Ever had a dream to manage your favourite football team or have you ever felt like you could do better than Fabio Capello or Rafael Benitez? Well for most of us football fans that dream will never become a reality, so for the next best thing…enter the Football Manager series.
Originally released in 1992 on the PC platform as 'Championship Manager' it was the first of it's kind and has been ever popular with football fans alike. Year after year a new 'updated' version with some new features is released allowing the popular franchise to continue.
In 2004 Football Manager was created after developers Sports Interactive (SI) split from publishers Eidos Interactive, but they managed to retain the rights to the source code but not the rights to the title Championship Manager, which were held onto by Eidos.
Eurogamer: "It's a shame when relationships end but it's often for the best. Football Manager and me had it all – long intimate evenings, weekends away, the occasional holiday. I'd thought we never split up. But eventually cracks began to appear, the physical side deteriorated, and we became strangers.
As an early adopter of pretending to manage a football team on a computer (i.e. a semi-autistic weirdo), a chronic addiction to Football Manager seemed my inevitable destiny. My first taste was the original Football Manager on the ZX Spectrum, whose bearded creator, Kevin Toms, appeared beaming on the cassette case cover."
Chris Evans reveals the truth of his younger days playing Football Manager and Championship Manager. His evil underhand tactics to win matches are unveiled for all to see.
The UK's loss of talented developers in the sports genre has been 'utterly huge' according to Miles Jacobson, the studio head of London-based Football Manager developer Sports Interactive.
In an exclusive interview with Develop, Jacobson explained that Canada's exemplary tax break rates – which peak at 40% of dev costs – was the reason why a number of British-born developers now work in cities such as Vancouver and Toronto.
NICE review, online does suck but hey!