Football Limited
Bundesliga Manager is a software published in 2000 by football management simulation. The multi-part series counting especially in the early 1990s to the most famous and successful representatives of this genre in Germany. Developers of the first parts was KRON simulation software (acronym for Werner Krahe and Jens Onnen ).
Bundesliga Manager
Bundesliga Manager from 1989 was the first and thus eponymous part of the series. The released for PC, Amiga, Atari ST and Commodore 64 game is a combination of sport and economic simulation.
In the role of a manager, the player directs the fortunes of a professional association of the German Bundesliga. The game goal is maximum sporting triumph, meaning the championship. To achieve this desired success, the player has to make investments in their own team and stadium. He can also prepare the weekly training his team and create a tactic for each match days.
Bundesliga Manager Professional
After the great success of Bundesliga Manager 1991 Bundesliga Manager Professional the second part of the series was published. As with its predecessor sports and economic simulation were combined here again. The game was released for PC, Amiga and Atari.
The league system was expanded and the player could now (then amateur league ) take on a team from the Bundesliga 2 or 3 league. A total of 64 teams were available. In addition, the player could choose whether they (ie 1991/92 ) wanted to start or in the founding year of the Bundesliga (1963 /64) in the current Bundesliga season. On the composition of the leagues but the selection had no effect, so started eg Dynamo Dresden in the game in 1963 in the Bundesliga. Moreover, it was the real Bundesliga at the time of release of the game, due to the German unit, 20 teams strong. In this game, however, remained unconsidered.
The player ( training and game planning, development of team and club ) The task field has been largely taken over from its predecessor. However, there were some new features, including a newspaper in which the part of their team together and the players were evaluated. The game is displayed using animated scenes. Commercial Bundesliga Manager Professional was also a great success and strengthened the position of the game series as the leader of the genre.
A short time later the release of two editor diskettes that you could order directly from Software 2000. The one containing an editor, with which you could edit the teams and players. The other added the game to 40 new scenes and offered a game scene editor to create your own moves.
In 1992 a limited edition for Christmas, which still contained not only the current version of Bundesliga Manager Professional ( Version 2.0 ), the two disks editor and a poster.
While the German edition of the game is still licensed, the variant is with English clubs under the name The Manager as freeware available.
Bundesliga Manager Hattrick
Bundesliga Manager Hattrick was released in 1994 for PC and Amiga.
Was it limited to the two predecessors on simply to manage teams, so the player could now turn the fortunes of the national team. This was possible both together with a select club and only for a club or a country selection. In addition, now you also had free choice with regard to the league in which they wanted to start the game. Had you are in " Career Mode " in the two predecessors with his club tracks only way out of the lowest league in the 1st Bundesliga, we could now start on request right there.
The game also included many new features, such as a bank with equity and real estate trade or the ability to put money in the football pools. In addition, the infrastructure of the club facilities to various buildings ( hot dog stands, fan shops and other facilities ) could be extended. The sale of memorabilia moved a little more into focus.
The game presentation was made on precalculated scenes. In addition, you could activate the so-called "reality mode ", by which it was to see additional real-time calculated game scenes that were backed up with a text comment.
The playing surface was markedly different from its predecessor and consisted of numerous menus that could move the player according to his own ideas on the screen. Through various modes, it was also possible to disable certain menu and run the associated activities (eg, management of finances, or workout plan ) automatically in the background or to be calculated.
In the same year an add-on was released called "Supporter ", which added the game a club and player editor, new game scenes, and more current season data. Also a floppy disk with patches was settled and a book with tips and tricks for the game, which came straight from the developers. In the publication in 1995 for the PC CD -ROM version of this add -on was included automatically.
Also Bundesliga Manager Hattrick was published in a limited edition version in 1994, which also contained a biography of former professional football players Jimmy Hartwig.
Bundesliga Manager Hattrick is considered by many fans as the best part of the series and led the way for subsequent football management simulations through its variety of option menus.
