Contents
1.Introduction
2.Guide
3.Teams in the game
1.Introduction
Released only in PAL territories on August 1st 1999 by Gremlin, this is, in my
opinion, the most British game on the N64. Not even Rare’s games come close,
because this is a football game in which you CANNOT play football! Instead you
can choose to manage one of the 89 British teams, many of which are so obscure
that non-Brits would find their names hard to pronounce. The cover also
prominently features Sir Kevin Keegan, who was at the time managing England’s
national team.
Keegan starting playing professional football at Scunthorpe United in 1968,
before moving to Liverpool in 1971. There he helped Liverpool win the first
three division titles, the UEFA Cup twice, and both the FA Cup and the European
Cup. With his poodle perm hair style he often topped “worst hairstyle” surveys.
He then moved to German club Hamburger SV in 1977 and was later named European
Footballer of the Year in both 1978 and 1979. He retired from professional
football in 1984 after playing for England 63 times, during which he scored 21
goals.
He started his management career in 1992 at Newcastle. He would go on to manage
Fullham, England, Manchester City and finally Newcastle United again. The
position of England manager is perhaps one of the most difficult positions in
football. Keegan managed the team for nearly two years but resigned after
England lost to 1-0 to Germany in a qualifier for the 2002 Fifa World Cup
The British publication N64 Magazine loved this game, and even devoted the front
cover of issue 31 to a big picture of Kevin Keegan. In their 5 page review they
pointed out numerous flaws in the game but still gave the game the very high
score of 82% saying the game is “by no means perfect but at times it’s
compelling and as the N64’s only footie management sim, we have to recommend
it.” This not true however as ASCII Entertainment released a Japanese football
manager sim called J League Tactics Soccer in 1999. I would argue that the
Japanese game is far better because of the improved graphics, menus and music.
This game was also released on the Playstation as Premier Manager Ninety Nine.
However the N64 version is clearly the inferior version. Even with the bigger
256mbit cartridge a lot of features were cut. Many of the teams and all the
player photos were removed. Although the game does feature 89 British teams I
believe the playstation game also featured all of the teams in the European
Leagues. There is now only one annoying music track for the entire game, an
oversight which makes the game very annoying to play.
The main selling point of this release was the game highlights being represented
in 3D However the N64 game highlight replays have less graphical detail and
commentary from Barry Davies than the playstation version. Strangely the player
name bar was also removed so you can’t even see who has possession or who is
scoring your goals. In fact the Actua Soccer 3 engine graphics and animation are
much worse than the N64 Fifa games which is saying something.
Obviously even the Playstation version could not hold a candle to the PC version
which featured player and team stat database updates available as patches to
download, meaning that the game always kept up to date with the state of the
real life league.
Back of the box
TOTAL FOOTBALL MANAGEMENT
Think you can manage a club better than the professionals? The team, the
tactics, the sponsorship deals, the fiancés, the board of directors… Premier
Manager 64 gives you everything you need to take on the toughest challenge of
all. This is not just a game; this is total football management.
Don’t talk it, do it!
Includes every English team from the Premier, First, Second and Third divisions.
In-depth, flexible tactics system
Fully comprehensive database of 2700 players, teams and mangers
Highlight commentary by Barry Davies.
2.Guide
The game uses both the D Pad to move the cursor and the A and B Buttons for
confirmation and canceling options. Z opens the options menu for some reason.
On the title menu you are presented with 5 options as follows
Career Mode or Manager Mode
1 – 4 player
Player aging on or off (this obviously effects their stats over time)
Load game
Play game
I don’t know many people who would even want to play this game let alone 4
people who would want to play it in a turn based multiplayer mode! But the
option is there!
Career Mode – Choose from one of 10 division 3 teams. This is a kind of
challenge mode where you have to prevent your weak and poor team being relegated
(knocked out of the division).
Manager Mode – Choose any one of the 89 teams to manage.
Once you have started your game you are taken to the Main Menu with the
following options in a clockwise direction
Transfers – Buy and sell players
Results – Look at your teams results
Finance – Manage your teams finances
Squad – Manage your team
Leagues – Look at the results of all the league in England and the European
leagues
Top Scorers – Look at a list of the best scoring players
Top Team – Look at the current best teams
Fixtures – Look at the game schedule
If you press the Z Button at any time the options menu will be displayed. There
you can turn the game highlights demo on or off or reduce the length of matches,
amongst other things.
