Of course, a player's skills only really come into use in matches. So Rooney has a current level of 12 and a potential rating of 13, with Gianluigi Buffon the highest rated in the game, with 13.8 and 15 respectively. Also, each player is given a 'current' overall rating and a 'potential' overall rating. Added to that are clever personality traits, such as 'leader', 'feisty', 'reliable' and 'flexible', though the effects of those aren't always apparent in matches. Every player is extensively rated on a selection of skills, including the usual suspects like attacking and tackling. Not once did I find myself saying 'why can't I do this?' and, for the most part, I actually left my backroom staff take care of the non-football issues.īeing a United fan (there's only one United), I spent most of my time with them, and it was nice to see the likes of Rooney and Pique in the squad, in line with the latest transfers.
#Football manager 2005 buy full
You have full control over your team's training (down to specific days of the week) you can sign youth players and subsequently develop their best traits you can organise the club's merchandise and expand the stadium you can even make the club go public, so long as certain requirements are met. TCM is extremely comprehensive with regards to running your chosen club, with almost too many facets to list in a review. If they were to react to your every move, they'd be kept on their toes, because you make a lot of them in this game. For the most part, the board and fans will react to results on the pitch and your responses to media interviews, which I'll get to in a moment. This gives you a sense of being watched, as if your every move is being measured up by supporters and suits alike. Most prominent, however, are two rating bars in the top right of the screen: those of 'board' and 'fan' approval. Once you are hired by a club, the first screen you'll see is the 'home' page, with a news ticker running along its bottom and a fixture list in the lower right. What TCM does a particularly good job of is capturing the spirit of this drama. The average Premiership manager could have a soap opera built around him. And, let's face it, real football management is fraught with drama. Immediately, there's a sense of possibility about the game, a sense of drama in the offing. Succeed and the climes of Milan may be your eventual destination, fail and you might have to resurrect your career in Swedish snow. I really like this idea of football management as an epic, global merry-go-round. For example, you could start off managing Liverpool in the Premiership, but have La Liga and Seria A running concurrently in case an offer from a big club comes in, with the Irish and Korean leagues in the background if you feel like a different challenge later. With 20 countries on offer, there's huge scope. You can choose to play as a 'fixed' team, whereby you won't be fired from that team regardless of performance or you can choose to run six active leagues, with the possibility of getting work in any of them and finally you can choose to be offered contracts by three random clubs in the lower divisions of a country, with the goal of taking them to the top. Much like Wayne Rooney doing a warm-up, the nice touches are apparent even before you start a game. Okay, I'm beginning to sound like Ron Atkinson on morphine. It may not be in the same league as the Champ Man of old, but at least it's level on goal difference. Total Club Manager earns that comparison. If another game earns a favourable comparison, for whatever reason, then that game should be proud. You see, Championship Manager 2 is the Half-Life of management sims. It might seem unfair to open a review of Total Club Manager 2005 with reference to the genre's longstanding, undisputed masterpiece, but that's actually not the case. right," replies the student rat, pecking away. "I stayed up all night trying to sign Robbie Fowler from the scousers." "Why so bleary-eyed?" asks the student rat. gobbled up, slowly digested, and then regurgitated for a bewildered rat race to nibble away at. I have been gobbled up by that monster too many times to admit.
#Football manager 2005 buy series
Like many football fans who are also gamers, the Championship Manager series has devoured months of my life.