Championship Manager Season 01/02 Review

By Tom Bramwell Published 6 June, 2002

Review - one of the most popular PC games we know of becomes one of the best Xbox games we've encountered

Version tested: Xbox

Anything you can do I can do…

'Championship Manager Season 01/02' Screenshot feb02b

Formations aren't just for show

When you think about football management simulations, which game comes to mind first? Championship Manager. There's no disputing the fact that it's the genre's pinnacle, the very bastion of footy management games, and with each new release it gets even better. The other day we talked about accurate player statistics in Pro Evolution Soccer, but Championship Manger is so thoroughly researched that even in small-print the list of contributors is longer than my arm, and the results it produces are respected not only by fans of the game but fans of the sport.

There are 26 leagues from around the world, and detailed profiles and histories of the more than 100,000 players, managers and coaches that take part in them, and it's into this accurately simulated worldwide sporting industry that you are thrust. Your position as manager allows you to bicker over transfers, tussle with the press and the club's board, and marshal your players as much or as little as you want, delegating aspects of management and coaching to your second in command, or just taking full control and responsibility, giving players individual marking jobs, changing tactics at half time to try and overcome a one goal deficit and resting those vital players during quiet games.

There's no such thing as Game Over, so long as the board is confident in you and the players and fans aren't calling for your head on a stick. Thus the fact that some seasons end in triumph and others in dismal failure is fairly unimportant. You are guiding a team of your choice and your decisions make the difference, and they do so realistically.

Change of scenery

'Championship Manager Season 01/02' Screenshot feb01b

It's not just the big teams...

The game's transition to Xbox has been relatively painless. In fact, there are only two major changes to the CM formula in this Xbox incarnation - the number of leagues you can run concurrently, and the interface. The limitations of processing power require that you manage a maximum of three teams in different leagues during a season, whereas PC owning gluttons for punishment can do the full 26. But how many of you honestly want to manage that many teams? It was an option there for completion's sake more than anything else, with most high-spec PCs struggling to do a good job of it in the first place. Nope, that's not a problem.

The other big change has been to the interface. In the absence of a mouse, the cursor is controlled with the analogue stick, or you can switch directly between menu options using the directional pad. In the absence of a keyboard, you can't edit the stats of the players in the game, but they're so accurate that we can't imagine many reasons to do so besides cheating... Other than that, this is to all intents and purposes Championship Manager Season 01/02. Although some early Xbox reviews this year highlighted a slowdown problem, there is no evidence of this in the release version of the game, and the developer tells us that it was because of a bug - the very bug that subsequently held up the game's release.

It may not differ much in terms of composition then, but how about timing? One of our only worries was that arriving just a few weeks prior to the end of the season, it might seem a little outdated. Most fans of the game have stories to tell about how closely it imitates real life, and if you play through to the end of the 2001-2002 season - and if you buy this it will be something you find it very difficult to pull yourself away from doing - the reality of the situation you face will dawn on you. It's almost spooky the way that the real life Premiership managers yank the same players from the same foreign clubs as they do in the game. A powerful message, too. As you would expect, all the latest competitions (including B-team and Under 21 team competitions), awards, transfer and disciplinary rules (not to mention fines and appeal processes) for the last season are included in the game, just as they were with the PC version, along with the recent EU regulated transfer system. The wage structure is practically perfect, and the role of players' attitudes, personalities and opinions is naturally important, along with those of the national and local media.

Conclusion

So it's thoroughly accurate, an excellent port of a game which was already excellent to begin with, and the only debate is whether or not you should buy this instead of or as well as the PC version. For me, sitting on the comfy sofa downstairs is infinitely preferable to burrowing into my PC hobby hole for hours at a time. Some people are so fanatical about CM that they buy stupidly expensive PCs just to play it; now you can buy a relatively inexpensive console and get the same experience.

