This is the greatest football management simulator of all time. The depth of the game is nothing like that of the Championship Manager series (now split into Championship Manager and Football Manager) but the simplicity is what makes it addictive. Buying and selling players is as easy as it could be, you have the opportunity to adjust wages, signing on fees and bonuses as would be expected, and the transfer goes through instantly.
Stadium expansion is a feature of the game which has sometimes been overlooked in football management simulators, and although the expansion option isn’t the most imaginative ever created it is adequate, you can choose between terraced and seating, roved or open, the corners become expandable once certain standards have been met, and boxes are also available.
One of the game’s greatest assets is the speed at which it can be played, one of the annoyances of other games, having to spend days on end at the computer waiting for the next match to load. A season on Ultimate Soccer Manager Two can be completed in an hour or two, depending on how much time you want to spend on tweaking tactics and training and all the others bits on the game.
There is an easy cheat to make money, but it isn’t really necessary because if you try to buy a player, as a long as he is no more than one division above, you are guaranteed to get him. However, if you do find yourself running low on
cash, simply place one of your players on the list at nine hundred and ninety nine million, nine hundred and ninety nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine pounds, and wait for him to sell, it may take a while but it will happen and you will be rich.
As long as you have a fairly fit squad promotion is pretty easy from the lower leagues, and the feature of playing in Europe once at the top of the domestic leagues is a bonus for such an old game. Sadly international management is not a feature of the game but it wasn’t around on many games when Ultimate Soccer Manager was released so can’t be expected, and the game more than makes up for this in its simplicity and the range of other features. The use of an assistant manager is another useful feature which can be useful to speed up play.
