Pros: err...the information bit is cool
Cons: the game
The bottom line: CF2005 is a poor game, that isn't going to be taking away fans from FIFA or PES.
Football season 2003/04 saw British based games developers Codemasters enter the fray of the straight up football game, aiming to take on FIFA and Pro Evolution Soccer for the crown of best football game as they had attempted to do with Management sims in the form of their rather poor LMA Manager, which nobody who owned a Championship Manager game even looked at. How did they go about doing this then, EA had the major licence with FIFA, and there weren't any major tournaments coming up to latch onto, so how would they go about doing it? in true difficult fashion(this was the company that released NES games that you required another cart to plug in to work), they released over 10 different versions of the game, one for each team they had gained the licence for, and Club Football was born. Teams featured included Rangers,Celtic,Arsenal,Manchester United,Chelsea,Internatzionale,Juventus,Ajax and Real Madrid amongst others, with the actual game itself not being even remotely different, just featuring different menus,extras and some modes only allowed you to play as the titular team.

Club Football must have proven a moderate success, despite the fact it was horrific in terms of slowness, the players didn't look like their real-life counterparts (why Mark Dacascos was there instead of Michael Mols I don't know) and it's general ineptity in light of the competition, because in late 2004, the sequel, brilliantly titled Club Football 2005 arrived, with more clubs represented on the front, and a slightly bigger push in terms of marketing the game. Not that it worked very well, because within 2 weeks of release the game could be found at half price, which is how I picked it up.

Now, I may have sounded pretty damning of the first game in the last paragraph, but to be honest, it did show a little promise, and I was looking forward to the inevitable next installation into the new franchise, because I felt that while the game was pretty poor, it did have a base that could be worked into a better game, and figured that being British, therefore hailing from the spiritual home of the sport, Codemasters might have some sort of edge over EA and Konami in making a game based on the beautiful game appeal to the fans.

In some ways, the whole 'Club Extras' thing shows signs of this. Set out like an old Panini football sticker album, you buy 'sticker packs' using points earned in the various game modes, which give you 6 random pictures, or a video or such, and information on the team you have bought the game of. This is quite nifty, but where I think it hits the skids is the fact it limits it to the team you have bought. I'm a Rangers supporter, I used to have a season ticket, I know when the club were founded, and the general history of the team, who it's legends are etc. As a Rangers supporter, naturally I bought Rangers Club Football 2005, but I know everything the game tells me, I've seen all the pictures, hell, I was at some of the games. Had they let me read about the histories and players of other teams, I feel my appreciation of this feature would have increased dramatically.

Seeing as Im on my 5th paragraph, I should maybe talk about the actual game now, as the title would indicate, Club Football 2005 is in fact a football, or I suppose Soccer, game, where there is no story or anything, it's just an attempt to recreate the sport in a videogame.
The game sports the regular modes you would expect, such as league,exhibition,cup etc, as well as a Super League mode, which comprises of all the teams Codemasters bought the licence for in a league, Scenarios and Fantasy Match Creator. The scenarious are like the ones in the old ISS games, where you take matches from the club's history and either try and recreate them, or change history, for example when Rangers were being beat 1-0 by Man Utd, try to ensure Lovenkrands didn't fluff that chance that would have pulled them level. At first glance, this looks awesome, but when you play it, the appeal is destroyed by the fact that instead of going the extra mile and putting in the classic teams(I could have forgiven not having the retro strips, but the lineups would have been nice), it's essentially matches that can be made in Fantasy Match creator, which as you may have guessed is simply create your own scenario mode. There is also the same 'create-a-player mode' so you can put yourself next to your heroes, and while this is fairly in-depth, I didn't really bother with it.

The selection of modes is decent enough, although the fact you have to play as the title team in some competitions is a bit of a poor show from Codemasters, just because I support them doesn't mean I want to play as the gers ALL the time.


