ALBION MANAGER REVIEW

Can you handle it?
By Sam Box
November 26 2003

Ever moaned at Megson in the stands. Megson what you doing putting Dichio on, Dobie would do a better job. Well now is your chance to put Megson right with albion's official managing sim 'ALBION club manager'

Championship manager, Everyone's favourite managing simulator. Or is it? Just Football have not long ago released 'ALBION Club Manager'. By the title you may of guessed what the game is about. Instead of having all the options of every club in the league and so many others. This title is clearly based on our very own West Bromwich Albion. You won't see many game reviews on baggiesworld but as a special occasion we went through 'ALBION club manager' and here is what we found.

Game play

The game is nice and fast. No waiting round for ages for it to load like championship manager. As it is only based on our club it makes the game a lot faster and is also able to play on older systems. Having got the rights 'ALBION club manager' has got player photo's and great club backgrounds. The game has a very good transfer market. Buy anyone from anywhere. You can buy Kidderminster Harriers Bo Henrickson to Manchester United's Ruud Van Nistlerooy (If he can get into your team). The game has all the up to date squads for the 2003/04 season. You can train the team how you want. Give some of your players rest (If your in a good mood). The game includes realistic club situations. You handle all transfer situations and also to make sure your game doesn't go out of date Just Football offer online support through the season with download packs to update your game with new transfer etc.

The Match

Match day. Whether its 7:45 on a Wednesday or the traditional 3pm Saturday afternoon you are bound to have a realistic match day experience. Will it be 0-0 or a seven goal thriller. The match day part of the game starts of by showing you the opposing team and the last 5 results.  Now you know the starting XI and their tactics you pick your team. You can do this yourself or do it the lazy way by clicking suggest team. Right, now its time for the match. To see the match you have three different options of commentary. You can choose detailed, normal or brief depending on how long you want to spend and how close you want to watch your teams effort. Next to the commentary you have how much percentage the teams have been in possession and how long the ball has been in each area of the park. Half time you have a box that comes up with the halt time score and scorers and the same at full time but at full time you also get a match attendance. The attendance ranges on how well you are doing at that point of the season.

Features

There are lots of  features on 'ALBION club manager'. Some have already been mentioned in the game play section. There are features such as manager diary where you have all the news on your team, emails from the chairman and also Football 365 news updates on other teams. The training ground feature, where you give your players a training schedule to how you want them to train. Transfer Market where you buy and sell players. Club finances where you can check whether you have as much money as Chelsea or whether your nearly bust like Wimbledon. The club information section tells you your form, last 3 scores, last 10 results and much more interesting facts. and finally the reports section which includes the disciplinary chart, the top 20 scorers and a team of the week section.

Overall

Just Football has done very well on this game and has given Albion fans a hard decision to choose from if they have to choose between championship manager or Albion club manager. Here at baggiesworld we see it as a must for all Albion fans and give is a rating of 8/10. Thanks to just football we are giving 2 free copies away in baggiesworld's very own competition. Explore the site for more details. For screenshots see below.