Championship Manager 4
What all CM fans were waiting for, however, was Championship Manager 4. Released on March 28, 2003, CM4 broke all records on its release becoming, at that time, the fastest-selling PC game ever on its first day of release. By now its fame was international; encompassing fans via online communities and buy-in through the additional leagues in the game. CM4 included thirty-nine playable leagues, plus four more in its update, CM03/04. On the gameplay side, a top-down view of the match engine was included for the first time, a significant shift from the "imagination" philosophy championed by Sports Interactive previously.
Despite its high sales, CM4 was generally not well received by hardcore fans for several reasons. The game ran quite slowly on computers which had previously had no difficulty in running CM games (a common issue with software). The original release contained some functional bugs which in some cases rendered the game farcical - the score in matches could randomly change and lower division clubs were able to sign superstars with ease. In one bug, non-league club Northwich Victoria would move to a stadium with a capacity of 850,000. Sports Interactive also irritated some fans with the euphemistic term "Enhancement Packs" used to describe what were essentially patches to fix the bugs in the original release. This term was dropped for future releases.
Read more about this topic: Championship Manager Series
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