Football Manager!!!

Before you condem me to hell, remember, this was the award winning game from 2008!! Football Manager 2008 is a soccer management-simulation style game (means you dont play soccer, you manage AI players to play for you!)

Yes it sounds boring, and if you think CSS is boring because there isn't enough killing/violence/guns/bombs etc, then just shoot yourself in the head now! lol.

This isn't a review really, more a look inside to my #2 game (currently playing decent time into) -- #1 being STALKER: Call of Pripyat and #3 Madden (2010/2009 time is split.)



This is the home screen. Very boring eh?
Managment is srs bzns!
Obviously you can choose between what drop down screens you wish to view.
I'm a big financial freak, I don't like going into the red (means in debt) and I like knowing about the next match, some upcoming fixtures -- namely the travel involved. Mid-week games across the other side of Europe = very tired players for the weekend games.

Squad Injuries pretty vital, knowing whose coming back when makes squad selection easier. Knowing if you need to bring in some fresh legs during the "transfer window" or not will impact how deep your squad is (having 15-20 main squad players is a good solid number. Having another 5-10 fringe players being either very young or older/past prime makes a solid reserves squad.)



This screen is just an overview of how i'm going in my current game.
2016 Days in charge of the club I started (ficitious club btw -- there are real clubs btw)
5 Years, 191 Days in other words.
318 Games managed
217 Won
56 Draws
45 Losses
738 Goals Scored with 288 Goals Conceeded (450+ Difference)
Average 2.3 Goals to 0.9 Conceeded a game. Which is pretty good for Score, conceeded is sorta bad but the past year my defense has been solid as a rock!

Trophies:
Domestic League Titles - 3 (2008, 2011, 2012) -- 2nd (2009) -- 5th (2010)
'Carling Cup' League Cup - 1 (2009) -- Runner Up (2012)
'The FA Trophy' - 1 (2010)

European Club Championship 'UEFA Champions League' - 1 (2012)
European Club Cup 'Europa League' - 1 (2011)
European Super Cup (Winners of the 2 above Leagues play each other) - 2 (2011, 2012)

Club World Champions (European Super Cup winners play in this) - 1 (2012)

Basically in Year 4, I got littered with trophies, and the first 3 years I spent winning what I could in England, currently I'm working on winning everything in Europe and I'm managing Croatia and currently sitting 2nd in their Group in World Cup Qualification (for WC 2014 in Brazil)
I won't bother with the screenshot, but here's the table.

Pos.	Country	Played	Won	Draws	Lost	For	Against	+/-	Points
1st	England	3	3	0	0	6	2	4	9
2nd	Croatia	3	2	1	0	6	0	6	7
3rd	Austria	3	2	1	0	5	0	5	7
4th	Belgium	3	1	0	2	2	2	0	3
5th	Latvia	3	0	0	3	1	6	-5	0
6th	Malta	3	0	0	3	1	11	-10	0

That should be enough to show what I play -- I realise most FPS games you dont really tabulate things like this -- if you guys like this, I can maybe post smaller fragments of this regularly to show you what I prefer to play

That game as crazy as I may sounds looks really fun, I to am into simulation style games and quite often when playing games like Fifa, or madden don't play many of the games just sit there and do the management thing.

Juff wrote:

That game as crazy as I may sounds looks really fun, I to am into simulation style games and quite often when playing games like Fifa, or madden don't play many of the games just sit there and do the management thing.

FM is off the scale compared to even FIFA Manager. Frankly FIFA is made by EA and EA are the *WORST* sport game makers currently going around (maybe the NRL 3 developers should lead now) and in all honesty, if you're going to play this game.

You need to be dedicated to play it in full hardcore mode (500+ Clubs, 200+ Competitions, Million+ Players in 100+ Countries) and takes some real serious CPU to handle it -- anything 2GHz above will do well, but will struggle -- my Core i7 @ 4.2GHz the max I can OC it stable has some flutters on full load.

You can just play as Manchester United etc, and pwn shit, and for some thats enough (I don't dislike the notion but it was because of LMA Manager 2004 I got into soccer hardcore) but I go way beyond that. Real players, clubs, comps, everything. I downloaded Kit/Logo/Patch fixes everything to make the game absolutely authetic (because of some licencing issues -- EPL team likness'es are omitted whilst the Players' FA allows their likeness'es to be used) which makes it much more enjoyable.

