Championship Manager 3 (PC)

Having become hooked on Championship Manager '97/'98 in January last year, you can understand my joy when I read in March last year that Championship Manager 3 would be out by July. After hearing it had been put back to September, I wasn't too bothered, as it would include the new season's figures. A long time later, after much delay, I think it was certainly worth the wait!

CM '97/'98 was undoubtedly an absolute stormer of a game. The fact that it kept many people up well into the early hours (me included) goes to show how addictive it really is. The system was getting a bit old fashioned, though. A native DOS game, it took hours to chug through the results, even when running through Windows.

The interface hadn't been improved fully since the first publication of Championship Manager 2. It really needed a major overhaul. A job well done, the game is now native Windows 95/98, and takes many ideas from the actual operating system such as drop-down menus and incorporates them into the game beautifully.

Be warned though for two main reasons:

1) Life-sappingly addictive (work to do or exams to revise for? You have no chance if you start playing this).

2) The minimum spec on the box is a joke - a P133 with 16Mb of RAM? I have a P150 with 32Mb of RAM and it chugs along running only one league. 15 leagues? Have a few months and about 1 Gig of HD space to spare.

The interface may be remarkably familiar in-game, but only when you look closely can you see the new additions to the system. The transfer system (the best in a football management game anyway) has been improved further. The tactics editor is wonderful if you get a system to work, but it can be frustrating to do so in the process, just like the real thing. The addition of training, reserve squads and actually employing your own staff adds to the game's depth.

Two minor quibbles:

1) You still cannot play over the Internet. This is probably a blessing in disguise, the phone bills would soar to heights never known before.

2) You still cannot develop your ground. This is one of the things that helps make Ultimate Soccer Manager and Premier Manager a little more playable.

Hopefully these will be included in CM4. Until then though this will do very nicely thank you very much.

95%

John Whitehouse