Pick your team, pick your tactics, and pick up the trophies (Football Manager 2008 (PC))

Member Name: DaveAshton

Product:	Football Manager 2008 (PC)
Date:	20/09/09 (25 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Huge player database, realism

Disadvantages: Real life gets in the way... or is it the other way round?

Prepare to lose your social life. This is the game that's been known to break up relationships and even cause divorce. And it's easy to see why.

Football Manager 2008 has it all when it comes to football management. While it has the things that most management games have, such as a huge player database (FM08 probably has close to 10 million unique players in the game if you play a 20 season-long career), 50,000 playable teams, and hundreds of trophies, cups, shields and awards to compete for, it also has a few things that other management games don't, such as Board takeovers, petulant players that want massively inflated wages or they won't play well, and fan protests. You also get the chance to give your players pre-match talks to calm their nerves or fire them up, depending what works best for particular team members, and post-match praise / rollockings to either pat them on the back for playing well, or to make them reflect on the 7-0 pasting they just received. These talks can also effect morale, especially if a player feels victimised, which carries over to the next match.

Also, the game lets you watch the matches your team plays in real-time, using a top-down view showing your players and the ball as small circles (dot-ball, as my fiancee calls it), so you can see which areas of the pitch your players aren't playing well in.

If you're a football fan, and have ever felt you could do better than the real managers, buy this and prove it. But make sure you put a lot of spare time aside to play.

A slightly edited version of this review appears on Shopping.com under the same username.

Summary: The job you always wanted at a price you can afford