Championship Manager 2008

Despite its somewhat schizophrenic nature, CM08 boasts plenty of quality. Additions worthy of particular praise include a formation overlay, which dynamically displays the opposition’s tactical changes and the fluctuating confidence and fitness levels of your players during matches.

Navigation has been improved with some great new tooltips that provide a wealth of at-a-glance information, while you can now simultaneously manage both a club and international team.The transfer system has also been buffed, with more flexible negotiations perfectly complementing the existing Club Benefactor feature.

The match engine has been refined, and players now lean forward when running, jostle in the area, slide into tackles and launch themselves into heroic leaps and dives. As a highlights simulator, there’s little to fault here. However, unfortunately, real-time matches still fall well short in terms of quality when compared to Football Manager’s.

CM08 is also a tad on the easy side and often requires minimal tactical tweaking in order to win matches, making the superb ProZone tool redundant. Other irks include underdeveloped team talks and player interaction options, a few too many high scoring matches and sudden, unexplained fluctuations in player fitness levels during a match.