“If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
“Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, and – which is more – you’ll be a man, my son!
“Ladies and gentlemen, Fuller FM will be playing 4-4-f***ing-2.”
Welcome to another Retro Review here on Fuller FM. Today, I’ve decided to return to a rather obscure football management game from my childhood, and see if it still holds up two decades on.
The year is 2002. Arsenal have just won the Double, Real Madrid are the European champions, and teen wonder Wayne Rooney is about to make his Everton debut. Meanwhile, a new challenger to Championship Manager’s throne has emerged – with strong backing from a best-selling magazine, the game’s flashiest diamond geezer, and the glamorous new face of ITV!
Go grab yourselves some of Mr Kipling’s exceedingly good cakes, because we’re about to take a deep dive into Mike Bassett’s favourite video game. This is FourFourTwo Touchline Passion.
BACKGROUND
Since its launch in 1994, FourFourTwo has become one of Britain’s most popular monthly football magazines. It has also gained a worldwide following, being published in 16 other languages. I have been reading since 2002 (when I was 12), and despite flirting with rivals such as World Soccer, Shoot and Match in my youth, FFT is the only football mag I still subscribe to today.
Coincidentally, 2002 was also the year when FFT made their first – and to date only – foray into the video game market. With Championship Manager 4 going through a spot of development hell that continued until March 2003, FourFourTwo Touchline Passion hoped to get a head start when it hit shelves in October 2002.
Around that time, an issue of FFT magazine came with a playable demo. This gave you a taste of the game’s ‘Challenge’ mode, where you’d try to win a league and cup Double with Manchester United, Chelsea or (bizarrely) Sunderland, whose real-life 2002/2003 season was NOT a success.
Touchline Passion was published by SCi Games (not SI Games, although SCi ironically merged with Championship Manager publishers Eidos in 2006). The game itself was developed in Wakefield, West Yorkshire by Bubball, who previously made the hilariously awful UEFA Manager 2000… but that’s a story for another day.
When this game was released Down Under, it was endorsed by a former Australia and Southampton midfielder, giving it the snappy title Robbie Slater’s FourFourTwo Touchline Passion. I should point out that Robbie Slater retired in 2001. As timely football video game endorsements go, it’s right up there with Chris Kamara’s Street Soccer from 2000.
STARTING OUT
Upon launching the game, you’ll be greeted at the main menu with a cheery little song – one that’ll sound VERY familiar if you’re into 90s Swedish power pop. It’s “You And Me Song” by The Wannadies (not the most optimistic band name for a video game soundtrack)!
Before starting your first career, it’s a good idea to go through the tutorials, narrated by two of football’s biggest personalities. TV presenter Gabby Logan and then-Leeds manager Terry Venables will guide you through the coaching basics – and if you really want to go in-depth, they’ll even explain how to get the most out of finances and set-pieces.
After the tutorials, it’s time to pull on your tracksuit – and take on one of the FIVE game modes. In the aforementioned ‘Challenge’ mode, you’ll get to pursue one of the eight challenges, such as rebuilding a sleeping giant, or winning the league with a team of old men.
‘Career’ mode starts you off at a small club in the lowest division (the Conference if you’re in England). ‘Freeplay’ lets you manage any team you wish for up to 20 years, until the world ends in 2022 (heh-heh). There are also two game modes tailor-made for nostalgia fans, but we’ll touch on them later.
After picking your club, you can choose to play either as a manager (where you’ll take charge of everything) or as a coach (where you’ll focus on your team and leave the business stuff to the AI). You’ll then be taken to your first 3D press conference, where you’ll answer multiple-choice questions against the clock, with your answers impacting your board’s and fans’ confidence, as well as your squad’s morale.
Logan appears again later on, interviewing you after matches for ITV Sport (who were still reeling from the collapse of ITV Digital). Refusing to attend interviews will tank your reputation with the press, but answering questions usually takes less than a minute. Sadly, the animations are pretty poor, and the facial expresions don’t change, so Gabby’s perma-smile might get on your wick after a few weeks.
WHAT I LIKED
For starters, the user interface looks sleek and sophisticated (Century Gothic is such a great font to read). It’s quite easy to navigate through screens from the slide-out menu on the left, and everything you need is laid out clearly.
Setting up your team and tactics is a doddle too. You can position your players anywhere on the pitch – and view their attributes at a glance while doing so. There are also various sliders for managing your team orders (such as passing range, aggression, and shooting urgency), though these may not appeal to everyone.
Dig deeper into the tactical side of Touchline Passion, and that’s where this game really shines. You can fine-tune your team’s attacking moves, positioning your players at every stage of the move as you see fit. Then there’s the set-piece editor, which is far more flexible than anything Football Manager offers today.
