FOOTBALL MANAGER 2 By: Addictive Games Download: footman2.zip The excellent sales of the first Football Manager game meant that a second game was always on the cards. A major remake however had to be made because other companies were making their own soccer management sims. Just releasing the first game with a few improvements (which is the path many sequels take) wouldn't cut it. The original Football Manager was very simple and anyone with some knowledge on BASIC could have made it. The reason behind it's success was the idea. There were many soccer mad fans who wanted to try their hand at managing a team. When Football Manager got released there wasn't any alternatives but a few years later other software houses were jumping on the bandwagon and made their own management games which were more advanced.

Football Manager 2 doesn't disappoint in this respect. The game's creator seems to have started from scratch when coding this game because it looks completely different. The aim of the game is still the same, you pick a team and try to take it from Division Four to Division One and cup glory. How you go about this though now is completely different.

When the game starts you will already be hit with a new feature, sponsorship. A company is likely to offer you some cash to become your sponsor and you can either accept the extra cash or decline and hope for a better offer. When it comes to make your choice you now select your option and click on fire (you can use either keys or joystick now.) This works well except when you pick a team. In that case instead of getting a list of teams and picking who you want you'll get offered a team and you say either yes or no. You can end up saying no for a long time if you want to manage a small obscure team. You'll also notice that the in game menus now look far better than the original's BASIC feel.

The game proper then begins. Every week you start by viewing your management record which has information on how many seasons you have played and how many competitions have won. You still have four divisions but the number of cups has increased to two. After your done with looking at that the real fun of matchday can begin.

Picking your team is the area which has changed the most. Instead of just picking eleven players you now get presented with a picture of the pitch. You have four slots in attack, midfield and defence where you can put players in. These slots cover the wings and centre of the pitch. There is also a slot for the goalkeeper (a position which didn't appear in the first game.) This is a more realistic system and you can see that it affects the match results. When the match starts you'll see one forward upfront if that is what you picked. The players are now rated slightly differently to the first game. The maximum rating for players is now nine instead of five. Fitness is now also a percentage instead of out of twenty.

When the match begins you'll see that the stick men are now no more. Good colourful graphics show how the match turns out with players in the positions you picked them in. The match highlights now cover the midfield as well as the two opposing ends. Some nice touches include diving keepers and being told which player has scored the goals. The match takes longer to finish than the first game so expect a season to last much longer (especially with the extra games you end up playing). One nice feature is that at half time you can make changes to the team depending on how things are going. You get two substitutes to use and it really makes the game far more strategic.

After the match is over you'll get to see the league table and results. You'll also be told of any injuries at this stage rather than discovering them before the kick-off. The transfer list which you get at this point also has more players to bid on than the lone player in the prequel.

One final addition the game has is training. Here you can alter how your team passes the ball. You get the option of increasing/decreasing how far/high the ball is kicked.

Football Manager 2 is far more advanced than the first game. Players will enjoy it more than the first although it still suffers the fault of getting repetitive and stale after a while. This is not helped by seasons taking longer to complete. As a result this game has to be classed as something which soccer management fans will like and anyone else probably won't.

Rating: 77%