Ultimate soccer manager 98/99
Written by : ISKAN
Type of Game
Simulator of the life of a PE teacher (and a bit of an economics teacher)
release date on our machines
1999, late enough to recover from France-Brazil 1998 (and 1, and 2, and 3-0!), but the month was drowned in alcohol.
Developer
Impressions Games. British developers (ideal for a football game) also known for their other management games such as Lords of the Realms (Medieval manager 1400/1401), Caesar (Rome manager -49/-48) and Pharaoh (Egypt manager -150/-149).
Publisher
Sierra : it's stronger than you (especially when it comes to publishing loads of classics from the world of video games).
Ultimate Soccer Manager 98/99: available... well, no, nothing. Left on the sidelines, forgotten, relegated, expelled from the field of our memories.
At the end of the 1990s, PSG was European champion, France was world champion, and I discovered football, first in the school playground, where the pitch took up 80% of the available space, leaving a narrow strip for playing marbles and elastic, and then on video games, playing FIFA 97, FIFA 98, World Cup 98 (you weren't expecting that one) and FIFA 99 (logical!). Now you're thinking, a sportsman who likes video games, what nonsense! But wait until you discover the geek who loves sport... Because while in FIFA you shoot, pass and tackle using your controller, in Ultimate Soccer Manager you recruit players, refine your tactics, set up a training programme to get the best out of your team, and then it's up to them to do the job and win the matches (and the first one to complain has to run three laps of the pitch!).
Football is life
Imagine : statistics
As you can imagine, instead of putting on your boots, you'll be putting on your glasses and analysing lots of figures, from match statistics to player statistics to merchandise sales statistics... Fortunately for the young player that I was, it was all fairly light-hearted compared to its successors, which I would turn to a few years later and which would feature even more tables resembling Excel clones, ideal for playing at the office without arousing your boss's suspicions. What a pleasure it was to spend hours searching for that rare gem that combined talent and a bargain price! Unless other more fanciful criteria came into play, such as the player's name (Nikos Liberopoulos forever in my heart!) or nationality (secret technique: recruiting lesser-known players after leafing through the Panini ‘France 98’ album).
In addition to their attributes, each player is accompanied by a short description that, in the best cases, could make your day (‘Can shoot like a rocket’ or ‘Is a magician with the ball at his feet’ for the best players) or offer a vision of horror (‘Encounters difficulties...’ for players in poor form). Where Ultimate Soccer Manager differs from its competitors is that, in addition to being the coach, you are also the manager (no kidding). So you have to manage the club's finances, secure sponsors, manage advertising, expand the stadium, build restaurants and shops, and choose which products to sell and at what price. It's all quite fun on paper, and something you enjoy doing at the start of the season, but you soon give up on it, preferring to shut yourself away in the changing room and think about the next match.
The Sims : Football edition
A major advantage over its main competitor, the game benefits from a graphics engine (albeit a relatively basic one) that allows players to see the action unfold before their eyes, whereas in other games, they had to settle for reading text and imagining the match in their heads. What's more, the commentator punctuates the matches with Martin Tyler-esque remarks, minus the racism: ‘A pass that won't go down in history...’, ‘The ball is intercepted smoothly!’, "A decisive save! " This helps us forget the single piece of music that is activated by default ALL the time, but which we can fortunately turn off before we go mad. It's very light compared to the FIFA licence, which featured Blur and Fatboy Slim. But what really struck me were the game menus, which take us through the different areas of the stadium, with each room offering several actions accessible via small animated scenes.
In the changing room, you can access the tactical section via a board where you can hear the sound of chalk being written on. For training, click on a box filled with balls that start bouncing, and to start a match, click on the passageway to access the pitch amid the cheers of a frenzied crowd. Thrills guaranteed! You can visit the club president, whose mood varies depending on your results, meet with your recruiters to discuss transfers, visit the finance department, or take refuge in your office to check your competitors' results on teletext (you know, the ancestor of the internet, but on TV). If a match seems difficult, you can even try to bribe your opponents. Personally, I tried to bribe the Monaco players, who were already well protected, with a few banknotes, and unsurprisingly ended up failing miserably, thrown in prison alongside Bernard Tapie.
Sanka, you Dead ? No man !
I might as well tell you that I spent hours playing this game, which is practically endless since each season ends and a new one begins right after. How many times did I say, ‘Just one more match and I'll stop,’ before staying on the PC for another few dozen minutes? I even introduced my friend José Pamplemousse to the game, and he naturally became addicted too. When he went to his local dealer and the dealer tried to sell him O'Leary Manager 2000, he was completely taken aback and replied to the salesman's question that he only had the best: ‘Ultimate Soccer Manager, Fire away!’
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