''Championship Manager 5'' is the fifth installment of the popular

Championship Manager series ''Championship Manager'' is a series of football-management simulation video games, the first of which was released in 1992. The ''Championship Manager'' brand and game was conceived by brothers Paul and Oliver Collyer. In a scenario typical of ...

of football management computer games. It is the first game in the series to be developed by Eidos, after the much publicised split between

Eidos Eidos may refer to: * Eidos (philosophy), a Greek term meaning "form" "essence", "type" or "species". See Plato's theory of forms and Aristotle's theory of universals * Eidos plc, a British software company, which created video game publisher Eido ...

and

Sports Interactive Sports Interactive Limited is a British video game developer based in London, best known for the '' Football Manager'' series. Founded by brothers Oliver and Paul Collyer in July 1994, the studio was acquired by Japanese video game publisher S ...

Early difficulties

The game was originally due for release in October 2004. However, the release date slipped to March, 2005, due to difficulties in coding the game from scratch. This allowed new rival, Sports Interactive's '' Football Manager 2005'' a clear run to establish itself ahead of the release of CM5. A release on the

Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...

platform was cancelled prior to release, again giving headway to its rival, ''Football Manager'', which was made available for Mac as standard on a dual format CD-ROM (with the PC version). Upon its release, the game contained an unusually high number of bugs. Even though BGS published a downloadable patch on the day of release, many users felt that CM5 was unplayable. Key problems included difficulties transferring players (either in or out of a club) and a very unrealistic match engine. Perhaps one of the biggest issues discovered by people purchasing CM5 was the fact that the player database was not particularly reliable. The database had been made 'for the fans by the fans' in previous games. This was probably the biggest strength of the CM brand. BGS had employed a professional firm to create much of the player database and they had apparently failed, despite the best efforts of the in-house research team. Other issues also arose shortly after CM5 was released. Features like hotseat multiplayer games which, although confirmed as being included in CM5, disappointed some by their absence when the game arrived. Other small things such as player histories were also missing from the final product. Two patches are available that contain significant improvements to the game.

Console versions

A scaled-down version of Championship Manager 5 was released on

Xbox Xbox is a video gaming brand created and owned by Microsoft. The brand consists of five video game consoles, as well as applications (games), streaming services, an online service by the name of Xbox network, and the development arm by the ...

and

PlayStation 2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October 2000, in Europe on 24 November 2000, and in Australia on ...

in March 2005 along with a

PlayStation Portable The PlayStation Portable (PSP) is a handheld game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 12, 2004, in North America on March 24, 2005, and in PAL regions on September 1, 200 ...

version, simply called ''

Championship Manager ''Championship Manager'' is a series of football-management simulation video games, the first of which was released in 1992. The ''Championship Manager'' brand and game was conceived by brothers Paul and Oliver Collyer. In a scenario typical o ...

''. These are known to contain many of the same bugs and data errors as the PC version. All 3 console versions were developed by Gusto Games.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Championship Manager 05 2005 video games Association football management video games Beautiful Game Studios games Eidos Interactive games PlayStation 2 games Single-player video games Video game sequels Video games developed in the United Kingdom Windows games Xbox games Gusto Games games

Early difficulties

Console versions

See also

External links