Championship Manager 2011 Review

Game: Championship Manager 2011

Developer: Beautiful Game Studios

Publisher: Square Enix

Released On: iOS

I posted a letter the other day, only it never got to it’s destination.

When I went to the Post Office and asked why the intended recipient did not receive the letter they could not answer other than to say the letter had not been received. They blamed me, implicitly, for the missing package. Maybe I had not paid enough for postage. Maybe I had spelled the address incorrectly.

We will never know quite why my brush with the Post Office went so terribly wrong. It’s a closed system. A failed letter never reaches its destination and provides no information as to why. It is failure with no feedback and, as such, you learn nothing from it.

In the case of the letter, all you can do is write it again, tweak the amount of stamps, write the address in block capitals and send it again…then cross your fingers.

In the case of Championship Manager 2011 for the iPhone, you are faced with the same issue: no feedback. It’s a real shame.

After years of PC and Mac releases this iteration of Championship Manager is currently an Apple iOS exclusive, designed from the ground up to work on both the iPhone and the iPod Touch. Simple, quick and unerringly clear, the interface that navigates ChampMan 11 is a tactile symphony. All your managerial tools are accessed through big, blue ‘App-like’ buttons which logically group tasks under headings like ‘Team Management’ and ‘Competitions’. Aiding this is a navigation wheel that is always available, giving you quick and easy access to the key actions that you will be using all the time: league tables, training, squad, all available with just the spin of the wheel. Not only was it designed for the iPhone, Championship Manager 2011’s interface seems inspired by the iOS itself and really illustrates how much a game can benefit when it is designed with the particular strengths of a platform in mind.

Management Viagra

Beyond that, there are areas where Championship Manager even appears to exceed the capabilities of its new host hardware. Divisions from around Europe, licensed Europa League, FA Cup, Carling Cup and more; the realistic view given of world football is impressive. What’s more, the player database is extraordinary and had me staring at my iPhone like a caveman, twisting it in the light wondering how so many names could be squeezed into such a small box. Outfield players are assessed and graded on sixteen distinct and different categories, fewer than you might expect for a management game but easy to track on the smaller screen. One odd omission; this reviewer could not find any way of doing a quick player/player comparison, so assessing who was the best striker in your squad became an exercise in number recall and memory. A small but aggravating chink in the otherwise flawless presentation.

Unfortunately, like an England World Cup campaign, things that start with so much promise can often fail to maintain their momentum.

Owing to the touch interface, the game provides brilliant fun tinkering with your side (you’re even able to choose a style based on famous historical teams – though setting up my Ipswich Town lads to play like the 2009-vintage Barcelona team might have been asking too much) but when you reach the game it is very unclear what impact your choices have had on proceedings. The game simulation engine provides only basic highlights and worse still, these highlights don’t provide a clear picture of where your side is succeeding or failing. You are only given basic possession, momentum and shots on goal data and there are no statistics, graphs or diagrams indicating where your side is having success or creating chances. Equally, there is nothing to show where you are winning possession or losing it and a total absence of anything to indicate which players are being exploited and which have the advantage over the opposition. It leaves you feeling incredibly helpless during games and often discourages tinkering as you fear that a change in strategy is as likely to lead to a goal conceded as a goal scored. Without the visual feedback of an accurate game engine or the numerical feedback provided in years past by ChampMan’s Prozone you are completely blind to the needs of your side. What makes this opaqueness all the more painful is that the developers have included simple to use, yet deep micro-management options for each player. Runs, role and exact position can be adjusted but the game is incapable of providing the in-game feedback necessary for you to know whether your change was a success, failure or inconsequential.

The performance on the pitch was a bit spotty

At the completion of each game, you do get the option to speak with your assistant manager who provides performance tidbits like ‘You need a drastic change in formation’. Hardly the context needed to fine tune a winning strategy. There are also some maddening inconsistencies in the advice from your assistant. Early in the game I asked for some team selection advice and I was told to drop my goalkeeper for his understudy. I did this and it didn’t help, so for the next game I used the auto-select tool for every position and it automatically re-selected the old, previously dropped goalkeeper. I went to the assistant who suggested, guess what, that I drop that goalie. This kind of inconsistency of information when you, the player, are searching for any kind of data makes it impossible to think that you are in control of improving your team.

It’s a closed system. You pick the players, but once you post them out onto the field you feel totally out of control. Failure is frustrating and success is hollow because there is simply no way of being sure that the changes you made were the difference between victory and defeat. When triumph and defeat in a football management game summon up the same emotions as posting a letter it is clear that the all is not well.

It truly is a shame because the quality of the presentation, superb interface and complete nature of the international leagues and tournaments sets a high standard for football management games on Apple’s touch devices. However, the stripped-down nature of the game-day statistics and total lack of comprehensive feedback during matches leave you feeling like you are trapped in the stands rather than pulling the strings in the dugout.