Championship Manager Quiz

Published by Eidos Interactive
Designed by Sports Interactive.
Platform: PC CD/ROM
Price £24.99
Released: Out Now

Forget Who Wants to be a Millionaire and The Weakest Link, there is only one quiz game that any self respecting football fan wants and that's Championship Manager Quiz. Not content with having sewn up the PC football management simulation genre, Sports Interactive have decided to get in on the quiz craze that has been around for a while and for football loving trivia fans, this can only be a good thing.

Boasting over 11,000 questions Championship manager quiz caters for the single player, two player and even a pub quiz. The single player game can either be played as an Exhibition Game or a Keep Uppy. In the Exhibition Game you select any team from the English Premier, Divisions 1-3 and the Scottish Premier to play as and another team to play against. You are then taken to an overhead view of a two dimensional football pitch. On the football pitch the teams are placed in the 4-4-2 formation. At the kick-off your central midfielder gains possession. The idea is to progress to the oppositions goal. Each pass is only made by a correct answer. An incorrect answer results in you losing possession. When you lose possession, the computer attempts to make a pass and again you are asked a question. A correct answer will result in you regaining the ball, where a wrong answer will have allowed the computer controlled team to make a successful pass.

Passing the ball around in the game allows you to select the topic for your question. If the player you wish to pass to, has the word 'team' under him then the question will be about your team where as the word 'away' will result in a question about the opposition. Other topics included are managers, Europe, cups and transfers to name but a few. There is also the 'free pass' option (usually in the right back and left back positions) this allows you to pass without having to answer a question. Eventually the ball will be with your striker and you will be able to shoot at the goal. A correct answer to the question will see you scoring a goal while an incorrect answer will result in a miss and the opposition gaining the ball. Unlike Who Wants to be a Millionaire you don't have an infinite amount of time to answer the questions in Exhibition mode. A bar on the right side of the screen indicates just how much time you have left to give an answer. The bar start off green but changes to red as it descends to the bottom. At half-time and full-time (the game uses a speeded up ninety minutes that is about 10 minutes long) you are given the statistics and a rating. This rating ranges from Caretaker to International, depending on how many correct answers you achieved.

Just like Who Wants to be a Millionaire there are lifelines that can be used should you run in to difficulty. In CM Quiz these lifelines are known, fittingly, as tactics. There is One two - which enables you to have two attempts at the question; Hit and hope - similar to 50 - 50 where two incorrect answers disappear and finally Substitution - you get to substitute the question for another in the same category. These tactics work well and used correctly (using a One two when shooting at goal with a tricky question) can give you a helping hand.

In single player mode you can also play Keep Uppy. This is basically an attempt to answer as many consecutive questions correctly, as you can. In two player mode you can play the exhibition match or have a penalty shoot-out. This is simply five questions each with the winner being the one with the most correct answers. The questions alternate from player to player (like the penalties do in the real thing) and a winner is decided by sudden death, one question at a time, if the original 5 questions didn't prove decisive.

You can also play in a Pub Quiz mode. Obviously one person has to be the quiz master and operate the game but answers are not shown until the end of the quiz so that person can play as well. As with a real pub quiz the number of participants is unlimited. You can ask up to 100 questions per quiz but you can stop after a smaller number if you like. Once the required amount of questions has been reached simply click the 'show answers' button and the question will reappear from the beginning with the correct answers highlighted.

Championship Manager quiz is a very enjoyable quiz game for football fans. There is no speech in the game (only crowd noises when the questions are answered) and every scrap of information is provided in text. The game is enjoyable but I found it strange the no high score tables are present, particularly in the Keep Uppy mode. A few hours play will also see several questions repeating themselves which can be a little annoying but is a fault of all quiz games at the moment (it is not half as bad as The Weakest Link and that has 100,000 questions). Championship Manager Quiz will appeal to all football loving quiz fans and the pub quiz mode is ideal for those family get togethers.

Overall Game Rating: 8.5/10 The perfect quiz game for football fans. The lack of a high score table and the occasional repetition of the questions is a shame but otherwise this title represents a successful move by Sports Interactive to a game other than the legendary Championship manager.

Deaf Gamers comment: Perfect for deaf gamers, with everything being in text, Championship Manager Quiz is a cracking football quiz for all the family.