 |
 |
 |
|
| OLD GAMES |
| REVIEW SITE |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| TREBLE CHAMPIONS |
| This game was one of a few management games released by Challenge software, released in 1989, this game is fairly unknown against the big hitters of the genre, but that doesn't necessarily mean its a bad game. |
| I first came across this game when my old best friend gave me a copy on a tape along with Euro boss, and a bunch of other Soccer games, and although I wasn't actually a big fan of football games, this one really stuck with me. |
| The first thing that you will notice, wether your playing on an emulator or on one of the old rubber keyed beauties, is that this has a very annoying loading scheme, which almost ruined the game for me at first.
Just when you think the game has loaded, it asks you to press a key, then annoyingly it goes on to load another section of code, What makes this worse is that you've invariably left the tape running and have to spend ages searching for the correct bleep blip bleep noises! |
| Anyway once that's all over with its into the game(Finally).
The game is completely Text based, there are none of those snazzy in game graphics or flashy backgrounds here, this is simply a stat driven game, Which is possibly another reason it was overlooked all those years ago. The game features 5 divisions and both English cup competitions, and as the title suggests the idea is to build your team into champions of all three. |
| Each Divison features 20 teams, each team with 20 players, so thats a fair whack for a speccy game, but dont go expecting a stat heavy game like Championship manager, the players here have only Ability, Form/Fitness and age.
The main menu shows a bunch of options, all selected by a letter, which is a fairly simple system to use. |
| The gameplay is all fairly simple stuff really, you must do the usual tasks like picking your team from an hopeless bunch of wasters, set some training for them, buy some better players to take over from yours.
You also have to deal with players contracts, else they may leave during the next season, although this was in the days before the Bosman ruling, so they don't go for free! |
| So its all really basic management game stuff then, apart from the fact that you only have a few hours every week in which to do all these tasks, so it can be a bit tricky choosing if to spend more time trying to lure that big signing to the club, or do you focus on the boys that you've already got and get some training done?
How well your team performs in the matches depends on their ability, which can be increased by a bit of training. |
| Training comes in two varieties, either full team fitness training, or some special coaching for one section of your team, but you have to be careful not to over train or you'll get a nice few injuries. |
| One semi annoying aspect of the game is the Transfer system, which starts off quit well, you can choose any player from any of the teams in the five divisions, the problem is that you need to have a space in your team prior to a signing, so to buy a defender you must sell one of your defenders, the player that signs must play in the same area of the pitch as the one you've got rid of, so you cant sell an attacker and buy a goalkeeper.
This is only a minor grumble though, and really doesn't distract from a good game. |
| The match screen is again an all text affair, simply showing a bunch of stats for each team, such as the ability to defend or attack.
Really a bit of a waste, but it works. The matches themselves are fairly tense, and realistically a team that has better stats usually performs better, but on some occasions there can be some nice giant killings! The games do tend to get a bit high scoring, which isn't very realist, i have won quite a lot of games 6-0, but its still fun, and its cos im so great! |
| The game is very playable, and is one id recommend to any would be football manager, it might not be quite as flash as others, and the options may leave a bit to be desired, but for the sheer addiction factor alone it rates fairly highly. |
| GRAPHICS: 2/10
SOUND: 1/10 GAMEPLAY: 7/10 LIFESPAN: 6/10 --------------- OVERALL: 6/10 |
| SPECTRUM |
| SOCCER MANAGEMENT |
| 1989 |