what do the little clubs do apart from friendlies??? Sent in by Gamezman Oli <img src="/smile.gif" border=0 vspace=2> Happy gaming folkies!!!!!!! |
| 5 out of 12 people found this review helpful. | Did you find this review helpful? YES NO |
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| Championship mangaer 03-04 |  4.8
0 comments |
by  im the hurricane
from York, , | Feb 9, 2004 |
THE GOOD:
Where do you start? Quicker than the last game, up to date squads, more teams and players, player to player relationships and much more.THE BAD:
Er... Sometimes your team lose. SUMMARY:
The latest installment of the championship manager (and due to si games' split for eidos the last as we know it.) is definately one of the best. After last years game it was hard to see what new features could be added but of course the clever boys and girls at eidos found some. A new improved media module isn't much improved and the new players would be expected but both add interest to the new game and at 20 quid this is an improvement on the last game.
The new goal of the month is a nice addition. It can be quite fun selecting your own favourite out of the top three, but sometimes the diving headers from close range on a 2d screen really dont look very spectacular at all but if you have an imagination you can imagine what they are intended to look like.
The player to player relationships dont really effect much but again don't hamper the game but i suppose benefit it slightly.
Searching for players in the transfer market can be great fun, as always and looking for loan signings from premiership clubs is also great fun.
The in game is exactly the same as last year and works exactly as well as last year so there is no change there.
For £20 this game is a bargain, even double that price would be an acceptable value. With the eidos/sigames split starting next year it remains to be seen whether future games in the series will be as good. If the two companies can't make a better game without each other this could be the last great managemant game for a while. |
| 10 out of 16 people found this review helpful. | Did you find this review helpful? YES NO |
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| Great | 5.0
0 comments |
by  Mancity R Da Best
from Manchester, , England | Feb 9, 2004 |
THE GOOD:
great in every way. Great transfer system, 2D game, commentary, editor.THE BAD:
no bad things really, could be a little faster but no real complaints SUMMARY:
great game in every way, even better than last one so go out and buy it, it's only 20 quid, live a little, push the boat out, you know you want to. I don't know anone who doesn't love it, it's great, hundreds of new media titles to put pressure on you in timmes of stress and glorify you in times of triumph. Great scouting system, easy to find young talent who respond differently to each new team mate they encounter. More emotions for players on the pitch and off it. You can praise or critisize players in local paper columns, add detailed notes to player descriptions.
It's great and a bargain for the price, go and get it!!!!!!! |
| 12 out of 19 people found this review helpful. | Did you find this review helpful? YES NO |
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forums
4.75/5.0