Championship Manager 5 (PS2)

I was over the moon when I heard that Champ was coming to the PS2 as I have always been a Champ fanatic but my PC became too slow to run the newer versions so I couldn't get my fix...but then I read a lot of reviews of the game (many written before it was released) slating the game and I was put off buying it.

Eventually I bought it "new and used" from Amazon and I am absolutely gutted that I waited so long to buy the game due to these bad reviews. This game is as good as any other version of Champ I have played in the past if not better.

Yes it is a slimline version but what do you expect on a console (a word of warning - the game does take over 7MB of memory so bear that in mind when you buy!)

As for bugs - I have played 4 seasons of the game and have not come accross one bug or glitch.

I personally would reccomend this game to anyone who loves Championship Manager (although if you have a PC that wasn't with Noah guiding his Ark then you might be better off with the PC version)

Having been a championship manager fan on the PC i was really looking forward to the PS2 version. The game is massively disappointing however. It appears to have been rushed. I went a certain team in my first season and won the treble, reached the semi finals of the Champions League (no team from this has EVER got that far) and my two leading scorers had over 110 goals between them. It's simply unrealistic. Teams from the nation that you are playing in suddenly become really good in Europe beating teams such as PAOK and Juventus. The game is simply unrealistic and has obviously been rushed. However, if you are new to football management games then this would probably be a really good buy. My recommendation is, however, to buy a PC and get a management game for that instead.

I bought CM5 after I had bought the later two PS2 games in the series. I've not had time yet to play many games or get fully used to it, but so far I've not decided it was a waste of money. Both CM 2006 and CM 2007 have good aspects and bad, CM5 is no different

MENUS - it's a bit harder to move around the screens easily, menus are better organised in later versions but not vastly different. Search functions seem much the same, most of later options are there such as quick search (for player), clubs structured by region, country etc

TRANSFERS - you have to transfer list players to sell them, you can't offer them to clubs and hike up prices like later versions. There are bargains like Semjonovs of Skonto Riga and a certain Nemanja Vidic, and clubs in countries like Uruguay, Colombia, Serbia and Croatia offer bargain players as in later versions. You can approach to sign players out of contract or in youth teams, this can be a good way of buying without having to pay fees which is removed by CM 2007.

PLAYERS - same rating structure as later versions, one good thing is the skills are highlighted at a certain level ie if they exceed say 75 on 1-100 scale.

OPTIONS - took me a little while to find one or two things like the requests option to request upgrades of training facilities, youth squad and the stadium. The standard set-up seems there that is retained into later versions

TACTICS - not too different from later versions, simple to use or complicated if you want to be clever. The option to make quick substitutions, comment on the game or shout during the game aren't there yet.

GAMEPLAY - no option of quick result, 32x is the quickest speed and the in-game tactics are limited, but for a first attempt on the PS2 it is pretty good. I played only one competitive match, drew away to Forest so no obvious glaring ease so far. I've found later versions hard to win the Premiership with, have won the Champions League with Rapid Vienna on 2006 before and SPL with Falkirk, but never before found CM 'easy'. Time will tell if this is too easy, you can always make a game harder for yourself by not picking the better sides or trying to win titles with the existing squad etc ie set your own parameters with optimum difficulty.

So I'd say it is quite good so far, I'm not sure 1-5 is the best rating system as I might give this 7/10 or 9/10 eventually. If you've played CM 2006 (9/10) and CM 2007 (7/10) but not this then try it. And anyone who bought this and isn't too impressed, the later versions have their pros and cons, but are both very good - I've yet to play a game I've enjoyed more than CM, FM 2009 on the PC is over-rated, I need to try more recent LMA versions, but CM would make my top ten of all-time games. The main reason I don't play CM 2007 very much is because it is a fair bit slower than 2006 in gameplay and day to day e-mails - it asks too many questions. I sold off lots of players and set up a lot of scouting and other early activities, if you do too much then I find it freezes on 4th July. Can EIDOS please make a CM 2010 for PS2, I know the trend these days is to force people onto new systems/windows/consoles altogether, but this is a good game that can be made perfect