Battle of the iPhone apps: Championship Manager vs Football Manager

Let me say first of all that both are really good. It’s a triumph for the developers that such data heavy behemoths can be ported to phones. Alongside Tiger Woods and GTA they are probably the most impressive achievements to date in mobile gaming.

Both are smaller versions of the bigger game so I won’t dwell on the CM v FM debate – here I am looking at how well they transfer to the iPhone (or the iPod Touch). Here we go…

Interface

Firstly Champman is portrait and FM is landscape, a huge plus for the latter – it just feels more natural holding a gaming device that way (although in fairness that might be because I am used to playing a PSP). In terms of buttons, scrolling etc. FM also has the advantage – continue, back and so on are bigger and more responsive, and it’s easier to drag and drop players, squad numbers, formations, and everything else you would expect.

Reliability

I have played Champman more – but to me it seems a lot less reliable. There is nothing worse than winning a crucial game only to be forced to replay it, or worse a couple of weeks of game time. This happened a few times in the season I played (finishing second with Newcastle to a ridiculous Crystal Palace side). On FM, a few games in, it’s yet to crash… (touch wood)

Match Engine

Again FM wins – both are good, as good as a few versions ago on the PC. But FM’s is more versatile and more realistic, you can see what is going on, and players seem to be in the right place more often. It’s not uncommon on Champman for all the players to be around one goal only for the other team to score.

Speed

This is where FM really comes into its own. It’s REALLY fast. Saving and loading games take a few seconds at most, background games happen in a heartbeat, and load times are minimal. Champman is quick too – but not AS quick. As is becoming a running theme, FM is just that little bit more streamlined, that little bit more polished.

Realism

Here we get to comparing the games themselves rather than the mobile port but it has to be done. And again FM wins, hands down this time. 8-0 wins are not infrequent on CM, I’m yet to see a Spurs-Wiganesque result on FM. Also you have to go through the ballache of press conferences on CM which are really badly thought out and executed, and basically just a pain in the ass. Transfer proceedings are much smoother on FM whereas CM is largely blind and just a bit shit. Navigating between training and team selection on CM is clunky and clumsy and though it takes a few more clicks than I’d like it is still far more user friendly. Also I’ve heard reports that transfers sometimes ‘go wrong’ on Champman – a friend said he signed Fabregas only for him to appear as a goalkeeper and double the funds taken.

Cost

CM comes in slightly cheaper at £2.99 as opposed to the £6.99 FM costs. But at less than a tenner you can’t complain at either.

Conclusion

As I began, both are good. I loved CM before FM came out. But Sega have raised the bar – FM is better in real life and it is better on the iPhone/iPod Touch. It’s essentially a port of the PSP version, ‘FM Lite’ – great to pass a tube ride or other moments of boredom. For £6.99 is really is exceptional. If you really must save that £4, Champman is good too…

Champman – 7/10 – It’s good but it’s not the one…

FM – 9/10 – Brilliant

You can buy them both in iTunes. I would set up an affiliate thing so you could buy them from here but I can’t be bothered.

We’ve found an excellent list of the best online football based games – http://myfootballgames.co.uk. We’ll get round to playing and reviewing all of these eventually, but read on for our first; Roberto Baggio’s Magical Kicks (click here to access it).

The best way to do this is probably for me to recount a story from my University days, when I first stumbled across this gem. With abundant time and a fascination for football games, I made it my immediate ambition to top the all time leaderboard. No mean feat, as the leader had several thousand successful ‘kicks’ at the time. It’s addictiveness and longevity is proven by my assault, which lasted several days (an hour or two per evening, often after getting in from a night out), then weeks – after about six weeks, without turning off my laptop, I had crept up to about sixth, with several hundred kicks to my name.

At this juncture I should mention there is no ‘save’ function, so your score is dynamic, and when you navigate away or close the window, that’s your final total. So imagine my distress when, upon coming back from a rare venture to a lecture, I opened the door to my room, firstly to be met with the sweet smell of cleanliness that marked a visit by the cleaner, then the gut wrenching feeling of panic as I saw the plug from my laptop lying loose on the floor.

No, no… it couldn’t be. After all my weeks of hard work propelling myself up the leaderboard, the cleaner had replaced my laptop plug with that of the hoover! Without any save function, I was doomed. My stomach tightened. I was short of breath. Suddenly it occured to me; what if it had gone to standby in battery mode?! There was still hope! I dropped everything on the floor, swept up my little Dell laptop, and with a deep breath, pressed the power button. Nothing. I pressed and held it a little longer. Nothing. I sat, demoralised and inconsolable. All my work out of the window. Gone, like that, in one fell swoop.

My one hope was that my score had somehow been saved, cached, registered, anything. I plugged it in. I turned it on. Nothing on Baggio’s Magical Kicks. No record of my hard work, dedication, and persistence. I was a broken man. I took one to console myself. I scored. I took another. I got comfortable. This wasn’t over yet…

Here is the blurb from their website about what it does:

Football Superstars is the world’s first Virtual Football World. An entire online football game designed by football fans exclusively for football fans, where you can enjoy a FREE to play massively multiplayer experience on your PC.

You take control of a footballer not only in games, but also training, shopping, dating, and so on. Kind of like Second Life meets Pro Evo (or FIFA if the gameplay is good…)

We’ve not played it yet – scared it will take over our lives – but whereas Second Life seems to appeal to losers who have messed up their first one, this gives you a chance to be (or at least pretend to be) something most of us probably couldn’t – a professional footballer.

Have you played Football Superstars? Give us a shout on contact@footballsup.com with your thoughts – or leave a comment below…

Be it youtube, excel, flash, free downloads or iphone apps, we’ll find the best ones and review them for you.

First up – this nice little youtube game, based around identifying Premiership grounds. You have a paltry 7 to beat…