Hello and welcome to the CM01/02 expansion pack for CM97/98. Those of you who have read my 2001: An Ace Squad-yssey blog will have already seen some of the stars of CM01/02 in action in the CM97/98 world, and writing that blog is what inspired me to create this pack.

So now it’s your chance to sign some of the CM01/02 legends for your team and play them alongside your favourite CM97/98 stars, imagine a centre back pairing of Robert Page and Kevin Hofland, a midfield partnership of Bjørn Heidenstrøm and Mark Kerr, or a strike duo of Erik Nevland and Maxim Tsigalko!

So what’s in the pack? I hear you ask. Firstly, a total of 79 new players have been added to the database and have had their stats copied exactly from the CM01/02 database, such as Cherno Samba, Tó Madeira and Mike Duff.

A further 31 players who were already on CM97/98 have had their stats, positions and clubs updated to match what they were on CM01/02, Taribo West, Sebastien Frey and Stefan Selakovic to name a few. So that makes a total of 110 edited players for you to try and sign.

With regards to the teams database, a few teams have had their colours updated for aesthetic purposes, but that’s all that’s changed.

There are a total of 50 new background images, which include new splash screen images for when the game starts up, and also the “GEN” images that show behind the main menu have been taken straight from CM01/02 to add to the authenticity, so you will probably recognise some of them, such as the infamous ‘bulging net’ shown below.

Lastly are the fonts. I’ll admit that they don’t necessarily lend themselves to bitmap format perfectly and might not be to everyone’s taste, but they’re a reasonable match.

To install the pack, all have to do is copy and paste the files into your existing cm9798 game folder, replacing the original files. I STRONGLY recommend making copies of your original files first or moving them to another folder in case you want to revert to the original version at any point.

The background images and fonts will update immediately without the need to start a new game, but in order to use the player and team databases you will need to start a new game. You don’t have to use everything in the pack either, so if the backgrounds and fonts aren’t to your taste, you can just use the databases.

The pack is organised into three separate folders, so you know which files are which, and there’s also a handy readme document that contains instructions on how to install the pack and a complete list of all the new and updated players.

That’s pretty much it, and all that’s left for me to say is please download and enjoy! I’d love to know what you all think of the pack, and how your teams do with some CM01/02 signings on board, so please feel free to tweet your screenshots and tag @nickrowe85 and @cm9798 in them.

Click here to download the pack