Articles > CM 2008: End of Season Review

The latest instalment of Championship Manager has proved to be the best yet. With more players, leagues and other great features than ever before it continues to keep fans of the series engrossed for hours, days and weeks on end.

The main feature of the new game is the full integration of the ProZone tool. This is a useful tool for gaining tactical insight into your teams strengths and weaknesses. One that is used by real managers in the real world. I think that in future versions of Championship Manager it will come to be invaluable to managers. Once the tactical and match engines have been advanced so that they can harness the depth of information ProZone can provide.

At the moment there are a few bugs that need sorting out, one of the most common being told after a game that your team were ‘weak at the back’ when in actual fact you didn’t concede and your defenders all put in good performances. However, these are relatively minor bugs for a tool that is still in its infancy and I would imagine most of them will be ironed out come CM 2009.

One aspect of CM that hasn’t been given a major overhaul is the tactics engine. Whilst still being solid enough for its purpose, it would benefit from some added depth in order to add longevity to the game play. At the moment it still feels a little bit formulaic, with only minor tweaks needed to a winning formation in order to get results. The game also tends to favour attacking formations, rather than the ‘shut up shop and try and nick one on the break’ defensive formations. Although this does add more excitement to the game by virtue of more goals being scored, it also takes away from the realism somewhat.

Training has also been simplified, which affords you more time to focus on your primary objective of managing the team, whilst not neglecting it altogether. The ability to retrain individual players’ positions makes a welcome return. This can be useful if you are short on players in a particular position and the transfer window is closed. The addition of 32 players tendencies can also be of benefit; whether it be getting your winger to hug the touchline or asking a striker to work openings.

The match engine itself continues to make great strides year on year, with a 3d engine scheduled for CM 2009. The current version sees the player markers more animated, they now tilt, lean and dive; giving you a better indication of what is actually going on in the match. Simplifying the match display has also proved a good move, the walls of statistics we had grown used to is still only a click away, but now the prime focus is on managing your playing staff. The screen shows you your own players’ morale and match rating, as well as letting you know about your oppositions formational changes and substitutions. This allows you to pin point individual weaknesses in your players and formation, so that you can adjust your tactics accordingly.

However, there are a few negatives with the match engine. One of the main being the limited options available to you for team talks. The main options being to threaten/abuse, encourage, praise or sympathise with your squad. This can make it difficult to manage player morale in a realistic way. More team talk options and a more detailed feedback system would greatly improve this area of the game. There are also a few anomalies with the match highlights, namely a disproportionate amount of goals scored from set pieces and regular own goals from goalkeepers.

This years transfer system has proved to be a mixed bag, but none the less entertaining, perhaps more so for the causal gamers. On the one hand, true to life, we have players being swayed by large contracts and selling clubs demanding over inflated transfer fees (eg. Whilst trying to sign Berbatov from Spurs, I was quoted £30m for a player valued at £15m). And on the other hand, the loan system can bring some incredibly unrealistic signings. For instance, most Championship clubs should be able to bring in players such as Bojan, Pato and Higuain in the first season. Whilst they are young talents they still possess great quality and, lets face it, none of them are going to end up at Blackpool in real life.

My main concern about this current version of Championship Manager is the difficulty level. Granted you need to buy the right players, devise a decent tactic and get your staff and training sorted, but after this it can become one long victory precession. This ultimately makes the game less rewarding, winning a third back to back quadruple is never as special as the first.

One of the things that I think sets CM aside from its competitors is its playability. The speed of the game is a major plus point, with most machines able to play a full season in a matter of hours rather than days.

Overall it has been another good year for Championship Manager and the guys at Beautiful Game Studios can be satisfied that they have produced a quality game. The one main niggle being the difficulty level. However, I would say there are a lot more plus points than negatives to take, and I’m sure it wont be long until CM is up there challenging Football Manager’s dominance of the market.