9 / 10

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About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (67) Latest comment 8 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Errol #1 10 years ago

    Anyone know how well this has sold (xbox) so far ?

  • pjmaybe #2 10 years ago

    (Sigh) good to see the power of the X-Box being put to good use then. There it is, can shift millions of polys per second and they use it to run a glorified footy spreadsheet package.

    Peej

  • bystander #3 10 years ago

    Whaaaat? This got rated higher than Halo?

    You... wait a minute, this is an Xbox game. Hmmm.

  • Nemesis #4 10 years ago

    How can this get a better score than Halo!!!!!!!!!!

    Exc3l Fanb0yz

  • full effect #5 10 years ago

    It's the best footy game on XBOX and you can't play footy, nnnnnnnnnnnooooooooooooooooooooooo. Dam you Microsoft, bastards.

  • Super Stu #6 10 years ago

    (Sigh) good to see the power of the X-Box being put to good use then. There it is, can shift millions of polys per second and they use it to run a glorified footy spreadsheet package.

    It makes a change to the rest of the 3D shite churned out on consoles these days.

  • Whizzo #7 10 years ago

    Anyone know how well this has sold (xbox) so far ?
    It's number 8 in the Xbox Top 10 according to Charttrack, how well that means in actual sales I don't know.

  • DodgyG #8 10 years ago

    Xbox version runs on the PC equivalent of a minimum database...

  • DodgyG #9 10 years ago

    will the new season be on a cheap update cd?

    I doubt it, considering CM4 is due out at Xmas...

  • Super Stu #10 10 years ago

    Will CM4 see the infamous online functionality? I've not been keeping up with CM4 for quite some time now, so if anyone has any tidbits on what we're likely to see.. fire away.

  • otto #11 10 years ago

    Dont worry. This game will never come close to Halos sales numbers.

    I can't be arsed to look it up but I will eat my daughter's soiled nappies if Halo has sold half as many copies as CM in the UK (or even Europe as a whole).

  • DodgyG #12 10 years ago

    It's supposedly going to be a lot quicker online, probably some dedicated servers along the lines of Sky Sports Manager. Sneaky feeling that there will be some sort of subscription based model as well...

  • Gestalt #13 10 years ago

    "I will eat my daughter's soiled nappies if Halo has sold half as many copies as CM in the UK"

    I hope you mean across all formats, because if you're just talking about the Xbox you're going to be having a pretty stinky dinner. ;)

  • otto #14 10 years ago

    yeah I meant all formats obviously :)

  • pjmaybe #15 10 years ago

    Bet you this would've sold better on PS2 - I mean it's the console MADE for the Beer and Footie brigade. The X-Box is more for sandal-wearing ex-Amiga fans with more money than sex appeal.

    Peej

  • Blerk #16 10 years ago

    The X-Box is more for sandal-wearing ex-Amiga fans with more money than sex appeal

    Ho ho ho! They're gonna kill you peej! But you made me laugh. ;-)

  • Smiggs #17 10 years ago

    "Bet you this would've sold better on PS2"

    i'll ignore the other comment...

    but it would be so slow on the PS2 it doesn't have pure power that the xbox does it would make the PS2 look puny you can cover up the xbox's better graphics but cm is pure power which the ps2 doesn't have very much of :(

  • Blerk #18 10 years ago

    but it would be so slow on the PS2 it doesn't have pure power that the xbox

    It would be slow on PS2 because of the CD access (instead of hard drive) and hence probably not feasible. 'Pure Power' has nothing at all to do with it - the Xbox and PS2 aren't that different in terms of processing, especially on a game like this where there are no flashy graphics.

  • Super Stu #19 10 years ago

    but it would be so slow on the PS2 it doesn't have pure power that the xbox does it would make the PS2 look puny you can cover up the xbox's better graphics but cm is pure power which the ps2 doesn't have very much of :(

    Smiggs, that's pure conjecture. Frankly, I'm not sure if it's well known nor if it is indeed a fair comparison between the Xbox's CPU and that of the PS2. I haven't really looked into the specifics, but I would bet this can of coke next to me at the very least that the PS2's 300mhz RISC processor is hardly a slouch.

