Championship Manager: Season 03-04 (PC CD)

• Platform:   Windows XP / 2000 / 98 / NT / Me
• BBFC Rating:
• Media: Video Game

The objective is still the same. Taking charge of your team of choice, you're charged with meeting the expectations of the team's supporters and directors, while balancing the books, the highs and lows of your playing staff and hopefully winning a few games into the bargain. Plus trying to hang on to your job, of course.

What's always lifted the Championship Manager games well ahead of their rivals, many of whom deliver the same basic setup as above, are two factors. The first is depth. The sheer weight of statistics and complications you need to consider are both staggering and engrossing in equal measure. But that's when the second key factor kicks in: accessibility. With a finely tuned user interface, this is a desperately easy game to get into, albeit packed with an immense and highly addictive long term challenge. It's a real achievement that the player is rarely left stuck and bewildered by the wealth of information they're presented with.

This new version brings a few extra goodies into play as well, alongside a much-needed polish and tidy-up. Goal of the month and season competitions are incorporated for instance, along with live cup draws and expanded international sides. More importantly, factors such as the training and media segments of the game have been clearly tightened up, and the various statistics have been brought up-to-date.

A predictable conclusion, then: Championship Manager Season 03/04 is a superb game, and without question the best in its field by some way. It does, however, come with one caveat. Once you get into it, there's a real possibly that your social life will come to a crashing end. Don't say we didn't warn you. --Simon Brew

Product Description
Championship Manager gets its seasonal update with Championship Manager Season 03/04. The game showcases a whole host of new features and improvements including four new leagues, a pre-game database editor, the ability to view previously saved matches and updated player, team and competition data for the 03/04 season.

The game features 43 countries, leagues playable across more than 100 divisions, a database of more than 200,000 footballers from around the world and stats rated by an army of more than 2,500 researchers. Once again, ex-Liverpool player and regular TV pundit Ray Houghton has acted as the game's consultant to provide the ultimate in accuracy and authenticity.

As you have come to expect with any CM update, the game features updated data for the 03/04 season and a more intuitive training system--now handled on a single, clearly designed screen; new leagues; player and goal of the month awards, and improved AI.

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• PC & Video Games > Games > Sports > Football