I typically run some mega large opertaions.
Running a National Team (Croatia) and my Club Team (London Rovers) which includes a lot of scouting, training tweaks, scouting staff members, interacting with my players and making them happy.
Then theres watching each game, making changes to win etc... Board Rooms who expect you to meet certain requirements.

2008 - Survive Relegation (Won the Title)
2009 - Top Half finish (Runner Up)
2010 - Win the Comp (5th...FAIL! lol)
2011 - Top5 Finish (Won 2nd Title)
2012 - Win the Comp (Won 3rd Title)
2013 - Win the Comp -- Season not completed yet though

i love ur comments mate

Finish 2013!!!

English Premier League Champions!! (God-damn Lucky too)

The 2nd shot, is the last 5 games, as you can see, Liverpool coffed p the title (in fact, they drew their last game which after my win, gave me the title via Goal Difference!)


End of each year, the Game AI chooses a "Best 11" basically the best rated players over the year. I find it pretty bleh, since injuries tend to screw one guy over or how my system is used screws another.
Below: The 2013 Best XI


I'm sure everyone wants to see the squad list (lol, like youd know more than 2-3 guys)
Notice the Sub1-11 are in the same order they would be if they were to take the pitch. S12 is the emergency Goalkeeper I have -- hes never played a mega game yet so hes pretty useless lol.

Not my kind of game...I do enjoy the management style of gaming; I rather enjoy the "World scale" RTS games (Think: Rome:Total War campaign). But, this really doesn't grab me as something I would play much, I see enough numbers daily to have to see more when I game xD However; I think this game would be a great game for those who enjoy world cup sports. It also seems you could learn alot about how the inner workings of a world cup soccer club operate. Which I guess is a plus?

VanHelsing wrote:

and EA are the *WORST* sport game makers currently going around

FIFA does suck, as do EA Sports games as they seem to make one every half a year. I agree however have you ever played the PGA tour golf games? Golf may not be your thing, I'm not sure but this series is rather good for an EA sports game.

Jerms wrote:

Not my kind of game...I do enjoy the management style of gaming; I rather enjoy the "World scale" RTS games (Think: Rome:Total War campaign). But, this really doesn't grab me as something I would play much, I see enough numbers daily to have to see more when I game xD However; I think this game would be a great game for those who enjoy world cup sports. It also seems you could learn alot about how the inner workings of a world cup soccer club operate. Which I guess is a plus?

Your attitude towards this is wrong. You see numbers in CA all the time, you your brain can't comprehend the amount of 1s and 0s (think Matrix) that fly across the screen. Those digital signals are outputted into analog and you read them, whether you admit it or not you see numbers 24/7.

World Cup are countries, similiar yet not really to a club.

This game is more about applying the old fable "put in the work and you get what you spent" -- I spent '000s of hours on this game and I can take any club/nation from worst the best in a span of 5 years max. Nations are harder because you have to put whose avaliable into a system. Having Croatia beat England was a huge feat, and it was only my 6-7th game in charge.

Zombiesrus wrote:

VanHelsing wrote:

and EA are the *WORST* sport game makers currently going around

FIFA does suck, as do EA Sports games as they seem to make one every half a year. I agree however have you ever played the PGA tour golf games? Golf may not be your thing, I'm not sure but this series is rather good for an EA sports game.

Oh my. Want me to list the ways they sucked?

Madden? Bought the exlcusive NFL rights, since 2005, games gotten WORSE each year.

NCAA Football? Even though they're the only ones making a NCAA games, they wont buy out the NCAA licence, so every year we have to name over 300 schools rosters (thats around 60-70 players a team also... have fun with that) and theres so many gameplay problems 75% people I read only buy NCAA to import them to Madden for real-life draft classes.

NASCAR? Bought out the rights, stopped making it on most consoles and PC... talk about fucking your market share. No PC, PS2 releases anymore, terrible online support and so many connection issues its not funny.