You also have lots of control over training, where you can train up to four routines a day, with different routines improving certain attributes. With individual training, you can tweak each of your players’ schedules to help sharpen up their weakest areas. You might want to set those early on, unless you want your goalkeepers to spend part of their spare time working on their shooting!
As I’ve hinted at, there are loads of financial options that business-minded managers can use to help their clubs turn larger profits. I’ve never been particularly bothered about setting prices for tickets, merchandise or burgers, but these options seem to work fine. Wannabe architects will also be pleased to see a stadium builder.
None of that would matter if the match engine wasn’t up to snuff – but it’s pretty decent. You can watch matches either in the ‘Full’ 3D mode, or on ‘Fast’ commentary with a 2D match view. Again, the 3D graphics aren’t terribly impressive, so I preferred the ‘Fast’ option. Alternatively, if you’re in a rush or just want to skip to the result, you can fast-sim matches too.
WHAT I DIDN’T
Touchline Passion’s biggest letdown is in the transfer market. Searching for players isn’t too much of a chore, but you have to scout them to see their full attributes. More frustratingly, transfer negotiations can drag on quite a bit – and even once you’ve signed a player, you’ll have to wait another few days before they actually join your club.
Loans are a particular pain in the backside. Players can only be loaned for up to four months at a time, and I found it very difficult to complete any loan deals. Meanwhile, I was constantly swarmed by top European teams wanting to loan in my mediocre Division 1 strikers, even though they wouldn’t even get on their benches.
Your email inbox – where you receive important updates – can get clogged with pointless messages. Expect your inbox to be filled with insurance payouts whenever your players stub their toes in training. Some messages even give you the wrong information; I was told that the left-back I wanted had signed for my Millwall team, only to find that he’d actually gone to Portsmouth instead!
Another bugbear is that you can’t change your squad numbers. If you don’t have a number 1 in your squad, the next player you sign will be given that shirt number – whether he’s a goalkeeper, a striker, or Edgar Davids.
The top leagues are generally very low-scoring, while the lower divisions turn into a goal frenzy. You may also come across some truly bizarre results, even in the first season. On my save, Fulham were the Premiership champions, Verona took the Serie A scudetto… and Livingston won the Scottish Premier League after scoring 130 goals!
Also, take another look at that league table. Notice how there’s a team called “Manchester C” and another called just “Manchester”? Okay, so United were far bigger than City back in 2002 – but it’s like naming the team who play at Bramall Lane “Sheffield”, or the side who play at Ashton Gate “Bristol”. It’s just very sloppy.
WE MUST TALK ABOUT…
The retro game modes. Let’s start with ‘Classic’ mode, which will take you back to the 1981/1982 season – a very different time when Aston Villa were the Football League champions, Chelsea were outside the top flight, and everybody hated the Tories. Well, some things don’t change.
Though you can only manage in the top divisions of England, France, Germany, Italy or Scotland, the squads are accurate for the time. You’ve got Kevin Keegan leading Southampton’s attack, Terry Butcher marshalling the Ipswich defence, and even a young Carlo Ancelotti playing in the Roma midfield. That said, there are several glaring database errors, such as Swansea boss John Toshack having Jamaican nationality.
It also doesn’t feel like you’re managing in the early 1980s. The press conferences look exactly the same as they do in 2002 (complete with anachronistic Barclaycard and ITV logos), and the game pretty much plays the same as well, except without transfers. While I appreciate that this was only designed to be played for one season at a time, some more realism would’ve been nice.
There’s also a ‘Legends’ mode, featuring 20 legendary teams (as chosen by Venables) in a fantasy super league. You could take charge of Manchester United’s 1999 treble-winners as they play against the likes of Cruyff’s Barcelona Dream Team, Celtic’s Lisbon Lions, and… erm, Malmö’s 1979 European Cup runners-up?
SUMMARY
As football management games go, FourFourTwo Touchline Passion is pretty safely in mid-table. It’s a solid and attractive game with some cool ideas that still look intriguing today, even if it doesn’t execute them brilliantly. Unfortunately, it’s hindered by its poor transfer mechanics and unrealistic results, so one season was enough for this reviewer.
You can probably find a second-hand copy on eBay, though I’ve also uploaded the demo CD onto the Internet Archive if you want to try that out first. As you would probably expect, this runs best on Windows XP. I had some severe lag with 3D animations on my XP virtual machine, but your mileage may vary.
FULLER FM RATING: 2.5* – Football League.
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this retro review. If you have any thoughts, don’t forget that you can leave a comment below or tweet me @Fuller_FM.
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