The real joy in this type of game is taking a division 3 team and managing them
well enough that you can win the Premier League with them. However, despite
having more money to play with the Premier League clubs are much harder to
manage. If you have little to know knowledge about football then this will be a
very difficult game to complete, although it is easier than other games in the
series. However, seasons take less than an hour to play through, so it is not a
long game.
The best player in the game is Ronaldo who plays for Inter Milan. However he
costs around 85 million pounds to transfer from Milian and then requires 70
grand in wages. Purchasing him will require your team to be very successful
while at the same time Milian will have to suffer financial trouble.
Each club has its own chairman, whose job it is to manage the club as well. He
will often prevent you from selling certain players, even if you need to. Sadly
often the only option is to try selling each of your players until you find one
that he doesn’t mind letting go of.
Sometimes it is good to sell your star player in order to buy several other
players who will improve the balance of your team overall. On the finance screen
you can adjust the ticket price and change player bonuses in order to earn the
club a little bit more money to spend on new players. You can also apply for
sponsors and update your facilities on this screen. If you neglect the quality
of your facilities you will be fined by the Football Association, so don’t
forget.
Annoyingly the computer has a habit of changing around your squad after EVERY
game! So make sure your players are playing in their most suitable position
before you start every match. The player AI can also be idiotic at times, with
defenders passing the ball directly to opposing team strikers and then doing
absolutely nothing to stop them. This is particularly hard to watch when you
can’t jump into the game and make them tackle the other team. It is especially
painful to watch if you just paid 30 grand for that idiot defender.
On the player stats screen you can see the balance between skill and fitness. If
your players are unfit make sure they get enough rest and then focus their
training on fitness rather than skill. If you have player aging turned on,
depending on the players age it may take some players longer to recover their
fitness level.
3.Teams in the game
The teams are divided into 4 divisions. The 20 top teams have the most money and
the biggest stadiums, but they also have the most pressure from their managers.
On the other end of the scale the teams in division 3 have small stadiums and no
money, but the management is more forgiving of things such as losing games. The
game ranks each team's initial condition out of five stars. It's quite hard to
read in game so I have detailed the information here. Certain teams might have
the same grading but a slightly bigger stadium or a slightly better players, so
it is worth investigating those things as well.
English Premier Division - 20 teams from 4 to 3.6 stars
4 Stars
Arsenal
Chelsea
Liverpool
Manchester United
3.9 Stars
Aston Villa
Blackburn Rovers
Everton
Leeds United
Sheffield Wednesday
West Ham United
3.6 Stars
Charlton Athletic
Coventry City
Derby County
Leicester City
Middlesbrough
Newcastle United
Nottingham Forest
Southampton
Tottenham Hotspur
Wimbledon
Division 1 - 24 Teams from 3.6 to 2.6 stars
3.6 Stars
Barnsley
Birmingham City
Bolton Wanderers
3.3 Stars
Bradford City
Oxford United
Sunderland
3 Stars
Crystal Palace
Ipswich Town
Norwich City
Portsmouth
Queens Park Rangers
Sheffield United
Swindon Town
Tranmere Rovers
West Brom
Wolves
2.9 Stars
Bury
Crewe Alexandra
Huddersfield Town
Port Vale
Stockport County
2.6 Stars
Bristol City
Grimsby Town
Watford
Division 2 - 24 Teams from 3 to 2.3 stars
3 Stars
Fulham
Manchester City
Reading
Stoke City
2.9 Stars
Blackpool
Burnley
Wigan Athletic
2.6 Stars
Bristol Rovers
Chesterfield
Gillingham
Luton Town
Millwall
Northampton Town
Notts County
Wrexham
York City
2.3 Stars
Bournemouth
Colchester United
Lincoln City
Macclesfield
Oldham Athletic
Preston North End
Walsall
Wycombe Wanderers
Division 3 - 24 Teams from 2.9 to 2 Stars
2.9 Stars
Southend United
2.6 Stars
Brentford
Cardiff City
Carlisle United
2.3 Stars
Barnet
Chester City
Darlington
Halifax Town
Hartlepool United
Hull City
Leyton Orient
Peterborough United
Plymouth Argyle
Rochdale
Swansea City
2 Stars
Brighton
Cambridge United
Exeter City
Mansfield Town
Rotherham United
Scarborough
Scunthorpe United
Shrewsbury Town
Torquay United
