Championship Manager 5 Review

Back when Football Manager had competition

Championship Manager 5 Review

Back to the PCZone archives we go — this time for Championship Manager 5.

PCZone’s review of Football Manager 2005 came out in December 2004, and was truly a rave review. The magazine announced up and down that it was the true successor to the old Championship Manager series — which makes sense, of course, since the underlying code was the same.

Championship Manager 5, meanwhile, was delayed considerably. Though the game was technically released in late March 2005, this review didn’t appear in PCZone until the May issue, which seems quite late. By this time, hardcore fans of the franchise were already invested in their Football Manager 2005 saves.

So how did the rebuilt Championship Manager fare?

There’s a bit of historical irony in the fact that Football Manager’s great competitor received a poor review because its features were cosmetic, its game was filled with bugs, and its match engine was poorly designed. One wonders what PCZone would have said about the early days of FM2023 or FM2024.