The period 1987 to 1989 wasn't exactly known for being a revolutionary time in games development, but it was a special time for the management-games. More manager-games were made, but most of them were either a copy of FM1, a copy of Football Director (!?) or "just" a sequel. But the sequel that came in this period which were on every gamers' lips was Football Manager 2. The sequel to the world's first and best management game was finally here! Oh man, what a joy. Most people were still playing FM1 until FM2 arrived, and maybe they continued playing it after FM2 was out? In this article, we will see if it was a complete failure or not - plus loads of other things.

In this part I'm going to introduce a new segment: "Games not worth to mention". Cause frankly, LOADS of football manager games were made, even back then, so many that I can't write all that much about all of them.
 

Part 2: International football and a Sequel (1987-1989)



Premier II Superleague (1987)

This game wasn't actually a competitor to Football Manager 1, but to Football Director, the text-based game which had a small fan base because of all the stuff and details it had compared to FM1. One of the reasons to buy this game, was because of the prize. Just £1.99 for this massive footy game. Wow. Unlike the other manager-games, this one actually had a new scenario. Instead of fighting your way up the division and play the FA Cup, you actually start with a dreamteam in this game, with many of the good players of that time.

Like Football Director, Premier II Superleague had the change-player-and-team-names ability. An useless feature you might say, but back then, this was very very cool. And like in FD, you had a nice transfer market, some cash and loaning, and of course: substitutes and training. You couldn't actually set up a training program, but you got information between the matches on players if they were doing crap in training or if they improved.
Sadly, this game also borrowed some of the negative aspects from FD. The game was really slow, and the graphics were dull and poor. Although it was cheap and didn't have that many bugs, it didn't add much new to the genre, and not long after its release, it was gone.

Football Manager 2 (1988)

FM2 was basically what the world of management games needed in this time of mediocre copies of the original FM. Not only did FM2 have much better graphics and an astounding match engine, but it also absorbed all the good ideas from the other games released at the time and put it into one game. It was a milestone. You could now choose formations, assign man to man marking, use substitutes, and you could finally decide more in your training - you could change passing length and height. Picking players for you team was also improved, now you could actually look at how the players were positioned if you used certain tactics.

The scenario was still the same. You started in the 4th division and worked your way up in the 92-club league. But this sequel also included the League Cup, so this was actually the first game were you could do an "english treble". Because of all this, FM2 became a massive hit just like FM1 once was. It was the first footy game in years not to be hated by the game reviewers, everyone loved it. Like most popular games, this game was also released on the other consoles at the time: Atari ST, Amiga, Commodore 64 and Amstrad.

International Football (1989)

Another text-based footy game you say? Well, this game was actually kinda good. It was the first (decent) World Cup management-game, you could choose between various team who were in a WC group, most of the teams from Europe. You had most of the same features from previous games, but one thing I found interesting was that you can start in any year you want. Not sure if it had any effect on the game, but you could start in 2007 if you wanted, obviously not with an updated database though.

International Football was less annoying than games such as Football Director, because of the limited financial options. It was also a bit faster, even on the ZX Spectrum. But for some reason, it was very cheap even back in 1989. For only £2.99 you could snap up this game, 1 pound cheaper than the budget price for Football Director, which was 3 years older.

Now, on to a new segment:

Games not worth mentioning...

Football Director II (1987) was basically a rerelease (copy?) of Football Director. I can't see any difference between these two games.

Brian Clough's Football Fortunes (1987) might've sold well, but only because of it's name. Some new good-looking graphics, but added nothing new to the genre.

League Challenge (1987) was a horrible game, as Ben tells us in this article in a gaming magazine.

International Manager (1987) looked alot like Football Director (it was green), but had a World Cup-scenario. That is all I have to say about this game.

Kenny Dalglish Soccer Manager (1989) Like Brian Clough's game, it looked nice and all, but it was the same old shit as always.


That's the end of part 2 in this lesson in gaming history, in the next part we'll look at the years 1990-91 and the games that were released then. Could anyone actually challenge FM2 or was every other game crap? Stay tuned for the next article, and you'll find out.

Read Part 1

Read Part 3

Read Part 4

Read Part 5