It's perhaps unsurprising to kick off a review of Championship Manager Season 03/04 by instantly declaring it to be the finest football-management game on the planet. But, frankly, it is, and this latest seasonal update improves the game still further. The objective is still the same. Taking charge of your team of choice, you're charged with meeting the expectations of the team's supporters and directors, while balancing the books, the highs and lows of your playing staff and hopefully winning a few games into the bargain. Plus trying to hang on to your job, of course.
What's always lifted the Championship Manager games well ahead of their rivals, many of whom deliver the same basic setup as above, are two factors. The first is depth. The sheer weight of statistics and complications you need to consider are both staggering and engrossing in equal measure. But that's when the second key factor kicks in: accessibility. With a finely tuned user interface, this is a desperately easy game to get into, albeit packed with an immense and highly addictive long term challenge. It's a real achievement that the player is rarely left stuck and bewildered by the wealth of information they're presented with.
This new version brings a few extra goodies into play as well, alongside a much-needed polish and tidy-up. Goal of the month and season competitions are incorporated for instance, along with live cup draws and expanded international sides. More importantly, factors such as the training and media segments of the game have been clearly tightened up, and the various statistics have been brought up-to-date.
A predictable conclusion, then: Championship Manager Season 03/04 is a superb game, and without question the best in its field by some way. It does, however, come with one caveat. Once you get into it, there's a real possibly that your social life will come to a crashing end. Don't say we didn't warn you. --Simon Brew
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