The Championship Manager collection (or what is now known as Football Manager) is without doubt, one of the most genre defining series in gaming. Aside from the above rebranding, the game has remained largely unchanged since the mid nineties launch of ‘Championship Manager 2.’ Admirably, even with the move to console releases, the core game remained the same and has only very recently taken the much awaited leap towards a 3D match engine. So synonymous with its heritage, even now (several years after the change of name) many of my friends refer to Football Manager as ‘Champ Manager’ whilst I don’t know a single person who has ever so much as flirted with another Football management sim for more than a few short, dissapointing hours.

Ironically, I feel a bit like this about Football Manager Handheld. I’m certain when I first began playing the game I was really excited and without doubt, my expectations were rather high. This was, perhaps, a mistake. Throughout the first five minutes of playing FMH, the feeling of elation continued to grow as the familiar SEGA logo appeared followed by a simplified version of the standard PC version menu. Entering my name, choosing a club from the huge list of countries and leagues and being welcomed by a similar ‘E-Mail’ from The Board welcoming me as the new manager of Leeds United was all very authentic, very much the Football Manager I had grown to love.

Sadly, by the first match, things were beginning to fall apart. Many of my industry colleagues (especially those who specialise in handheld devices) have written about the deep scouting system in FMH, or the 20,000+ players stored within the games database. The truth is though that the scouting system involves choosing a country of interest, sending the Scout, then being told about 1 or 2 players who have some slight talent and may be interested in joining your club. It’s really quite dull, and it would have been lovely if you could refine the search, so for example as in the PC version, send your Scouts to look for a specific position, talent, or age group. It is possible to search for ‘Youth’ players, but this also removes the ability to send your Scout to a specific country meaning the game performs a generic search for any decent young player.

The traditional ‘Player Search’ function is more comprehensive, but still limited. There is no searching for specific stats for example, so in order to find that perfect Striker, players will need to manually trawl through anyone in the list which meets some high level criteria. For example, Strikers aged 20-25 who are worth less than 500k and are interested in joining your club.

Being reasonable, if this were the standard level of commitment shown by FMH then things would be fine. It would be rather like the cut-down version of the PC game which I was expecting. Instead, the Player Search is probably the highlight amongst an otherwise substandard set of features. Training exists but is essentially the most basic it could be as are Tactics which are limited to a (fairly long) list of formations mated to some very basic (think Championship Manager 2 back in 1995) variations on attacking, tackling and passing style. Whilst it is possible to choose kick takers and so on, the ability to choose your own captain is strangely absent and feels very much like an oversight rather than a deliberate concession. I mean why exclude such a fundamental part of Football heritage in a game which is so closely guarded by fans as being the most comprehensive management sim in existance?

Perhaps the most important part of the whole game, matches, are also a bit of a dissapointment, whilst not wholly so. Choosing the team is either very difficult and fiddly (when done manually) or very easy (when done using the quick clear and pick options.) Once in the match, the 2D highlight engine actually works rather well on the small screen and is probably just about exciting enough to work in a way it never quite did on PC, whilst the Text Commentary works in much the same way and absolutely feels like FM should.

Swiping a finger across the screen moves through all the same Tactics, Player Stats, Team Stats and Match Stats screens as the PC version features and appears to offer real depth to the mobile manager. Again whilst a touch fiddly, changing tactics mid match is possible and just once or twice I felt the same magic which Football Manager is capable of inspiring within a player when a tactical decision changes the outcome of a match. I dare say due to limited tactical options though, ones ability to actually affect the game is significantly lessened over the PC version, but I suppose that is not unexpected.

Pros
Looks Like a Football Manager Game
Sometimes feels like a Football Manager Game
Is a decent Handheld attempt

Cons
Nowhere near as comprehensive as it should be
Much too expensive considering lack of features
Rather Buggy

Final Verdict
All in all, Football Manager Handheld seems to be a Friday Afternoon game. In some respects it captures much of the spirit of the series and does offer a competent stab at a handheld management sim. On the other hand, despite the limited platform upon which it is played, I can’t excuse the number of bugs featured in a game which costs a full £6.99.

All too often the 2D match engine will stall, only to restart with you 2 goals down a moment later, or with players meandering into the corner for 5 minutes of in game time and no apparent purpose. One glitch left me without a goalkeeper because I couldn’t bring on a substitute, whilst the general lack of polish throughout many of the games key areas make me wonder if they should have been included at all. I would sacrifice the pointless Scouting and Training features, for example, for proper Tactics and a more comprehensive Player Search.

6/10

Matt