If you are new to CM then go with CM 01/02 over CM4. Even after the latest patch, in my opinion, CM4 is completely unplayable in depth. CM 01/02 kicks ass and it will be much cheaper. I would advise waiting on CM4 until after three or four more patches.
I have to agree go with CM3 01/02. I have both and I am not thrilled with CM4. Actually, I still play CM3 01/02 instead of CM4.
I also have both 3 and 4, 3 for both PC and Mac and I much prefer 3 (2001/2002) at this point. I can see the potential in 4, but 3 is pretty stable and you can play 50+ seasons without things going too crazy.
CM 4, though not as good (yet) as CM3 it's more of a challenge. Well, I'm finding it more of a challenge.
Perhaps a challenge to avoid finding bugs. Sadly, CM4 isn't going to be any good probably until the next season is released.
4 id say, although id personally get 01/02 on the cheap somewhere and wait for 03/04 or 04/05 to come out, i remember the same complaints being leveled at CM3 when it first came out as are being slung at CM4 now, but after a few seasonal updates it was by far the best game on the market.
No idea how much, if at all, the Mac and PC versions are (I've got the PC versions), but if you're new to CM, CM 2001/2002 season is easily the smart buy. I can easily see the potential in CM4, but after 3 patches, it's still pretty much a crap game, if a career is your goal (which mine is). I'd guess if you just want to play one team, one (or maybe 2) seasons (and that team is a top-level team), CM4 is fine. But there are still a host of problems, some of them very, very major, if multiple seasons as one manager (a "career" game) is your goal. CM4 has added quite a few new things, but many of them either don't work at all, or don't work properly. Also, as of now (EP3), some leagues go 'dead' for some seasons, then come back the following season (usually). Spain and Italy are two such leagues that seem to frequently get reported as having no fixtures created for a new season. Usually it's because of summer international tourneys. A league match might get postponed due to conflict, and then while the league is still playing late, Euro Internationals start conflicting, so more postponements, and one (or two) league matches for a given season never get played. Then the season update happens, and since the prior league never finished, a new season is not generated. Your manger reputation never goes up or down, so no matter how much success you have, you won't get a 'top' job in the future. Just another deterrant to a long-term game. Plus there's still loads of little things. Old features that have disappeared (printing from the game, manager tables). Inexplicable mass injuries (for some, under EP3), inexplicable mass jadedness (for most, under the NEW EP3 .exe). Very little media interaction (which was supposed to be increased for CM4). Not as many news items regarding the rest of the world (or your own league, if you're not in England, it appears). Now I don't mean to slag on it entirely, as it's not a horrible game. It's just a horrible version of Championship Manger, if long-term is the goal. If you're interested in playing one season as a top club, then starting over and playing one season as another top club, the game is fine. Knowing what I know now, I'd have waited to buy it. If SI come out with a CM 2003/2004 Season release (not a patch, but a 'new' game), you could easily skip the CM4 release totally, and not miss out on anything. After seeing the game out of the box, and the release of 3 patches (plus a 4th .exe), and seeing the fix-list of patch #4, I'm convinced this release of CM4 will still be, overall, weaker than CM 01/02 3 months from now, even with a patch a month. And that seems like a good time to release a 'new' game. So much potential here, but I don't think it will be realized. Luckily, I didn't find CM until late in 00/01's release, so I missed out on all the bugs of the original CM3. If it was anything like CM4, and it was my first exposure to CM at all, I can honestly say I'd never have bought another version, ever. But with 01/02 as my main exposure (I got 00/01 in the summer of 01, I believe), I know the SI team WILL get CM4 fixed, I'm just not holding out for it to happen until a new release in stores.
hey is the new patch any good? does it still skip from game to game? when i was playing it, it always used to skip from game to game, it never stopped so i could check out the scores, news etc.
I agree with that. I have both and only play CM 01/02. I do like the 2 D field on CM4 but not enough to tolerate the extremely long waits tht you go through playing CM4. With a quick computer, CM 01/02 is a breeze.
A perfect summation of CM4. I've bought them all since CM2. It was a long time ago and I remember CM3 crashing but it didn't feel incomplete like CM4 does. For me, CM4 was a complete waste of money. If I'm going to play it it's going to be for 10-20 seasons and I just don't see a patch coming out anytime soon that is going to solve all the problems. CM03/04 will probably what CM4 should have been. All of that said, I paid around $40 for CM 01/02 and it was probably worth many hundreds of dollars to me.