As I'm from the school of Champ 01/02 - commonly touted as the greatest ever - I was rather skeptical at first. However, the game quickly eased me into the gameplay, with minimal problems. The detail is clearly much more advanced from the latter versions, with more concentration on staff-player relations, and your interactivity with the outside world. Morale within the team is obviously a much higher priority than ever before, with the option of giving reasons for dropping a player, or actually having to live up to the usual scapegoat of setting a player's status to 'indispensable' - in this game, if a 'key' player is not played for the majority of the first-team matches, he will have problems which you will have to confront. At first this may seem like the game is more nit-picky or tedious, but it simply acts as a means by which the gamer is tested for ability to cope with the job. As both an owner of Champ Manager '06, and of Football Manager '06, I have to say that, for me, there is little to no competition. Champ is much more user friendly, with much more simplified and easy-to-use options and buttons, as well as a much more in-depth and integral relationship with players. The 3-D pitch update is a massive plus, aiding the player to see where their problems, or strengths lie. Another major plus point with this is the feature whereby the user can control match speed in a much more analogue way, i.e. via slide, rather than the choice between 'Fast' and 'Very Fast'. There are so many other plus points and strengths to this game, all of which have added to it's mind-numbing compatibility and marriage-wrecking addictivity, but I fear I would be typing for the rest of my young life. A very definite 9/10 min.
Other Helpful Reviews for Championship Manager 2006
CM 2006 is, without a doubt, the best game in the Championship Manager series and is a huge improvement from last year's dismal CM5. The 3D pitch is actually 3D as opposed to the circular players of CM5 and the Football ... Read Full Review
This game has not got enough depth to call itself a football manager game. There needs to be more control for the player as a manager. There needs to be more real issues that you will really have in footy as a manager su... Read Full Review
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