Championship Manager - by Beautiful Game Studios
I joined the Championship Manager bandwagon quite late in the series. Even though I knew the series had been around for years and had become the giant in football management sims, CM10 was the first one I played. I was never a fan of 'spreadsheet' football games - that is games that didn't actually let you watch a game of football and instead only offered you text, commentary, 2D dots, or instant results.
I think this stems back to my 12 year stint playing The Double, back in the late 1980's, and later the Player Manager series. I was used to seeing my teams play out there on the pitch, so despite the CM & FM series being far superior to those old 8 & 16 bit games in every way, without the ability to sit and watch an actual game of football they never appealed to me. And 2D dots were a poor substitute. So when CM and FM finally added an improved graphical match engine to the series, I became interested.
Championship Manager 10 was OK but the match engine logic was pretty flawed, leading to some weird and wholly unrealistic situations during games. I played it for about 6 months, then picked up my first version of Football Manager (FM10) to compare against it.
I think this stems back to my 12 year stint playing The Double, back in the late 1980's, and later the Player Manager series. I was used to seeing my teams play out there on the pitch, so despite the CM & FM series being far superior to those old 8 & 16 bit games in every way, without the ability to sit and watch an actual game of football they never appealed to me. And 2D dots were a poor substitute. So when CM and FM finally added an improved graphical match engine to the series, I became interested.
Championship Manager 10 was OK but the match engine logic was pretty flawed, leading to some weird and wholly unrealistic situations during games. I played it for about 6 months, then picked up my first version of Football Manager (FM10) to compare against it.