In a recent visit to CVG's headquarters, Beautiful Game Studios general manager Roy Meredith admitted that Championship Manager had "fallen on rough times" when he assumed his post at the developer last year.
"As a brand it's still really valuable," he said, "but in terms of game quality it's really not so valuable. Our intention is to produce over the next few iterations of Championship Manager something that gets a much higher Metacritic." It's all about Metacritic these days.
So how exactly is the developer going to go about this, beginning with Championship Manager 2009, which is due to kick off the new season late - in April - following a longer-than-usual development cycle?
An overview of legendary football management sim, Championship manager and how it effected the author's outlook on life and games.
Eurogamer writes: "Beautiful Game Studios boss Roy Meredith has been answering your Championship Manager 2009 questions live on Eurogamer today.
He's been tackling all sorts, from release dates to demos to Football Manager - the inevitable yard-stick. Thank you to Roy "Of the Rovers" Meredith for joining us, and thank you to all of you for your questions.
As promised, here are the exclusive Championship Manager 2009 screenshots given to Eurogamer."
So what do people already know about Championship Manager 2009? Well, they know that for the first time in the series' history the game will feature a 3D match engine sporting 450 unique player animations (350 for goalkeepers) and player tendencies such as Ronaldo stepping over the ball 116 times before pretending he's stepped on a landmine. What else? How about the fact that most parts of the game have either been revamped or redesigned, such as the tactics screen that now features rotating info buttons, or the ability to set separate formations for attacking and defensive phases of play?
It would seem then that people already know plenty about Eidos's forthcoming football management game. But they don't know it all yet.
