"The thinking fan's soccer management game" PC Format Magazine
Sick as a Parrot (SaaP) has been designed from square one to give you a much more realistic and challenging experience of the real-world soccer manager's life. The effort you put into training, match preparation, tactics etc compared with trading is much closer to the real thing than the traditional game. Your understanding of the players' and teams' qualities comes from your own judgement of performances and interpretation of coaches/scouts/media's opinions rather than a numeric skills system. The game challenges your understanding of the game and its tactics, your ability to judge players, your man-management techniques as well as your transfer market dealing.
The match in SaaP is much more central to the game than in other smgs. The match is the ultimate test of your decisions and managerial qualities and reflects the skills of the players and the tactical choices of the two managers accurately. It's been designed to maximise the information you receive about performances in order that you can make informed future decisions about team selection, tactics and squad balance.
Training also takes a much more important part in SaaP. You can set up your own training schedule for the week to prepare for the coming match, to come to a better understanding of your players' skills and to develop for the long term the players' characteristics. Your assistant coach will give you a full report on the performance of each player in each session and a summary for you to use during team selection.
Tactics are a crucial part of SaaP. It begins with the bootroom teamtalk where you can set up Plans A, B and C tactics that can be introduced at the click of a mouse button during the match. You need to anticipate what might happen in a match and prepare for it beforehand though you can make individual changes as well. Opposition managers will have their own tricks which you need to counter for ultimate success. The simple match graphics will illustrate graphically any changes either manager makes allowing you to understand what's going on and to respond if you need to.
You'll see other differences that come out of this attempt to mimic the real world of the soccer manager more closely. The interface is not a Windows spreadsheet interface. Instead it runs in linear time following the way in which the real world manager moves through the week. Each morning you receive the latest transfer news. You have various "tasks" that you have to perform each week such as defining the training schedule, an injury report from your physio, your scout's next opposition report, team selection, bootroom team talk. And so on through the week culminating with the dressing room pep talk and the match itself.
It's a VERY different game! I believe it's more realistic, more challenging and in the end more satisfying.
I've split the detailed game description into different sections to give you a good idea how SaaP differs from other smgs. Click on the appropriate button below to read about any one of these sections. Also, as the game is in continuous development, the news page will tell you of the very latest features added to the game.
The game can be played four ways. There's a club management game. There's an international management game. These can be played independantly with no interaction at all between the two. But they can also be played as one game with the two games sharing the same databases and the schedules interlocking with the gamer managing a club and a national squad simultaneously. In one mode the international management position is yours from the very beginning (if you choose a lower division club it's promoted to the top division) and in the second mode the international manager's position is only offered after a sparkling managerial career through the divisions.
When the games are played simultaneously there are three gameplay enhancing effects.
1) The relatively repetitive nature of the league game is broken up every few matches with the "manager" switching hats for the much faster, more demanding international game.
2) Interest in the league matches is doubled as you are now interested in both your own players and opposition players who may well be candidates for your national squad. The player who just scored a hat trick against your club may well be the player to lead your international team in your next World Cup qualifier :-)
3) The detailed player development system will allow you to train a 17 year old trainee from your club youth program into a world class player that will dominate the World Cup Final for you.
The combination game is without question the most comprehensive and demanding soccer management experience ever released.
If you would like to know more, see a demo or take part in the further development of this game then click here.
copyright The Midnight Oil (1997)
produced by PS Publishing