  • full effect #20 10 years ago

    `Super Stu' Frankly, I'm not sure if it's well known nor if it is indeed a fair comparison between the Xbox's CPU and that of the PS2. I haven't really looked into the specifics, but I would bet this can of coke next to me at the very least that the PS2's 300mhz RISC processor is hardly a slouch

    Have you had your PS2 clocked up last i heard the PS2 clocked at 295mhz. And the reason why the PS2 can't handle Champ Manager is that it doesn't have a hard drive yet to store the fast amount of data.

  • pjmaybe #21 10 years ago

    Doh! Ever wish you hadn't said anything.

    Good point, that happy X-Box owner who claimed poverty. I mean there are cheaper hobbies aren't there, like collecting faberge' eggs, investing in Victoria Beckham's pop career, betting on England to win the world cup....

    Heh I'm such a beeeatch!

    Peej

  • Nick #22 10 years ago

    Successfully knocking one out is not the same as sex appeal, jaa...

  • otto #23 10 years ago

    Yeah well he appeals to himself. It's a start.

  • Pirotic #24 10 years ago

    Its ironic Amiga ment 'Girlfriend'.. the closest most amiga owners ever got to a real one :)

    no wait, i had an amiga... erm... forget that.

  • Nick #25 10 years ago

    jaa: I don't know you but I already have a picture of quite a studly chap in my head? a/s/l? ;-)

  • otto #26 10 years ago

    "Of course, a lot of women find that attractive"

    They do?? Where are they? :(

  • Skeeve #27 10 years ago

    "And the reason why the PS2 can't handle Champ Manager is that it doesn't have a hard drive yet to store the fast amount of data."

    Champ manager is so good a sim precisely because the players database changes and the game is affected by those changes, without a harddrive to store those changes any version you played would be a lobotmised shell of the actual game.

  • otto #28 10 years ago

    you're a married man too, otto - with a small child and all

    must be why I don't notice them then :p

  • #29 10 years ago

    In other news, Xbox has outsold GameCube in Japan for the second week in a row.

  • Nobby #30 10 years ago

    "Bet you this would've sold better on PS2"

    When/if the hardrive comes out for PS2 over here they're planning a port. Would be a big market, but pretty pointless if the hardrive is gonna be something like Ł200. A cm/hardrive package for Ł100 would be a fairly smart move.

    "In other news, Xbox has outsold GameCube in Japan for the second week in a row."

    Although sadly about 1/10th the number of that really old, pathetic and quickly fading console with it's piss poor graphics, the PS2. Or Gameboy probably.

  • #31 10 years ago

    PS2 quickly fading? Hardly. It's still got tons of quality games on the way. Piss poor graphics? Yeah. It gets harder and harder to play PS2, especially when i've got my Xbox.

    If there is a console fading, it's the GameCube. Hardcore gamers love it, but casual gamers don't even know what it is. And if you look at what Nintendo had a E3, you'll notice it was overwhelmed by both PS2 and Xbox. Everything Nintendo showed was just the games it announced at last years E3. Nothing new, nothing interesting, nothing that'll appeal to many people outside of Nintendo-fanboys.

  • Nobby #32 10 years ago

    Scum, I was being sarcastic.

  • Gestalt #33 10 years ago

    Give the guy a break, he's American. ;)

  • Fixxxer #34 10 years ago

    "The other day we talked about accurate player statistics in Pro Evolution Soccer, but Championship Manger is so thoroughly researched that even in small-print the list of contributors is longer than my arm"

    You do realise that the stats in PES are taken from CM?

