The game that has been promised for a long time and was Beta tested for a large proportion of last year has finally made it into the shops and into people’s homes. If you cannot tell by the title, then this of course is the ‘live’ version of Sega’s mega selling game FOOTBALL MANAGER, one of the most popular games ever on the PC and the granddaddy of the sports management genre. The biggest and most fundamental change between this and its parent game is that this game no longer takes place in a mirror image of reality. No longer do you pick your favourite team and find yourself battling in the same division and your team in reality with the players you know and follow every week. No this is complete fantasy with made up team names, made up leagues and cups and teams made up of obscure players etc. In fact it is an interactive fantasy league. Once you have loaded the game and signed up for a fixed term (you get 4 months free when you buy the game) you are shown through a team creation sequence which is incredibly easy to follow. First off is choosing a team name (in my instance Bones United – named after my favourite US TV show) then you have to choose a ground name and sort out your team colours. After that you are taken to the database of players – there are over 1000 in the game. You can either scour this list yourself and select a squad (That you can afford with the limited amount of money you are given – no you are not going to be able to afford the cream of the premiership so don’t even think about it) or you can get the computer to pick some itself, based on how many players you want in each of the three disciplines – Defence, Midfield and Attack. Then you will be asked when you are most likely to be online to play the game and depending on your answer you will be assigned to a league – make sure you will be available though because if you are not – the computer will play the games for you with your default squad and your opponent will have an advantage. Throughout the game you will be offered the chance to enter various competitions whilst still playing your league games. A lot of these will cost ‘game’ money to join but they will have big money prizes. You also can compete in auctions for players etc. You have to watch out though because you only have a set amount of money and you will not be allowed to go over that for any reason. Another thing you have to do is skill up by learning things like management and technical planning. This takes time – each learning skill can take hours or days or even weeks and your team will not improve without them so don’t forget to keep renewing what you want to learn next when one ends. During the season you can also play friendly games and chat to your real life opponents through the chat rooms. The games themselves resemble the old Football Manager ones with circles with the player’s numbers on running up and down a pitch. There are all the usual events you will normally find within a football match and you can change your team as and when you see fit. Overall this is an excellent online game and one that football fans have been crying for years. The long beta testing time last year has definitely helped as a lot of the bugs have been ironed on. Occasionally there is still a bit of slowdown and it can be annoying going through the masses of messages you sometimes get but other than that it is a good game. Whether it is a title which will endure will be up to the players themselves. Only time will tell if this will be a four month wonder or whether people will invest and continue playing after that. There are improvements which should be made in future editions –f or example at the moment there are no sounds whatsoever including no crowd sounds – this would add to the realism and the 2d match engine could perhaps be changed for the 3d one used in Football Manager 09. Apart from those though this is definitely an excellent title and one that all FM fans should play even in short bursts.
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