There were add-on and update packs for CM2, including the popular CM 2 97/98 Edition, but for a good three years now soccer fans have been wondering what the next revision of the series would offer. In brief, it sticks with the plain text approach, so no in-game graphic highlights, but adds a bootroom full of new features and options. The core game engine remains the same, but you can immerse yourself even deeper into the ocean of statistics that the game generates with each and every week of matches that are run. And unlike previous versions, you now get 15 national leagues out of the box, namely Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Japan, Norway, Portugal, Scotland, Spain and Sweden. Sadly no Major League Soccer from the US -- though rumour has it the Americans wanted too big a fee for the license. The price for this raising of the stats ante is horsepower -- I would not recommend running Championship Manager 3 on anything less than a 64MB Pentium II, particularly if you're operating more than one national league concurrently, even while using the new feature of running matches in the background. An indication of the sheer weight of statistics maintained here comes in the fact that a CM 3 savegame runs to around 50MB of disk after just two seasons of play. That's a whole lot of stats. If you're not a patient person, or details bore you, then Premier Manager Ninety Nine is more likely to be your thing.
So, CM 3 is a detailed game, but how do you drive it? In previous versions, there was a clumsy amount of clicking through menu screens, but in CM 3 you can navigate by new (but hardly revolutionary) pull-down menus on the left side of the screen. Want to check out who's left in the English Conference Cup? Just click on "competitions," drag down to England, then to the Conference Cup tab and click on it. Much easier than wading up and down through three or four levels of static screen menus. The heart of the game lies in the news screen, at which all relevant events are reported to you, including injuries, transfers, and the dreaded Board of Directors' confidence update. Where CM 3 shines is in the way every reference to a team, person, or player can be clicked on to bring up more information -- when I play any other soccer 'sim' I find the lack of ability to do this very frustrating. As an example, say I'm about to play against Torquay -- I can bring up a screen of all past matches between my club and Torquay, see a summary of who's won the most, and see all past matches listed. I can click on a score for any of those matches and presto -- up pops the full match stats for that game, and from there I can click on any player to get information on them.
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The focus of CM 3 lies in managing your squad of players. As manager, you get to pick the team, select match tactics, buy and sell players, send out scouts, and make tactical decisions as the game unfolds. You have no control over ground improvements or finances (as you do in PM Ninety Nine ; so if it's total control of a club you want, look elsewhere). Since a real manager only looks after the team, this should be no problem for most players. In fact, CM 3 has added more 'powers,' in that you can now (optionally) control your reserve team, have more information on non-playing staff (e.g. a rating for how good your scout is at spotting future ability), direct training for all players (a feature which I expect the Collyer brothers only added under duress), and participate in a much more richly-modeled transfer system. A very useful new feature is that finances (income and expenditure) are now broken down, so you can see where all the money is going to and coming from -- having a game televised can bring in some valuable extra cash. But, just as in real life, you can't spend all your club's money as you wish; your directors will set transfer fee and wage caps. This is a frustrating fact of life for managers, especially those in the lower leagues. Playing as a conference side is a real challenge.
Your ability to specify precise tactics is now much-expanded, with man-marking, free roles, forward runs, pressing, etc. all tweakable on a per-player basis. CM 3 's text is expanded from CM 2, so you now get more buildup information. At half/full time you can also re-read all the text from the game, though this is all summarized very clearly and elegantly in the post-match stats screens (all the more clear now that the game uses 800x600 resolution rather than 640x480). These stats bear some semblance to reality, for more so than those in PM Ninety Nine. The most helpful stat from the game is the 1-10 form rating a player gets, but you can look at header, tackle, shot, and pass summaries to see for yourself where things went wrong (or right).
