The Double - by Johnson Scanatron
This 1986 Commodore 64 game remains to this day my favorite football management game of all time.
I played this game for years. And when I finally moved on from the C64 and onto PC's, one of the first things I did was get a good C64 emulator and continue playing The Double on the PC, right up until 1998. Twelve years of great fun.
What made The Double so addictive and fun for me?
Well its probably because it was the first ever management game that attempted to show you the whole match, and not just random highlights. You actually got to watch your team play.
Another thing that made this game stand out from all the others at the time was its difficulty. This game was bloody hard. You had no visible attributes to work from when building your team. The only hint of how good or bad a player was was by scout reports, and also by a players wages. Generally the more money he was on, the better he was.
The only drawback to the game was its speed. It was very slow at processing the results & attendances, and the match itself took about 20 minutes to complete. Although once emulated on the PC years later, its speed was no longer a problem! For its ambition, difficulty, and addictiveness it'll always be a 9 out 10 game for me.
"There are no 'skill levels' or computer trickery - everything depends on your skill as a manager, which is what football's all about!"
I played this game for years. And when I finally moved on from the C64 and onto PC's, one of the first things I did was get a good C64 emulator and continue playing The Double on the PC, right up until 1998. Twelve years of great fun.
What made The Double so addictive and fun for me?
Well its probably because it was the first ever management game that attempted to show you the whole match, and not just random highlights. You actually got to watch your team play.
Another thing that made this game stand out from all the others at the time was its difficulty. This game was bloody hard. You had no visible attributes to work from when building your team. The only hint of how good or bad a player was was by scout reports, and also by a players wages. Generally the more money he was on, the better he was.
The only drawback to the game was its speed. It was very slow at processing the results & attendances, and the match itself took about 20 minutes to complete. Although once emulated on the PC years later, its speed was no longer a problem! For its ambition, difficulty, and addictiveness it'll always be a 9 out 10 game for me.
"There are no 'skill levels' or computer trickery - everything depends on your skill as a manager, which is what football's all about!"