I have just signed Rooney (Football Manager 2006 (PC))

Member Name: docpov

Product:	Football Manager 2006 (PC)
Date:	05/04/06 (1056 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It is absorbing and addictive.

Disadvantages: You might just get too addicted.

I have just sat back with a look of enormous satisfaction on my face. My lads at Wigan Athletic have just lifted the Champions League trophy. The fans love me I am in the board’s good books and I have made a great dollop of cash to add to the coffers. All in all a good day.

If you do you have not played Football Manager you may turn round and say ‘What on earth is he on about?’ If you have then you will well know the feeling I have described above.
Such is the addictive nature of this game that you do end up really caring what happens to the team you are managing. You find yourself in the supermarket thinking about who you will play on the left wing in Saturdays big game at Chelsea or you are worrying about who you can get in on loan as cover for your injured left back.

Overstated? Maybe a little, I will try to sort out the details of the game but in the end you will have to play it to find out.

In the box you get the game disc and a fairly comprehensive instruction manual. Once you have mastered the basics though the only real way to discover the intricacies of the game is to play it.

So what is all the fuss about?

Football Manager 2006 is the latest in a long line of Football management games from SI Interactive distributed by Sega. The series started as Championship Manager before the franchise was split with Eidos two years ago when the new name was born.

So to the game.

As you can imagine from the title you take the role as the manager of a football team and try to guide them to success. Whether you take charge of Chelsea and try to win the Premiership in your first season in charge or whether you take charge of a lowly conference side and try to work their way through the leagues, that is up to you. You could even take charge of continental clubs and see what success you have there or maybe you fancy Sven Goran’s job and try to bring the World Cup back to England, that is entirely up to you. So large is the scope of this game.

It is a complicated game; there is no denying that. You have to manage all aspects of your club from hiring and firing both players and staff to sorting out tactics and training schedules.

The management side of the game is played through a series of menu linked screens where a range of tasks are accomplished.
Possibly the most important is the player screen. This holds all the qualities of the player with each having a value between 1 and 20 (the higher the better) Other useful facts and figures such as contract details, value and condition amongst others are also to be found here. There are also links that enable you to discipline the player or offer him a new contract etc.
One big plus that this game has is that all club, player and staff names are authentic and an army of researchers try to make sure that the players statistics are as close to reality as possible.

Through the media screen you are given a wide range of news items such as interaction with other managers or whether a bid you have put in for a player has been accepted. News of injuries to your players comes through this screen, as does feedback from both your Board of Directors and from fans amongst many other items.

Possibly the most fun part of the game is spending the clubs millions on new players. Whether you want to buy that classy Brazilian striker or you are in the market for an ageing pro on a free contract there are literally thousands to choose from. To make the searching easier there are filters that allow you to make your search more refined. Once you find the player you want then it is up to how much money you have and how good your negotiating skills are. Firstly you have to get the other club to sell him to you and then negotiate a contract with the player that he is happy with.

So does that sound like a lot for your money? Well we are not finished yet. Once you have bought and honed your team of world-beaters there is matchday to test your managerial skills to the limit.
Once you have picked your team and sorted out which tactics you will use the match is played using a 2D match engine. Circles on the screen represent your players as they move around the pitch with a running commentary at the bottom. It is up to you how much of the game you watch and the speed that it is played. You have to make substitution decisions and can change your tactics at any time during the game.
At half time you get the chance to talk to your players. You can praise them if they are winning 4-0 or can shout at them if the score is the other way round. What you say at half time will affect how they perform in the second half so be careful what you choose to say to them. At the end of the game you get the chance to comment on their performance as well. Links are available throughout the game allowing you to see match facts and anything that might allow you to improve how your team is doing. Scores in other games can be seen as well so if it is the last day of the season and you need Arsenal to lose 5-0 to Sunderland to get you into Europe then you can see what is happening.
Throughout the match there is crowd noise and chants to add to the occasion.

Throughout the game any comments that you may make about players or in response to other managers words to you affect the team either by buoying up or putting a dampener on their morale. In some cases it might even upset one of your players so much that he puts in a transfer request. So the moral is ‘watch what you say.’

As in real life the manager’s job is a precarious one. Keep winning and everybody loves you. Look like you are going to get relegated and suddenly you are public enemy number one and very quickly you could find yourself looking for another job.
There is a job centre, should you be in the unfortunate position of having parted company with your old employers. All the available jobs are to be found here. You can apply for any of them of course prospective employers might be a bit wary of you if you have just got your last team relegated so don’t aim too high.

So that is it. There is much more detail in the game than I have been able to mention here and I won’t deny that it is a complicated game to the Football Manager virgin. I think it is well worth persevering with it and you will find out just how absorbing it gets. Just don’t be surprised if the Mrs gets annoyed when she can’t get your attention for hours on end or you say that you can’t go to the cinema because you have got Juventus away in the Champions League. So for new players you have it all before you and for old hands there are plenty of new features for you to get to grips with

Problems? I suppose the only real grouch is the loading and processing time that can be quite long especially if you have an ageing PC. This has been addressed from older versions of the game where loading times were horrendous. This version allows you to do tasks whilst the processing is carried out in the background which is good. Apart from that I have no complaints apart from the fact that sometimes the choice of comments you are given for certain situations may not fit exactly what you think should be said but that is a very minor point.

Multiplayer is possible but as I have not tried it I don’t feel qualified to expound on its quality.


Purchasing details, Football Manager 2006 is available at a wide range of software sellers at a wide range of prices. Play.com have it for £17.99. That is the cheapest I have seen.
This is the PC version that I own but it is available in slightly different form on both the Xbox 360 and shortly the PSP.
There is a patch available for download that includes all the data for the last transfer window so if that is applied the data on your new game will be totally up to date.



© Docpov April 2006

Summary: Loads to keep you interested and very addictive.