AFL? not any longer...
Rugby Union? not any longer...
Cricket? No more PC, stopped at 2007...
Arena Football? not any longer...
NRL? 1996....... since then theres been 1 NZ company making NRL 1,2,3...
F1 rights got bought out back (I think) in like 2006... I dont think theyve even made a F1 title since the abysmal 2006 that got a 0 on gamespot I believe lol

You're precious Tiger Woods PGA? Bought the rights, and since nobody can make a life-like golf game, EA stopped making it for the PC also... Why the PC hate? Because theyre arrogant tools who think their games are perfect when theyre released.

Well they arn't, 90% of the games released have very little in "new features" and alot of the time, features are stripped. They dont take in community feedback, they even bullshit on about how the "devs are connecting with the community" so a twitter feed and website that only gives news, with *no* forums are really talking to the community?

To answer directly, Tiger Woods a good game? NO, compared to EA's above standards.... not really.

Whilst I admit theres probably as many "entertainment consoles" in each house (1 = 1 house, not 1 unit) as there are PCs, theyre killing their market by taking things off multi-platforms, and why? MONEY!! They want to spend less and take in more cash (or the same since we all have a console they put a game on) so they can pay their CEOs multi-millions.

I gave up on all EA titles after Madden 10 was the worst game since Madden 2009, which was the worst since Madden 2008...all the way back till Madden 2006. What EA are doing are a joke, monopolizing the market with League exclusive licences is killing competition -- just look at Woolies and Coles in Australia, many, many similiarities.

vanhelsing wrote:

Your attitude towards this is wrong.

I simply meant that I like to be more..'hands on' with games. I'm not a huge fan of the text based games or the manager style games, just a few select ones (I worded it pretty averagely).
And I think you may want to double check what binary is...because there is no 0's or 1's literally fly across the screen. The only numbers I see in Combat Arms, is my kills towering over my deaths! (Not really, I only have a 1.1 k/d ratio xD)

vanhelsing wrote:

Why the PC hate? Because theyre arrogant tools who think their games are perfect when theyre released.

you have to give them credit, unless you have mastered C++ and 3D creation.

if your intrested in making your own game, feel free to get

FPS Creator (probably a torrent out their if you dont want to buy it)

or

RTS Starter kit+ Torque engine

or find a tool for simple flash games

lol, your a better man then me if you make a game, i downloaded RTS kit (123MB(i think) .) and ave up after a while with 1 seed downloading

But yes EAGames is a bit stupid, they make a game , patch it, then leave it to die....

Madness wrote:

vanhelsing wrote:

Why the PC hate? Because theyre arrogant tools who think their games are perfect when theyre released.

you have to give them credit, unless you have mastered C++ and 3D creation.

if your intrested in making your own game, feel free to get

FPS Creator (probably a torrent out their if you dont want to buy it)

or

RTS Starter kit+ Torque engine

or find a tool for simple flash games

lol, your a better man then me if you make a game, i downloaded RTS kit (123MB(i think) .) and ave up after a while with 1 seed downloading

But yes EAGames is a bit stupid, they make a game , patch it, then leave it to die....

But you see, EA made great games in 2000-2005. They made great selling titles (Rugby 2007 outsold FIFA... yet FIFA lives) but I'm saying since EA chose to buyout the league specific licences;

NFLPA for Madden as example.

They made a statement they'd half-ass make games from now on.
I'd make a better game BUT;

I dont make 30 million US a year to budget, I don't have (probably) thousands of *very* experienced and highly trained developer teams which EA have and progressively year after year the games get worse and worse?

Would you pay someone who got worse and worse at their job? No.
Then why do consumers who just want a good game, even if it was released every 2 years. They do roster updates in Madden, so they can stretch it two years per release.

Bottom line, money.

Make a crappy game and 90% of the fan base still buys -- look at the whinging on the WoW forums. "Games too easy, too many epics lul" and yet those same people still have an active subscription or still play?

Im not like those people, I will frankly walk away if the product is shit and doesn't look to improve. I borrow copies of games from friends to see what they're like before I pretty much buy them. Also Playstation Store demos are epic win. Try before I buy, 99% of the game demos ive tried I didn't end up buying.

In short, they dont deserve cedit now (pre 2005 yes) because theyre not made good games recently. I accept their history is good with games, but you cant live off the reputation that you made good games last decade. You have to make good games this decade as well!

