Championship Manager - First Impressions

First Impressions

The release of this first version of the game was not an outstanding success, and sales were steady rather than spectacular. Reviews ranged from the encouraging to the dismissive. Even by early 1990s standards, the graphics of Championship Manager were primitive and there were many other management games available that were much more visually pleasing, such as Premier Manager and The Manager. Critics berated the lack of any real graphics, other than coloured text on top of a background image, and the complete lack of any sound effects. Also, what became known as the "match engine" was very basic, consisting of a clock, 3 small meters showing each team's possession and lines of text commentary describing the match action. Rival game, The Manager, included a small screen showing TV-style clips of match action. Another drawback was the absence of real player names - each team was populated with players generated at random by the computer.