Premier Manager 64 Contents 1.Introduction 2.Guide 3.Teams in the game 1.Introduction Released only in PAL territories on August 1st 1999 by Gremlin, this is, in my opinion, the most British game on the N64. Not even Rare’s games come close, because this is a football game in which you CANNOT play football! Instead you can choose to manage one of the 89 British teams, many of which are so obscure that non-Brits would find their names hard to pronounce. The cover also prominently features Sir Kevin Keegan, who was at the time managing England’s national team. Keegan starting playing professional football at Scunthorpe United in 1968, before moving to Liverpool in 1971. There he helped Liverpool win the first three division titles, the UEFA Cup twice, and both the FA Cup and the European Cup. With his poodle perm hair style he often topped “worst hairstyle” surveys. He then moved to German club Hamburger SV in 1977 and was later named European Footballer of the Year in both 1978 and 1979. He retired from professional football in 1984 after playing for England 63 times, during which he scored 21 goals. He started his management career in 1992 at Newcastle. He would go on to manage Fullham, England, Manchester City and finally Newcastle United again. The position of England manager is perhaps one of the most difficult positions in football. Keegan managed the team for nearly two years but resigned after England lost to 1-0 to Germany in a qualifier for the 2002 Fifa World Cup The British publication N64 Magazine loved this game, and even devoted the front cover of issue 31 to a big picture of Kevin Keegan. In their 5 page review they pointed out numerous flaws in the game but still gave the game the very high score of 82% saying the game is “by no means perfect but at times it’s compelling and as the N64’s only footie management sim, we have to recommend it.” This not true however as ASCII Entertainment released a Japanese football manager sim called J League Tactics Soccer in 1999. I would argue that the Japanese game is far better because of the improved graphics, menus and music. This game was also released on the Playstation as Premier Manager Ninety Nine. However the N64 version is clearly the inferior version. Even with the bigger 256mbit cartridge a lot of features were cut. Many of the teams and all the player photos were removed. Although the game does feature 89 British teams I believe the playstation game also featured all of the teams in the European Leagues. There is now only one annoying music track for the entire game, an oversight which makes the game very annoying to play. The main selling point of this release was the game highlights being represented in 3D However the N64 game highlight replays have less graphical detail and commentary from Barry Davies than the playstation version. Strangely the player name bar was also removed so you can’t even see who has possession or who is scoring your goals. In fact the Actua Soccer 3 engine graphics and animation are much worse than the N64 Fifa games which is saying something. Obviously even the Playstation version could not hold a candle to the PC version which featured player and team stat database updates available as patches to download, meaning that the game always kept up to date with the state of the real life league. Back of the box TOTAL FOOTBALL MANAGEMENT Think you can manage a club better than the professionals? The team, the tactics, the sponsorship deals, the fiancés, the board of directors… Premier Manager 64 gives you everything you need to take on the toughest challenge of all. This is not just a game; this is total football management. Don’t talk it, do it! Includes every English team from the Premier, First, Second and Third divisions. In-depth, flexible tactics system Fully comprehensive database of 2700 players, teams and mangers Highlight commentary by Barry Davies. 2.Guide The game uses both the D Pad to move the cursor and the A and B Buttons for confirmation and canceling options. Z opens the options menu for some reason. On the title menu you are presented with 5 options as follows Career Mode or Manager Mode 1 – 4 player Player aging on or off (this obviously effects their stats over time) Load game Play game I don’t know many people who would even want to play this game let alone 4 people who would want to play it in a turn based multiplayer mode! But the option is there! Career Mode – Choose from one of 10 division 3 teams. This is a kind of challenge mode where you have to prevent your weak and poor team being relegated (knocked out of the division). Manager Mode – Choose any one of the 89 teams to manage. Once you have started your game you are taken to the Main Menu with the following options in a clockwise direction Transfers – Buy and sell players Results – Look at your teams results Finance – Manage your teams finances Squad – Manage your team Leagues – Look at the