Football Manager 2005 (Mac/PC CD)

The game is basically "Champ 5" without the name (Eidos own the rights to the name Championship Manager so don't buy champ 5) Championship Manager 5 has been made by a new team without the legendary database SI have created over the years.

SI's new Football Manager, it's champ with better match play, more interactiveness and a much better match engine!

It's much better than CM03/04 and more addictive (I finished the six months on the demo in the first week!!).

Visual effects are awesome with Player pics and fully up to date transfers. SI have proven that they are the monopoly on management sims not eidos and I have had this game on order for months!!

If you liked Champ you'll love FM2005, remember this is the game for the "champ" faithful and SI understand what Football means. There will be thousands of fans creating utilities for the game.

IT'S SIMPLE BUY FM 2005 bye bye championship manager!!!!

No football management sim can touch this series, and year upon year the producers create a better and better game.

I have played this series right from the original Championship Manager, and it the most addictive game I have ever played!

Do not buy this game if you have a family, pets, a job, or to sum up, this game will take over your life, even eating and drinking will become secondary nature as you will sit in front of your pc for days just tinkering with formations and searching for that 20 goal a season wonder buy from non league.

This update is not just a renewed player list, the match engine and game screens have been re-written, with more interaction, and you can even enter the mind game playing with opposition managers.

I am currently storing food like a bear so that by the time the full game comes out I will be able to stop in for months!!

A must have purchase for any self respecting football fan.

Another great challenge is taking on the England team (you will be offered the job - what a feeling to be deemed good enough!) and playing (alongside your league team matches) all the qualifiers, the Euros and the World Cup. After winning the World Cup I was offered the Argentina managers job but turned it down because I would have had to give up my England squad who I was keenly redeveloping with some new unknowns.

My advice is buy this game, it's fantastic

Take over from any English team from the premiership to the local Conference North/South sides, and pretty much any team anywhere in the world. This game is vast and extremely accurate.

There are downsides, you need a super powerfull PC to run a number of leagues, I had to double my memory and get a new graphics card to run 5 consecutive leagues, and am still considering doubling my memory again. FM 05 needs it!

Also you need to patch the out of the box game with updates as there are a few issues that need resolving which the patches all sort out. Had these patches not been released the game would only get 3/5. If you haven't got internet access then this is a problem.

But once past these issues the game is tremendous. Whatever you want to achieve you can, and this game has honestly had me swearing and feeling genuine fear in the 90th minute, watching my Aston Villa team hold on to beat Inter Milan in the Champions League final. Stress? You bet!

No other game even comes close, and the disaster that Championship Manager 5 is, should make sure that Football Manager will become the new name we all associate with genuine gaming addiction.

Football Manager is Sports Interactives new management project. Yes, SI are creators of the CM series, but after Eidos declined to extend their contract with SI, Eidos practically took the CM name, and began to develop their own CM.

To sum it up FM is the new CM for the hard-core fan.

The game itself is a massive improvement on the slowness of CM4, and a step up in the user-friendliness of CM 03/04. Research into FM has been more than any previous version of CM, and this can only mean an enhanced future seasons' management :-)

Enjoy. But dont forget to eat...