  • #35 10 years ago

    Baskerville, I agreed with every last word you said. I admit i've been unreasonable, but i'm forced to. There's so many people stuck so far up Nintendo's ass on these boards that it's ridiculous. And baskerville, as for teh hardware stats. The price cut was announced for xbox but it didn't go into effect immediately. that's when sales dropped to about 834 or soemthing like that. once the drop went into effect, sales jumped to 7900 (GC sold far less, even less than PSOne). This week, sales were at 5,700 for XB and GC about 5400. You can head over to planetxbox.com, GameSpys site. They've got this weeks results up on the main site and it'll take a little big of digging in the archives but you'll find last weeks as well.

  • Gestalt #36 10 years ago

    "Xbox is outselling GC in Japan"

    I think it did for one or two weeks, but either just before or just after that it only sold a few hundred units and was getting drubbed by the Wonderswan (oh the indignity). Japanese charts are weird - they all come out at wildly different times, so you might get a chart from one source for last week, and then a couple of days later another one pops up for some time in the middle of May. :-/ Tends to be confusing, so always make sure to check which week the chart is actually for.

  • Blerk #37 10 years ago

    This week, sales were at 5,700 for XB and GC about 5400.

    Still crap though, isn't it?

  • skalmanxl #38 10 years ago

    Anyone up for verifying this?

    They are correct, that was the week before the Xbox got a price cut i Japan.

  • Blerk #39 10 years ago

    XBox 834

    I'm guessing that's the 834 people who hadn't heard that the price was dropping the week after. :-)

  • bystander #40 10 years ago

    Actually I think this is a good article on the fundamental design differences between the PS2 and Xbox (which bascially shares PC design principles).

    It has good reason's for Sony motivations about designing the PS2 in the way it has been designed.

    Whereas IMO the Anandtech article simply seems to diss the PS2 because it isn't a PC and because its a different architecture.

    He says that the PS2 doesn't have enough cache, but he's still thinking too much IMO about how the way a PC works. The PS2 has a fundamentally difference design approach and if you look at it from a PC perspective it won't work. Here's an analogy:

    Xbox = big buckets (cache) and smaller pipes (bus sizes).

    PS2 = small buckets but incredibly large pipes

    The Ars-technica article does have examples of how the PS2 should be used, boiling down to the fact that the PS2 has bandwidth to burn, but not internal cache.

  • Skeeve #41 10 years ago

    "When/if the hardrive comes out for PS2 over here they're planning a port."

    I bet you, that what they are actually doing is not planning a port and are actually busy doing the next proper version of champinship manager. There would be no point to doing a port for the hd until it had sufficient numbers or until sony gave them a big bag of money.

  • kissoon #42 10 years ago

    "...I appreciate the fact that you try to defend the XBox against slander here--as this place is full of uninformed or anti-Xbox/MS opinions..."

    I couldn't agree more.

    "...There's so many people stuck so far up Nintendo's ass on these boards that it's ridiculous..."

    Again, I couldn't agree more.

    Nice to see that this board in not entirely 'owned'.

    Cheers,

  • Errol #43 10 years ago

    England Team news -

    Butt in for vassel, and Heskey pushed up front. Beckham plays.

  • Errol #44 10 years ago

    Here we go !

    Can England give us what we really, really want ?

  • Jeex #45 10 years ago

    Live online coverage of the World Cup here - apparently... ^_^

  • UncleLou #46 10 years ago

    Any bets?

    1:2 me says (no flattery included)

    edit: good live-ticker: http://sl.sports.com/en/
    Edited by 3 at 07/06/02 @ 14:14

  • mook #47 10 years ago

    ingerland!

  • pjmaybe #48 10 years ago

    Hey you'll get no anti-XBOX stuff from me, I'm anti-everything that's a rip off!

    And right now the X-Box is!

    Peej

  • UncleLou #49 10 years ago

    My congratulations go out to our fish 'n' chips eating fellows.

  • Whizzo #50 10 years ago

    Woohoo!

