Championship Manager 2017 Review: We get hopelessly addicted to the latest Champ Manager sim for iPhone and Android mobiles.
Championship Manager throughout the ages is responsible for sucking up the spare time, sleeping time and work time of many a hapless footy fan. It’s caused far more sick days than flu and food poisoning combined. And now that you can download Champ Man to your humble mobile, it’s set to dominate our toilet trips and commutes for the forseeable future.
All of the standard Champ Man features are in place for this mobile version of Championship Manager 2017. This latest release once again sees you take over at a lower league club (unless you want to pay real cash to immediately manage a Premier League team) and – hopefully – lift them to the top of the table, while meeting the objectives of your board.
Your Assistant Manager talks you through the basics of the game and then you’re basically on your own, which can be daunting as hell if you’re a Champ Man noob. However, Championship Manager fans will be right at home, with loads of training, transfer and tactical tools available to strengthen your squad.
Check out our in-depth Championship Manager 2017 tips and tricks guide for a complete look at the various management features.
We really like Champ Man 17’s transfer tool, which as usual allows you to browse a massive database of real-life players and shortlist your chosen few, before putting in bids and negotiating wages. And of course you can also shift your deadwood, to give your wages budget a boost.
Training is also well implemented, allowing you to work on individual players’ key stats as well as the team’s tactics as a whole. It’s a careful balancing act, between improving your current squad and bringing in new talent, especially as your funds tend to be rather tight at the start of the game.
However, we prefer Top Eleven 2016’s stadium feature, which allowed you to upgrade individual parts of your playing ground and facilities, as well as diving more into the financial aspects of running the club. Here it’s much more simplified, with the ability only to upgrade your stadium as a whole, along with the training facilities, youth academy and medical facilities.
Still, at least Champ Man 17 doesn’t feature the same irritating time structure for matches as Top Eleven, so you can smash through a season at your own pace. You can also happily take a break at any time (if your will power is that great) and come back days or weeks later, and the game won’t have progressed in your absence.
Matches still have that classic Champ Man look and feel, with a real-time top-down shot of each chance as the clock ticks towards the final whistle. You can check out the match stats, player ratings and other vital info at any time and pause when the ball goes out of play to make any tactical substitutions. Basically, everything you’d expect from a footy management sim.
The only minor complaint we have is that for some reason, the sides don’t swap ends for the second half, which is a little bit disorienting.
Of course, Champ Manager 2017 is a freemium game, so while it doesn’t cost anything to download, you do occasionally have to sit through adverts. You’ll also be tempted to drop some real cash on fake transfer and training money, but if you’re patient enough you can progress through the leagues and prove yourself in the Premier League in short enough time.
Championship Manager 2017 is available to download free for Android and iOS devices.
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