In the UK, the game was titled Football Limited.
Bundesliga Manager 97
Bundesliga Manager 97 was released in 1996 for the PC.
The fourth part of the Bundesliga manager series is playful, a revised version of its predecessor. Most of the features from Bundesliga Manager Hattrick were retained so that there was hardly any differences in content. As one of the few innovations, we are now able to engage additional staff, eg a co- trainer or a health care professional. As with Bundesliga Manager Professional there was another newspaper that now but informed next match reports via transfers and other news. In addition, you had to occasionally give interviews in which the player could choose between three possible answers (multiple choice). The game presentation was the first time in 3D, each part could also be analyzed in various camera settings. The individual scenes and the cup draws comments, soccer coach Helmut Schulte were Underlaid recited.
At first glance promised Bundesliga Manager 97 a similarly high entertainment value as its predecessor, but instead it came after the release of massive upset at the fans of the series, as the game altogether made a pretty unfinished impression. Through a variety of bugs, the product was almost unplayable in its original default settings. The CD- ROM of the first edition was also quite plain. Software 2000 attributed the error to a mistake; they had simply sent the wrong master to the pressing plant. However, instead of the angry buyers replace the faulty versions against a properly functioning copy of software only in 2000 decided to always publish new patches for months, at least to eliminate the worst mistakes. The publication of an afflicted with numerous errors game had a huge image loss. Competing with the kick-off competition from Ascaron previously leading Bundesliga manager series took a back seat; none of the following issues should be able to repeat the success of the first three parts.
In English-speaking this part of the series was published under the title Total Football Management.
In 1999 the game was re- released as a bug- Gold Edition, but this did not include any new features.
Bundesliga Manager 98
Bundesliga Manager 98 was released in 1998 for the PC.
Just something published more than a year after the debacle with Bundesliga Manager 97 software 2000 the successor. This was the first version that ran purely on Windows. Bundesliga Manager 98 also was the first part of the series, which was developed without the help of the series founder Jens Onnen and Werner Krahe; they had left the company before, and later founded his own development studio.
On the whole, the game was little more than a bug-fixed version of Bundesliga Manager 97, the one inflicted only a few small features. So it was now possible to arrange friendly matches against other teams in the championship mode or to determine the respective players who should run the set plays ( corner kicks, free kicks, penalty ) at a meeting. In addition, also team awards were set again; this option it had previously given at Bundesliga Manager Hattrick.
Also this part was later re-released in a gold version, but also without any substantive changes.
Bundesliga Manager Champions Pack
Shortly after the release of Bundesliga Manager 98 was released the same year, a compilation that the first four parts of the game series (Bundesliga Manager Bundesliga Manager Professional, Bundesliga Manager Hattrick Bundesliga Manager and 97) contained on a CD- ROM. The manuals have been combined here to a large. The games were present in the latest versions, however, were not extended or revised. This meant that all season data of the individual parts were on the last current state in Bundesliga Manager Hattrick example, it was the season 1995 /96 apply.
Bundesliga Manager X
The last part of the Bundesliga manager series was released in 2001 and was also the first who had to make do without the license of the DFB. The only original data, which included the game came from the Austrian Bundesliga.
With this part of Software 2000 tried again to catch up with the now much more popular impulse series. However, the first edition was practically just a " rough draft ", because many game-related features, it was only with a large patch, which added, among others, a text mode for the game presentation and active rounds of negotiations and a career mode introduced. The game won so much on realism, because now in this series, it was now possible that you could be fired if too many failures of his club; also a player could change clubs and take on a new team.
The game presentation was, as with the two predecessors, also again in 3D. The game scenes were calculated in real time and commented by Jörg Wontorra.
After the bankruptcy of Software 2000 in 2002 published Blackstar Interactive as part of their back-to- games series, a revised version under the title Bundesliga Manager X -. Edition 2002 This, however, offered no further changes except the old patches and custom fictional season data.