For over a decade, the Championship Manager series has been considered to be the best soccer management game
around. In fact the game is so enthralling to a huge number of people, tales are often spoken in hushed tones of the
game being cited as grounds for divorce, but that may just be urban legend. So captivating is this game to a
certain type of gamer that it should carry a government health warning. Pets, friends, even entire families have been
neglected in the wake of this title, as the player succumbed to it's charms. The game
has a universe so huge that, if you have the hardware for it,
you can have what feels like every league on Earth running, including many even the hardened soccer fan may not have
heard of.
Sports Interactive, the developer of Championship Manager, recently parted ways with publisher Eidos. For reasons best known to the lawyers, despite SI coming up with the name, Eidos have the rights to it now. Which means SI needed better lawyers. As well as a new publisher and title for their game. SI bounded into the warmly welcoming arms of that purveyor of spiky hedgehogs and dead consoles, Sega. They then dredged up the name Football Manager from the past, and voila! Championship Manager begat Football Manager. And we saw that it was good.
One of the first reviews of the title has given the game a staggering 96%. Anyone familiar with the Championship Manager series will know this is hardly surprising. So if you dream of one day managing a sports team, Football Manager could be your dream come true. Besides, where else can you make David Beckham's life a misery and get away with it? (Alex Ferguson need not answer that question.)