The gameplay itself...eh, I don't know where to begin. The original game was decent, if it controlled rather poorly, and was far too slow, but this is just...baffling. Codemasters have opted to go for the polar opposite, meaning the game is played at 600 miles per hour,and while the players control a bit better, they seem to be playing with a fly-away ball, as it pings all over the shop. Actually the players still don't control brilliantly, the new skill control is pretty useless. It's now far too simple to score, and games will end up with double figure scores within the first half. A fault I had with the first game was that you couldn't score good goals, but in this, you will be striking from the halfway line and hitting the top corner, and actually find yourself longing for a more subdued match and some tap-in goals. If there is one thing about the game, at least it's set-pieces are solid, if none of them excel in terms of greatness. The Free-Kick system is pretty basic, but at least it is better than PES' one, and the corner system, where you can choose where you hit the ball, is better than either rival game's counterpart.
But in general, while the prequel wasn't at all great in terms of gameplay, it was playable, and my friends usually played it at the end of a multiplayer gaming round to relieve tensions established in the 'proper' games and have a laugh, with 2005, we played it for about 3 matches, laughed at how ridiculous it was, and haven't touched it since. The only reason it's left the case was me tackling the single player modes for review here.

The game controls in a near-identical manner to the first:

X:Shoot
A:Pass/Step In Tackle
B:Cross/Slide Tackle
Y:Through Ball
L:Modifier/Change Player
R:Sprint
Black:Skill

The layout is a bit too PES for my liking,but it's workable, apart from the horrendous placement of the skill button, but given the 'skills' are useless, it doesn't really make much difference. What does is the disgraceful response times, which further hinder the already less than legendary game engine.


Graphically, the game is...ok. The player models are decent, but at the ridiculous speed the game is going at, they just look stupid. The players, despite the sleeve's claims, look absolutely nothing like their real-life counterparts in most cases, even for the licenced teams, although thankfully Steven Thompson doesn't look like the singer from Maroon 5 any more, but Dado Prso's ponytail is represented by what looks like a bunch of twigs sticking out of the back of his head.
The animation isn't much better, apart from the speed issue, the players also run in a ridiculous, back-straight fashion that made me chuckle quite a bit.
Thankfully, the stadiums are superbly recreated, as are the strips of the licenced teams, even down to minor details. Sadly, the non licenced teams once again get completely screwed over in terms of strips. While I wasn't expecting them to look awesome, surely they could have commisioned one of the kit suppliers to have all the other teams wearing generic sports shirts from them? actually, now I think about it, the shirts for the licenced teams are fairly incomplete, Rangers are missing their third change shirt.


The sound in the game is a bit poor. Barry Davies repugnant and repetitive commentary will rape your ears, and the soundtrack, comprised of what seems to be a whose-who of current pop-rock bands, such as Franz Ferdinand(who also have a song in this year's FIFA) and Snow Patrol, is pretty cool for a while, then you realise there are only about 5 songs, so it gets repetitive quickly.
The crowd's also aren't exactly brilliant. While they do a decent job of 'OOH' and cheering at goals and stuff, the much touted 'authentic songs' feature is pretty under-used, although that may be because I've been playing as Rangers, and all their songs are too obscene to put in a game.

In general, there isn't really much to recommend Club Football 2005 on. It isn't the worst football game I've ever played, or even the worst on the console, but it still isn't very good, and in comparison to FIFA 2005 and PES 4 it's left sorely lagging behind in terms of quality. The only thing that sets this apart from those games is the club sticker album bit, and to be honest, I would recommend picking up one of those better football games and a DVD or book on the club's history, because then you will get the best of both worlds.

While I seem to have little good to say of the game, the fact is, I would actually really like Codemasters to keep trying with this series, because it does have potential to one day become a serious contender for the title of best football game, but at present, the game would struggle to get a place in the Inter-Toto Cup.

Available in the following flavours
Rangers
Celtic
Arsenal
Manchester United
Chelsea
Tottenham Hotspur
FC Barcelona
Real Madrid
AC Milan
Juventus
Ajax
Inter
Bayern Munich
Birmingham City
Liverpool
Newcastle United
Aston Villa
Hamburger SV
Leeds United
Borussia Dortmund