Ultimate Soccer Manager was created in 1995 by Impressions Games, company that specialized mainly in strategy games, hence the rather... let's call it unique, approach to the genre. While the general appearance of the game is rather positive - you have pretty nice looking graphics, interface in form similar to German games of the era, where each bit of interface is "hidden" within graphics - players were described only using very basic parameters (goalkeeping, defense, passing, shooting, speed and fitness), playing a match was not that great (a top-down view that does not give you much data to work on) and plenty of options were done just good enough, without getting into details.
Simplicity could be a good thing in such game - it is easy for new players to get into the details and find the options they need, but in case of Ultimate Soccer Manager it was more like lack of depth than just simplicity. I mean you can buy any player you want, even from top division while you play in 4th Division, if you have enough money. The training was very simple, although with so few parameters to work with it was hard to make a training complicated.
All England professional leagues and the Vauxhall Conference (amateur league) are simulated. There was also a disc with data for Italian league, there was additional version for French league, where practically only the data of the clubs and the names of players changed. Overall, it is quite a fun game, the set of options to managing the club is rich enough and the atmosphere is quite pleasant, but it was rather offer for casual players, who do not like to get involved with all the details of club management.