I agree with Van completely; EA has let gamers down so many times. Battlefield series died after Battlefield 2142; because they just didn't pay any attention to it after it released; never rewarded the players who kept coming back. They should take a lesson from valve; Team Fortress 2 still goes strong, because Valve is always updating it, adding new things; fixing stuff that could be fixed. They recently did BF2 some justice with it's massive 1.50 patch. But haven't satisfied the gamers since; Bat Company 1 and 2 were a joke and BFheroes wasn't FREE at all, to do anything interesting in the game; you had to pay. Simply put, EA does not look after it's fans, so they will start to loose their fan-base very quickly if they do not up the anti.

Jerms wrote:

I agree with Van completely; EA has let gamers down so many times. Battlefield series died after Battlefield 2142; because they just didn't pay any attention to it after it released; never rewarded the players who kept coming back. They should take a lesson from valve; Team Fortress 2 still goes strong, because Valve is always updating it, adding new things; fixing stuff that could be fixed. They recently did BF2 some justice with it's massive 1.50 patch. But haven't satisfied the gamers since; Bat Company 1 and 2 were a joke and BFheroes wasn't FREE at all, to do anything interesting in the game; you had to pay. Simply put, EA does not look after it's fans, so they will start to loose their fan-base very quickly if they do not up the anti.

Speaking of Valve!!

Counter-Strike was epic, I think we all can agree defined my generation. Condition Zero (and by extension, Deleted Scenes) was pretty awful in comparison, and stand-alone, was sub-par game. The missions were alright but they became very monotamous and boring quickly. Source whilst being a very very, successful game followed in the steps of CS. It helped turn quick, online gaming into a reality.

Gran Turismo is another series that is NOT!! EA Sport, GT1 was so good it was orgasmic! Then GT2 got better, using the same engine with graphic enhancements but ADDED!!! more cars, tracks, garages, races... all the CORE ASPECTS of a game you expect.

Madden... dont add some crappy 'post-game' show when the CPU AI is so pathetic that if you're leading the AI cheats and turn their players into monsters. I've done the tests.

Man to man coverage, their rated 80 guys with less speed kept running past and out-playing my guys who i purposely stacked with the *BEST* in the NFL, 99 rated guys with high 90s speed. Not that I don't deny players have good streaks and bad streaks and you arnt going to win 100% of the matchups, but when you suddenly turn into the #1 player in the NFL because you're down 7 points is pushing the edge of the envelope?

Back to my point, GT3 got even better, more races and tracks and included alot more 'endurance' races which I personally love -- the true test of motorsport is how many times you can complete the long 8-24hr races without screwing up or mentally fading, thats why the Le Mans 24hr is my favourite motorsport race behind maybe the Indy 500, Daytona 400, Bathurst 1000 and Paris-Dakar Rally.

GT4 I feel was the pinnicule of racing simulation, the cars felt so life like -- the EVO VII handled like mine did stock, the understeer under loaded front wheels. The way the car tilted violently under sharp braking also was true to form (using the D-pad, not even with the Steering Wheel I use normally) which is what a game should play like when your making yourself as the simulation experts (in refernce to EA's "IF ITS IN THE GAME!")

I'm not saying every post 2005 is crap. I like Tiger Woods 08 on the Wii, I don't play golf outside of the ball-and-chain taking me to aqua golf every other month. I found the hardest difficulty beyond my comprehenion (which if I was a hardcore fan, I'd find challenging I hope) and that's how it's suppose to be.

Gears of War is another example. I played offline co-op on 1 and 2. I liked #1, it handled well. If you used cover and you and your friend used proper tactics (divide and conquer, supression and flank, diversion and attack etc etc) the game got easier, the AI were a bit stupid to be frank. However the second game I didnt see any glaring AI faults (friend or foe) and the tweaks made it hard on the top difficulty to just stock up on ammo, I found that you had to use a couple types of guns and use other guns that your partner wasn't using or youd run out and die.

Also, what I meant before Jerms, by attitude wasn't your dislike of 1s and 0s. I meant that you said that you like "World-Scale RTS" and FM is fairly close. The AI is a little stupid with players and they let some really top-notce guys go. Bring is very differently styles of coaches when they changed managers. Yet the actual depth of the game is far beyond Civ4, AOE that i've ever played.