Best Players Championship Manager 01 02
Laverne Levenstein
But I never play older versions. CM0102 was the best game for its time and I enjoyed it like no other manager, but there's no way I'll play that again. I'm playing fm09 today, as I'll be playing fm2010 the next year and so on
it was fantastic at the time. i played it a month or so ago. i downloaded it from the eidos website and got the current updates for it. wasnt quite as good as i remember it but i could run every league from every nation no problem.
You could blitz through the game with a number of super tactics, and super players. A limited amount of leagues meant that you could run all of them. It was the final of the CM3 series, and as SI were then as they do now implementing changes gradually, it was the culmination of what they had learnt throughout the CM3 series. It was also the game where the on-line community really began to take off. There had been one before, but it really expanded with 01/02. From which the super tactics and super players flowed.
It was also when I first noticed people complaining about Super-keepers, too many shots for so few goals, the AI asking for ludicrous amounts of money when attempting to buy the worlds best players and that SI had made it so that the game would decide you would lose and there was nothing you could do! Even though you had a Super Tactic and the Worlds Best players! And what about all these injuries eh?
It had at least three patches, the last of which tended to make long games unstable. And even then there were bugs such as managers not being replaced for teams that were in a background league. Fixtures getting so congested that once I saw a Spanish season that had 99 games played in a single day. Again in Spain, Barcelona C winning not only the league but the Champions League. And of course, there were people who didn't have computers that could cope with it then.
There's a lot of nostalgia for the game, but it occasionally is too rosey eyed. It had problems. It was still fun though. Still can be. So long as you accept what's in the game and play to those parameters, not to what you think should be.
Because it was my first Manager game. Funny enough I got this game from a cereal box. Thats how it started for me!! From there onwards I had the love of the game but since Football Manager 2008 I lost a bit of interest.
People like it because it was a quality game at the time. I still play the game unpatched. There are no serious bugs in the game (like further releases) and at the time even an average computer could easily do a season in 5-6 hours. It mixed pleasure with speed. Players personality seemed to shine a bit more in the gmae i thought. Anelka was a prime example of this. You would sign him and he would be content at the club. Ive seen him at clubs where hes got upto 10 negative comments about the club/manager/players where he was.
its considered the best in the series by people who enjoyed it more at the time than they enjoy FM09, CM9798 was my first, favourite and best in the series because of how much i liked it at the time, but obviously its not as good in 2009
I'm guessing it's still considered best in series by many because it was fast, easy and most importantly, FUN! You could just pick it up and play without the need of reading hundreds of pages of tips and guides, that most of the time don't even work, in order to succeed. It wasn't very realistic but let's be honest, the match engine in FM 09 isn't very realistic either and the game is now nowhere near as fun as it used to be.
Personally I don't think CM 01/02 is best in series but I can certainly see why would someone prefer it over the newer versions. Most people who didn't play it would probably not like it now but at that time, it was a brilliant game.
I do remember the stadium expansion bug where stadiums in Brazil and Italy would grow out of control, which was later fixed in a later patch. One World Cup Final at the Maracana in the 2040s was played in front of 620,000 fans in my game iirc.
I remember it was the days before internet was readily available (at least for me) and I actually found the game incredibly difficult at first. But once you got a hang of where to look for players you'd soon dominate, even if it did take you quite a while to reach the top.
It's easy for nostalgia to cloud a persons judgement. CM 01/02 had many bugs, it was very unrealistic in many areas, it was too shallow and the commentary was repetitive, but it was the best we had available back then so we knew no better
It was easy to exploit, it was easy to win, it was easy to finish seasons in a few hours. Perhaps that's why it's so favourable amongst the rushers who are so eager to get through seasons (why I have no idea)
It's easy to look at old games with rose tinted glasses, we only remember the good points, but in reality CM 01/02 is not even on the same level as the FM series, at least not if you are serious about football managing games
As strange as it is, speaking about that "nostalgia often disappoints", I've always tend to find with previous series that as much as I loved 0102 and 9798 (my personal favourite), going back to them now is just unplayable for me. Not in the sense of enjoyment, but understanding the game. The series has evolved so much technically that I find the game easier to deal with and manage ingame than previous versions. I'm never quite sure why.
0102 with the "super tactics" and things I never agreed with, though on the whole the game was enjoyable. I just found the gameplay for me made my preferred style of LLM too difficult during the CM3 series for some reason - I always used to start with Rochdale or Wigan Athletic in 9798 days!
I recently played 01/02 and just couldn't get along with it at all. The GUI is just awful to use and ugly (back then it was the dogs...). Lots of features I've now taken for granted in the recent years (2007-2009) I find it hard to deal without. Knowing where a players best position is for example is now key when selecting transfer targets. Granted I've also grown up a lot more and I enjoy the tactical aspects of the game more than back then when it was still a bit of fun. That whole positioning thing (wibble/wobble?) in 01/02 still confuses me to this day too. Hell I went back to playing 2007 a few weeks back and struggled to cope without my fitness view for my squad (having to look up each players fitness is now considered a pain to me, especially during pre-season).
After that game came CM4, regarded by some as the worst in the CM/FM series, and some people didn't like the direction the game was evolving so they stuck with CM01/02. They didn't like the games that followed either, so they stuck with CM01/02. The reality that its not on the same level as FM is only your opinion and belittling those for simply not following the herd is poor in mine. There will always be bugs in every game, but not everyone places the same importance on the ones in CM01/02 that you and the same goes for the realism. I could say it is easy for you to look back now and say the game was unrealistic when you have FM09 sitting on your hard drive.
01/02 was awesome, the game was fun then, whilst I do enjoy the tactical side of the later versions, because of time constraints and other responsibilites I never get further than 5 or 6 years into the game, 01/02 I regularly got 25 years or so in, I remember taking Rushden & Diamonds to champions league success in that version.
July 14 2001. A day no doubt etched into the memories of everyone currently on the wrong side of 30. Let me take you there: Manchester United have just broken the British transfer record to sign
Juan Sebastin Vern. Turn by Feeder is blaring out of every radio in a 12-mile radius. George W. Bush is setting new lows as one of the worst US Presidents of all time. How lucky we were.
I arrive at the club gates with a single purpose: to use my knowledge of the 01/02 transfer market, and the resources at my disposal at Nene Park, to take Rushden and Diamonds to the Premier League title. The pros have already been established: money is abundant, and expectations are low. However, it also comes with one obvious downside: are any of the players I know, the legends of CM 01/02, going to be prepared to come to Division 3? And even if some of them do, will they cut it on a cold, rainy Wednesday night in Kidderminster? Or am I going to be stuck with the plodders that make up my starting squad for a whole season and get relegated in disgrace? Only time, and several large, strong coffees, will tell.
I decide to stop messing around and start looking for the legends that I know can be found in CM 01/02, particularly in Scandinavia. I try my best to remember as many names as possible and end up with bids for:
Kim Kallstrom, Teddy Lucic, Eddie Gustafsson, Stefan Selakovic, Tonton Zola Moukoko, Kennedy Bakircioglu, Maxim Tsigalko, Sergey Nikiforenko, Eldar Hadzimehmedovic, Mike Duff, Helder Rosario, Byron Bubb, Florin Batrinu, Chris Brandon, and Yakubu.
Anyone who knows me will tell you I am football mad. Aside from my son and my wife, my family and friends, football is probably the most important thing in my life. I am devoted to Swindon Town, I can watch any match of any standard with any team. I enjoy playing it (although I am not what you would call good), listening on the radio, anything.
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