  • otto #51 10 years ago

    w00t w00t w00t w00t w00t etc

  • UncleLou #52 10 years ago

    For all our IT-slang-dyslexics, me included:

    w00t!

    Use it as an interjection or a celebratory statement! As in...'Hey! I just upgraded my 56k modem to 1.1 SDSL. w00t! w00t!'. Works every time. True it's an independent clause, but really the best clauses are always independent. w00t.

    w00t belongs to gamers the world over. It seems to have been derived from the obselete 'whoot' which essentially is another way to say 'hoot' which itself is a shout or derisive laugh. But others maintain that w00t is the sound several players make while jumping like bunnies in Quake III. Still others want you to believe that it comes from the phrase 'wow loot' used in multiplayer RPGs many moons ago. Fiction or fact? I suppose you'll just have to decide what 'w00t!' means to you...

  • Pirotic #53 10 years ago

    Noooooo.. we won :*( when will this torture stop

  • Errol #54 10 years ago

    'from Gestapo (sorry... Gestalt)'

    Lol. Good one.

  • Gestalt #55 10 years ago

    Ve have vays of making you post, Englisches schweinhund.

  • Nemesis #56 10 years ago

    COME ON ENGLAND.

    W00T

  • Whizzo #57 10 years ago

    Ve have vays of making you post, Englisches schweinhund.
    Name, rank and serial number is all you're getting from us...

  • Nobby #58 10 years ago

    I used a coat hanger as an ariel on an old tv today to watch the game. Pretty poor game though, beckham didn't look great and the argies were shocking, probably wasn't worth the effort.

  • Gestalt #59 10 years ago

    Coat hangers for goal posts, eh? Jumpers in the park. Etc etc.

  • IJ #60 10 years ago

    Argy pansies

    http://www.wib bler.org/crap/poofs2.jpg

  • Daryoon #61 10 years ago

    I like CM, although I'm not much of a football fan to say the least. Nothing else beats the flashing message "Bilbo Baggins tackles Optimus Prime hard! Baggins sent off! Prime is injured"

    Did I mention I love heavily editing everything?

  • Khab #62 10 years ago

    There goes another one...

    Great to see both hosting nations go on, tho.

  • otto #63 10 years ago

    Khab: unbelievable eh??

  • Errol #64 10 years ago

    Darn you Gestalt. I'll have my revenge yet.

    *laughs insanely*
    Edited by 1 at 14/06/02 @ 16:06

  • Khab #65 10 years ago

    otto: Yep, the only thing about this that gives me a bad taste in my mouth is that the yanks made it too, on pure luck... I was hoping Figo would put one in the net in those last minutes - an even score would have brought Portugal and SK on, AND left me singing "Yankee go home"... :p

  • otto #66 10 years ago

    Yeah but the nice thing now is that they'll be sent packing by the Mexicans... how ironic! bwuhaha etc :)

  • Khab #67 10 years ago

    That IS nice. :)

    /me happy again.

    Er, on the other hand, I've really stopped trying to guess how the games are going to go at this point.

  • Mr_Sleep #68 9 years ago

    Jimmy Hoffa; great player. *might conflict with the truth*

  • oozasik #69 8 years ago

    http://home.anadolu.edu.tr/~oozasik/3.9.65_Update.exe
    hi there.. i made a new update for cm 2001-2002 3.9.65, in this update English, Italian, German, Spanish and Turkish Leagues are corrected.. i.e beckham went to real madrid, rustu rencber went to barcelona etc. try it..! if you like, please contact me..! i want to know your comments about this page..!

    if you have different version of cm, you can download it from
    http ://www.sigames.com/downloads_view.php?id=233

    if you want to play cm in Turkish, you must try it..
    http://www.cmturkey.com/download.php?option=detail &cat=8&ver=3

  • blablabla #70 8 years ago

    IDDQD - God mode
    IDSPISPOPD - No clipping