results of all the league in England and the European leagues Top Scorers – Look at a list of the best scoring players Top Team – Look at the current best teams Fixtures – Look at the game schedule If you press the Z Button at any time the options menu will be displayed. There you can turn the game highlights demo on or off or reduce the length of matches, amongst other things. The real joy in this type of game is taking a division 3 team and managing them well enough that you can win the Premier League with them. However, despite having more money to play with the Premier League clubs are much harder to manage. If you have little to know knowledge about football then this will be a very difficult game to complete, although it is easier than other games in the series. However, seasons take less than an hour to play through, so it is not a long game. The best player in the game is Ronaldo who plays for Inter Milan. However he costs around 85 million pounds to transfer from Milian and then requires 70 grand in wages. Purchasing him will require your team to be very successful while at the same time Milian will have to suffer financial trouble. Each club has its own chairman, whose job it is to manage the club as well. He will often prevent you from selling certain players, even if you need to. Sadly often the only option is to try selling each of your players until you find one that he doesn’t mind letting go of. Sometimes it is good to sell your star player in order to buy several other players who will improve the balance of your team overall. On the finance screen you can adjust the ticket price and change player bonuses in order to earn the club a little bit more money to spend on new players. You can also apply for sponsors and update your facilities on this screen. If you neglect the quality of your facilities you will be fined by the Football Association, so don’t forget. Annoyingly the computer has a habit of changing around your squad after EVERY game! So make sure your players are playing in their most suitable position before you start every match. The player AI can also be idiotic at times, with defenders passing the ball directly to opposing team strikers and then doing absolutely nothing to stop them. This is particularly hard to watch when you can’t jump into the game and make them tackle the other team. It is especially painful to watch if you just paid 30 grand for that idiot defender. On the player stats screen you can see the balance between skill and fitness. If your players are unfit make sure they get enough rest and then focus their training on fitness rather than skill. If you have player aging turned on, depending on the players age it may take some players longer to recover their fitness level. 3.Teams in the game The teams are divided into 4 divisions. The 20 top teams have the most money and the biggest stadiums, but they also have the most pressure from their managers. On the other end of the scale the teams in division 3 have small stadiums and no money, but the management is more forgiving of things such as losing games. The game ranks each team's initial condition out of five stars. It's quite hard to read in game so I have detailed the information here. Certain teams might have the same grading but a slightly bigger stadium or a slightly better players, so it is worth investigating those things as well. English Premier Division - 20 teams from 4 to 3.6 stars 4 Stars Arsenal Chelsea Liverpool Manchester United 3.9 Stars Aston Villa Blackburn Rovers Everton Leeds United Sheffield Wednesday West Ham United 3.6 Stars Charlton Athletic Coventry City Derby County Leicester City Middlesbrough Newcastle United Nottingham Forest Southampton Tottenham Hotspur Wimbledon Division 1 - 24 Teams from 3.6 to 2.6 stars 3.6 Stars Barnsley Birmingham City Bolton Wanderers 3.3 Stars Bradford City Oxford United Sunderland 3 Stars Crystal Palace Ipswich Town Norwich City Portsmouth Queens Park Rangers Sheffield United Swindon Town Tranmere Rovers West Brom Wolves 2.9 Stars Bury Crewe Alexandra Huddersfield Town Port Vale Stockport County 2.6 Stars Bristol City Grimsby Town Watford Division 2 - 24 Teams from 3 to 2.3 stars 3 Stars Fulham Manchester City Reading Stoke City 2.9 Stars Blackpool Burnley Wigan Athletic 2.6 Stars Bristol Rovers Chesterfield Gillingham Luton Town Millwall Northampton Town Notts County Wrexham York City 2.3 Stars Bournemouth Colchester United Lincoln City Macclesfield Oldham Athletic Preston North End Walsall Wycombe Wanderers Division 3 - 24 Teams from 2.9 to 2 Stars 2.9 Stars Southend United 2.6 Stars Brentford Cardiff City Carlisle United 2.3 Stars Barnet Chester City Darlington Halifax Town Hartlepool United Hull City Leyton Orient Peterborough United Plymouth Argyle Rochdale Swansea City 2 Stars Brighton Cambridge United Exeter City Mansfield Town Rotherham United Scarborough Scunthorpe United Shrewsbury Town Torquay United