Championship Soccer / Championship Soccer Pro [PC]

Chris Davies

Chris Davies

Chief PESsimist
Staff
 
Joined
14 May 2003
Location
UK
Team
Tranmere Rovers
Question for you lovely people - has anyone ever played (or so much as heard of) Championship Soccer (Pro)?

It very vaguely rings a bell for me (it originally launched in 2003 with a shareware release), and I've read some reviews that make the gameplay sound quite flawed, but...

The idea of a football game where you start out as a 16-year-old and have to start at the very bottom intrigues me to say the least...

With a huge (up to 12-tier) dynamic database and an interface that reminds me of Championship Manager, with gameplay that has the look of Sensible Soccer... I mean, is that not a dream combination?

The website for it is here - this was the video that caused me to do some research around it:

 
TBH, I don't think a Sensible Soccer clone would work as being just one player.
You would be in the wrong position most of the time and would be chasing long balls all the time.

One of those that looks a great idea on paper but probably doesn't work.

The FIFA career mode is pretty decent but only if you ever play for a team that plays a specific default formation that suits you.
 
I've had this video in my watch later list for a couple of weeks, been meaning to watch it, I will now!

This seems close to my idea. I think I said it on here before. I'd make a game like SWOS, but where you only control 1 guy and the controls have some depth to them and are more like PES/FIFA than SWOS. So simple visuals, but depth to the gameplay.

Then I'd want it to be like FIFA Pro Clubs, where you can play online 5v5 with rest of the players AI controlled, or a full 11v11. I'd even have a manual mode. An online World Cup, EPL etc and transfer market.

Guess I need to start learning coding.
 
I always thought about and wanted a game where you create your player from a young age and try to develop and play at the top level. In fact, I used to think about it in relation to Championship and after Football Manager and the depth they had. But even this wouldn't bother me if it had good gameplay and, above all, good AI, even if it were simple in its mechanics. Meaning, the way I see it, this would be awesome. What actually happened with it in the end? I personally never played it.
 
Pagi84 said:
I've had this video in my watch later list for a couple of weeks, been meaning to watch it, I will now!

This seems close to my idea. I think I said it on here before. I'd make a game like SWOS, but where you only control 1 guy and the controls have some depth to them and are more like PES/FIFA than SWOS. So simple visuals, but depth to the gameplay.

Then I'd want it to be like FIFA Pro Clubs, where you can play online 5v5 with rest of the players AI controlled, or a full 11v11. I'd even have a manual mode. An online World Cup, EPL etc and transfer market.

Guess I need to start learning coding.
Click to expand...
Unity is a great video game development platform. There are some great tutorials you can follow around to learn the basics. The challenge isn’t in the programming - it’s in the development. By that I mean, how would you make it have good AI? You would need each player to evaluate the situation: what position they are playing, how far they are in/out of ideal position, where the other 21 players are, game context (score, time remaining), where the ball is. It has nothing to do with programming languages, specifically: it’s about developing a decisionmaking structure that works in all situations. If you can do that, the coding is the easy part.
 
The full game is free in my link in the first post (here), but it requires a bit of work with dgVoodoo to work smoothly on modern machines (he does explain the process on the website and it's fairly easy).

My experience so far has been mixed - I tried a couple of careers starting as a 16-year-old with no club, and after eight weeks of simming, nothing happened. Then I clicked a button meant for managers (you can choose to be a player, manager or player-manager) and the game crashed. So next time, I'll just choose a club to start with...

I played a few friendlies (which is surprisingly difficult to set up - the user interface isn't the best). The gameplay feels like some kind of full-manual Sensible Soccer (the length of time you press the input impacts how near/far the ball goes, and passes don't seem to be magnetised).

I'm really sad development seems to have stopped on it a long time ago, because the depth seems pretty great to me.
 
Anyone tried the new version yet, which apparently no longer needs the dgVooDoo fix?

Loving the depth it appears to have and the flexibility to play as a player, manager, player-manager, or control whole team.

Not sure how satisfying going back to a sensi-soccer style gameplay will be after 30 years but with players having 18 dynamic skills, if the on pitch gameplay is at least reasonably engaging and has interesting enough player variety and variety in team AI, there could be a bit (or quite a lot) of mileage in this one, even just as a fun football management game.

I'm definitely intrigued by the idea of starting out in the 12th tier as a player or manager and seeing how things develop.
 
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