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Though the title Football Manager 2005 may not ring bells, the team behind the game, Sports Interactive, certainly should. The team behind the successful Championship Manager series, SI changed the title when leaving Eidos and striking a deal with Sega.

An interview conducted with managing director Miles Jacobson by Eurogamer.net takes a look at some of the features in FM05. One of the new additions is the official support of network play, which allows for up to 30 players.

Basically you set up the games yourself, effectively. Somebody has an IP address, and gives that out, arranges the time that people are going to go in and play or just leaves the server on. We've put various features in there to make it easier to continue while you're actually playing the game, because while we were playing the network game in the office, we all play it in different ways, and I was getting very frustrated with the people who are 'tactic whores', if you like. I'm a transfer whore, so I spend all my time trying to buy new players.

An interview with Jolt also discusses various versions of FM05, including the revamped interface:

The new interface is a lot more intuitive and easier to use, we’ve spent a lot of time optimising code, added in lots of new features that haven’t appeared in Sports Interactive titles before, but the game is still made by the same team that have worked so successfully together in the past, and, well, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, just add to it.

Eurogamer - Can we call it 'FootMan'?

Jolt - Football Manager 2005 interview and competition

Football Manager 2005

Buy Football Manager 2005

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