CM 3 has added even more attributes to describe player abilities. There's around 30 now, compared to 20 in CM 2. In come adaptability, versatility, acceleration, agility, bravery, balance, crossing, handling, jumping, reflexes, workrate, and teamwork. Most of these go towards adding character to goalkeepers, but some stats have uses for players in all positions. Gone is the injury proneness rating -- this is now almost certainly a new hidden attribute, like big match ability and overall quality. Some CM 2 players never liked the hidden ratings, but these are what help make the game what it is. You can't write down a formula for success; when you buy new players you don't know if their legs are made of glass, or whether they turn to jelly in the FA Cup. And, most importantly, you don't know their overall quality. The ratings are still important, but they are relative. If the opposition has two pacey forwards, you'll want to know you have fast defenders capable of marking them well, for example. Factors such as form and morale come into play, and as manager you have to consider these in selecting your team. The fact that CM 3 lists a player's last five form ratings in his stat sheet is a very welcome addition, as is the way appearances as subs are separated out.
The core of the transfer engine, with its delayed negotiations, remains the same as before, but the dealing is much better now (more detailed). You can also request delays in deals while you look at other players. Player management is enhanced because you have to tell a new signing where he'll fit in (regular first-teamer, rotation player, reserve team, hot prospect, etc.) and live up to your promise or risk him demanding a transfer away again. You can also give more detailed reasons as to why you're rejecting a transfer bid (useful for multiplayer games, though I've not tried these yet -- wait for our second op review, most likely from Barak), and you can take on free transfer players for trial periods with no commitment.
The level of realism in the game is good, though not perfect. I've found through four seasons of play (which has taken me some 50 hours of my real life!) that player values and stats are pretty much right. I saw Arsenal buy Shearer for 10.5M from Newcastle, for example. Player ratings (and thus values) are more balanced than in CM 2 (where defenders were over-valued) and strikers and attacking midfielders can now rate as highly as more defensive players, though this 'problem' is not completely fixed. Results are, if anything, overly realistic in that there's not as many Cup shocks as you might expect, and it is very hard to do well as a manager of a lesser team against higher division opposition, yet alone to do well in your own division. If anything, the number of goals scored is still a little high overall, but it is now not so hard to win away from home again (I recall a CM 2 patch making this a little too hard). Match stats are good -- no more keepers taking corners -- and tackle/passing stats look OK in general. The number of yellow cards is pretty much spot-on (expect a few suspensions as the season progresses). Oddly I have yet to see a player get sent off from getting two yellow cards in a game -- either a bug or maybe I've not seen enough games. Attendance numbers are more accurate, and rise and fall with team form -- though, for example, the Division 2 playoff final was hideously under-attended at just 18,000 people (50,000 isn't abnormal in real life). Gate receipts for lower league teams seem, if anything, a little low. But, overall, it's close enough to reality to keep all but the most picky of players hooked.
The issue that may turn off more people than anything is the game speed; while match highlights can now be run at five speeds, inter-match pauses, even with multi-tasking turned on, can be big. It's a shame I can't (apparently) filter out matches that don't interest me (like the Copa America). This is most pronounced after you get sacked (I hate Dan MacAuley oh so much), at which point you can only 'have a turn' every Monday in which you apply for jobs. It took me five weeks, and 45-60 minutes of real time, to get a new job (at Preston), and the fact that you're not told about failed applications doesn't help either. I could have added myself back in as a new manager, but I prefer the realism of being a 'journeyman,' and I'm now doing nicely with Preston (and have bought up Plymouth's best young player...for a pittance too). It was also a little disconcerting that my sacking came out of the blue -- no vote of confidence was to be seen. Also, when I left the club the values of my players all fell sharply (probably some game balancing design thing, but odd nonetheless). One nice feature was that I kept my shortlist intact -- this is clearly done by player, not by club.
Bugs? Well, not many. Players promoted from reserves to first team still seem to play in reserve team games sometimes, though this seems to have no ill effect on the player's condition. The marking screen seems a little broken -- if you move a player around on the tactical view you have to quit the screen and re-enter before he'll mark the player he's now lined up against from the opposing team. A niggle, but not exactly critical. Likewise the fact that delegated free kick takers appear to get forgotten with each match. 2ff7e9595c
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