Ever since Sports Interactive released the Original Championship Manager (from now on CM) in the early 90's it has been viewed as the ultimate game of Soccer (Football) Management. Never before had people become so enthralled by looking at multitudes of linked spreadsheets. There were no flash match engines back then and 10 years later there still isn't. You still have to sit bleary eyed as you wade through another 2D match screen. It is not pretty, but it is a deep gaming experience.

The 10th anniversary CM edition churns out 26 leagues and over 100,000 player profiles. The budding gaming manager now has the ability to do such things as sending a player away for surgery to repair that doggy knee or give the board an ultimatum if they are being especially tight on lending you some money.

For a CM newbie, simply acclimatising to the variety of tasks you have to see to can be daunting to say the least. You can read through a very thick jargon filled manual to get the basics however it becomes especially difficult because of the lack of a tutorial. A simple run-through of the match day menus would have gone a long way towards making it a bit more accessible.

Initially the new manager has to select a league(s) from the 26 available. The Xbox runs at a PC's minimum database which allows for only 3 leagues to be run at the same time. This is not necessarily a bad thing because any more leagues and the game would grind along at a turgid speed. If your especially brave you can give the Australian NSL a go, but be prepared however for no money, no crowds and no possibility of ever attracting a half decent overseas player. For fun's sake it's best to choose a team which has more than $15 in the bank and draws a crowd slightly more than the Australian usual of 1 or 2,000.

As a brand new manager you're expected to justify your large salary by wining matches, lots of them. The question is do you play some temperamental foreigner as your striker and risk having him abuse the referee and getting himself sent-off?, or perhaps you go for the 17 year old whiz kid who is earning slightly more than the usual $6.50 minimum wage at McDonalds? In the end the choice is yours. Every small decision has significant impact on the games outcome, every decision must be made wisely.

Eventually you're going to either love or hate using the controller for CM. The analogue sticks operate as the mouse would on the PC. It's quite a sensible set up and showcases the Xbox controller in a game like this as well as could be expected. However if you have become accustomed to CM on PC using a keyboard and mouse, chances are the controller may leave you grating your teeth while navigating through menus. The analogue sticks are not sensitive enough for my liking and the trigger buttons are largely wasted in their functionality. A better solution to the current setup would be to use the trigger buttons as conventional ‘back' and ‘next' functions, thus allowing you to do the inevitable cycling much easier. Maybe next time?

Put simply this game is hard, very hard. So now you too can experience a heart attack or stroke as your foolish keeper lets in a 90th minute equaliser. Managing a football team was never meant to be easy. However it is extremely difficult trying to understand why your team of losers was hammered and beaten to a pulp. You can give a quick glance at player match ratings, but essentially the reasons for losing will be things like you played the wrong formation or you tried to play direct passing with players with poor passing stats. This is definitely not for the casual gamer and you have to really dedicate substantial time to get the most out of it.

Graphically speaking this game is simplistic in every sense. The match engine will come out with such lines such as "Played down the wing to Giggs” or "Van Nistelrooy is clean through on goal” amusing lines occasionally appear such as "Di Canio confronts the referee. He appears to have lost control”. The games excitement comes from your either limited or limitless imagination. It's an odd type of excitement a world away from the graphical splendour of Halo or the suspense of Splinter Cell, none the less there is a special feeling if you manage to score a last minute goal to win the FA Cup beating your archrivals in the process.

Simply put, there is no audio apart from a few token crowd noises. It's a shame this game doesn't support a custom soundtrack because it would have made the game more interesting to listen to. As it stands we have to listen to absolutely deafening silence in between the clicking of Xbox buttons. Perhaps it should be mandatory to pick up a few CD's or a radio to keep you from going completely insane. CM does not even have a soundtrack at all, not even a short intro jingle. Perhaps their audio guys all decided to take long service leave during the games production. I can only wonder.

The replayability depends on whether you actually feel stimulated by the game at all. It will either end up permanently inserted in the Xbox or end up resting in the rubbish bin. You have to make up your mind whether you like a type of game that will have you sitting on your own in complete silence sorting through number filled spreadsheets, waiting in anticipation for the extremely important cup final. It takes a particular type of gamer to appreciate the Championship Manager charm.