Or, as it is called in the States, Worldwide Soccer Manager 2009. As you may or may not know, Football Manager is a long (over 15 installments) running franchise and is considered to be the best sports management game out there. It's nothing less than the standard of the industry.

Watching your team's matches was restricted to watching a text bar in the past and then a football pitch with 'dots' moving around. This year, for the first time ever, it features a (basic) 3D match representation...which seems to have confused the reviewer.

Full story here:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/12 ... #more-5946



Look at the IGN.UK score in the bottom right!

They took the original review offline and issued an apology instead. But seriously...i can assume these reviewers get paid for their work. How does someone who doesn't have the slightest idea of what the game he is about to review is about even land this job?! Goes to show how much personal bias and like/dislike goes into reviews...

I've played it some, and it's cool as ever. The 3d view doesn't work on my poor computer (despite having cheap graphics), but I don't miss it at all.

You mean you guys play a soccer game where you can't even play soccer.



Only in Europe.

"It's not a game about the game. It's a game about managing the people that play the game."

Its a micromanagment game. the fact that its about football is irrelevent.

Games like FIFA or PES have nothing to do with Football either, it's just button mashing. If you want to play football, get some friends and a ball.
It's not the kind of game you'd like to play I'm sure, but you'll have to see it as the difference between playing a strategy game and a shooter, you're further of the action, but that doesn't mean it can't be thrilling (or frustrating, when people don't follow your orders).

I don't think Satis fully realizes just how popular FM is in Europe, kinda like we don't really understand that games like Major League Baseball or NFL 2009 are selling in the US like crack in the ghetto.

FM is incredibly addictive. Being a football fan sure helps to like it, but like Peltz said it's more about micromanaging than anything else. But the database is so incredibly vast and accurate, the options are almost limitless and the interaction with the board, press, fans, players and other managers is incredibly entertaining.

It's like an extremely fancy spreadsheet program, really. But one that has so perfected the art of gameplay that it'll be a while before you can pull yourself away. Every year or so I am addicted to a FM installment for at least 3 months. I don't buy the new installment each year tho...like with FIFA games, that's a waste of money.

heh, I know, I was just pushing buttons. Though I certainly wouldn't find it very interesting, I can underestand the draw. Just like Sim City was able to suck me in time and time again. Though if you were to look at the idea on paper, it makes you wonder whoever thought of this.

We should write a game about managing a group of software developers that are writing a game. That'd be freakin' awesome. Have it be kinda like "The Movies' if you remember that game, but the end result is a game. And be able to play your game at the end.

Uh, yea right, you can go and shoot yourself in the leg now or something.

Nah, I like the idea. It's original, a game about making games - but I guess it would be hard to write metacode.

re: the movies, I love micromanagement games but for some reason I never did well in the movies. Probably because I didn't make enough of my own movies and let the scriptwriters do their thing.

I once made a Lynchian script in the game at a friend's house on a drunken evening, aptly titled "hot chicks making out". basically, it featured a completely random plot on a deserted island with three girls in bikini murdering a dude, then having a picnic and kissing each other, only to ride off into the sunset (on a horse) to meet up for a reunion in a city apartment. Our artistic vision DEMANDED that we used a mist maker in every shot (including the indoor shot) and that the horse would be visible in every shot (again, indoor too). The movie ended with a zoom shot on the horse's eye, iirc.

For all our extreme lameness, artistic quirks and completely disconnected plot, it actually became one of the best movies his studio ever produced (and he was better at the game than me). A true cult classic! Somehow, hot chicks + some violence + goofy title + twin peaks style art direction worked well at the box office.

And yeah, i'm a freak. No need to remind me.

lol, that's hilarious. I never actually played the game... looked kinda lame. But the idea is interesting. I think there'd be a decent market for a sim about making sims. How many kids want to write video games when they grow up.

I've played the demo (Got the game coming for Christmas) but the 3d view is awesome, trust me. You get to see some truly great goals now

It is? Mm...I was afraid that it'd be experimental and crappy, and that I'd have to switch it off and rely on the ole' moving dots or flashing bar. It just got a lot more interesting!