Championship Manager 2009

Perhaps more so than any time since Brian Clough's era, football management is as much about personality as it is results. In fact, you could say the two go hand in hand.

The likes of Gareth Southgate, who find themselves straining for every point at the bottom of the league, don't exactly beam with charm, stagnant talk about the 'lads trying their hardest' and 'not giving up until the last day of the season' sitting unfavourably next to the Jose Mourinhos of this world, with their 'special one' quips and trophies galore.

When you tackle something as potentially studious as a football management sim, coming as they do flush with statistics and numbers in spades, throwing in a portion of personality can go a long way to ensuring the title comes out smelling of roses. This latest Championship Manager - which has always been a fairly formal take on football management - is somewhat lacking in that department.

In fairness, it's perhaps no drier than its predecessor, but then things have moved on a little. Namely by Gameloft's Real Football Manager series, which, in its last outing, managed to make the complicated nature of management digestible, splitting it into small nuggets and presenting it with the same flair as more mainstream standard football titles.

Championship Manager 2009 is a little more traditional. Laying all of its options out from the start, this is a game populated with scores of menu screens and, unfortunately, controls that seem to change from one to another. Just whether you should you use the soft-key or the D-pad is never really standardised, but such a multitude of menus does allow access to a vast range of management options that would once have been the sole territory of PC outings.

Play is basically broken down into two sections. News, regarding both your own club and the actions of other teams in your league (of which, only the four English leagues are available), is delivered at the end of each day. In between these bulletins, you have access to every aspect of the running of your club, from dealing with the squad you have (tactics, formations, praising or reprimanding individual players) to picking up new stars on the transfer market.

In a smart move, although Championship Manager 2009 has an English bias you can also sign players from a vast selection of top European clubs, from the likes of Bayern Munich to Real Madrid.

European cups are also included, but it's the game's portrayal of the matches themselves that's the focus and, somewhat unusually, that provides both its strong and weak points.

There are numerous ways and speeds to watch each match, but the default mode views the pitch from above, pinhead players dashing around like lemmings on drugs, while text commentary flashes at the top of the screen.

Though said commentary shows an impressive amount of variety, it usually doesn't tie in with the action below and, in itself, can get mightily confusing. Players pick up the ball after they've been substituted and team-mates commit fouls on each other, to name a couple of examples.

It's no doubt a small bug and needless to say doesn't affect every match or even alter the outcome of those it does pop up in, but the end result is that Championship Manager 2009 feels a little sloppy. For a title with its foundations in statistics, it's a tad unacceptable.

Still, while an accurate prediction of the outcome of this season is unlikely, Championship Manager 2009 is ultimately playable and provides enough scope to guarantee its worthiness as a decent, though not perfect, arena for all the Mourinhos in waiting out there.

Championship Manager 2009

A little rough around the edges, the latest Championship Manager is a deep and playable stab at modern football management, but could probably do with a little more personality to score against the likes of the Real Football Manager series
Score
Keith Andrew
Keith Andrew
With a fine eye for detail, Keith Andrew is fuelled by strong coffee, Kylie Minogue and the shapely curve of a san serif font. He's also Pocket Gamer's resident football gaming expert and, thanks to his work on PG.biz, monitors the market share of all mobile OSes on a daily basis.