Football Manager 2009: The most addictive football game in the world (Football Manager 2009 (PC))

Member Name: joncarey9

Product:	Football Manager 2009 (PC)
Date:	19/08/09 (171 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Level of detail, ease of play, unable to put it down

Disadvantages: 3D feature a little demanding

Like many football fans, playing the Football Manager game series comes hand in hand with watching your favourite team. A game as popular as this obviously means that it has many a review already on dooyoo, so I was a little reluctant to throw down my views, but in the end I haven't been able to resist reviewing what without a shadow of a doubt is my favourite gaming series of all time.

The Football Manager series began its life in 1992 under the equally well known title, Championship Manager. Created by two brothers, Paul and Oliver Collyer in a bedroom in Shropshire it soon went on to become the best selling series of football management simulation games of all time.

Championship Manager spawned three follow up games, each with various expansions and patches released for them, in order to update the player information and leagues for each particular football season. In 2004 however the original creators of the Championship Manager franchise, Sports Interactive Games, split with their publishers Eidos and jumped ship to rivals Sega. Citing creative differences Sports Interactive where allowed to keep the base code, database and programming of the game, essentially all but the visuals, whilst Eidos kept the Championship Manager title and interface.

Championship Manager games are continued to be released to this day, with Championship Manager 2010 due sometime in the near future. With the original title no longer available for Sports Interactive to use they obtained to re-brand the game under the title Football Manager, and on November 2004 released their re-start game, Football Manager 2005.

Now that's the history out the way I can focus on their most recent offering, Football Manager 2009. Originally released on 14th November 2008, on both PC and Mac (and later Playstation Portable), the game pretty much follows on from where the others have left off. If you've played a FM game before, or a Championship Manager game for that matter, you should know what to expect. It is a football simulation game which puts you in the position of manager of your chosen team. You must deal with player transfers, match tactics, training, scouting and much much more. For some of you that may sound a bit boring, it's not a football game such as Fifa or PES, but it's just as much if not more fun. Instead of playing as the footballer on the pitch you're the little man with the notepad and drawings of formations, and it's absolutely brilliant.

I've been hooked on Football Manager for years and FM09 is no different, it's probably the most addictive game I've ever played, I can literally see whole days pass me by as I attempt to avoid relegation or win the World Cup. The games database is absolutely huge; you can go from managing the superstars of Brazil to the minnows of the Finnish Veikkausliiga league. You can literally never get bored, there's a challenge out there for everyone.

FM09 has made quite a few changes from its previous offering, with some of these being quite major ones. First off though this is the first title in the franchise to be released on DVD-ROM instead of the rather outdated CD-ROM. I can only presume this is a size issue, with the DVD offering much more room for improved visuals (which I'll come to later) and more in depth databases. Half stemming from this however have been a few problems regarding the activation of the game. I had no problems myself by many buyers of the game experienced problems with the game's copy protection system denying them activation of their DVD. I read this was very frustrating for some gamers, and linked to errors in the printing of activation keys and server issues, thankfully though all problems regarding this seem to have been fixed.

The most significant change in FM09 is the addition of a 3D match engine. In the past the actual football match content was only viewable as a 2D simulation or text based description. With the 2009 version though the games can now be watched full screen in 3D, seeing the players run about, following your instructions, and hopefully scoring you lots of goals. For me this feature seemed a bit unnecessary, sure its natural progression and the next logical step, but my computer is getting on a bit now and it just can't keep up with the graphical demands this feature requires. If I try to use the 3D mode it is extremely laggy and jumps around a lot, and all in all is quite difficult to watch. I'm sure if you have a new top of the range computer that it would run well and be a lot of fun, but for me I was quick to turn the feature of in the options and stick with my trusty 2D.

Other new features in FM09 include, now for the first time being able to play as a female manager, something which was long overdue in coming. Improved mid-match tactics, team talks and assistant manager interaction. The addition of press conferences, and the complete reworking of the finance and transfer systems. For me though it was the new player rating system which stood out as a great change. Now player's performances are rated using decimal points instead of whole numbers, 6.8 instead of 7. This gives a whole new level of accuracy and allows you the manager to really highlight who is putting in a good performance on the pitch, and who is struggling out there.

It is worth pointing out at this stage that although pretty much every team and player you could possibly think of is in the game (if you use the large database option), some are missing due to legal reasons. The German nation team is not allowed to be included due to licensing rights being owned by EA Sports, whilst the Japanese national team and J-League are not allowed due to the Pro Evolution Soccer series exclusive rights purchase. This isn't a major problem but I have found the computer simulated players who now play for Germany to be very very hard to beat, but just think of it as a little additional challenge.

Every year the interface design is tweaked and redone, and FM09 is no different. I can't really say its any better than Football Manager 2008's but I've had no problems with it. All the features you need are there and easy to find, either through icons or drop down menus. For legal reasons the actual graphics, of team kits, badges, players, etc, are left as blank or simple designs which do at first make the game look a little lacking. There is however a massive community on the internet dedicated to producing images for inclusion in FM games. I'm not 100% sure on the legality of the copyright, but they are not produced for profit and are very easily available. It may take you a little time to download all the graphic packs you want and copy them into the right game folders (which Sports Interactive have made already, with me coming to the conclusion they support this improvement), but in the end it is totally worth it. By having pictures of your chosen squad and actual club badges it just makes for a much richer experience.

As well as playing in single player mode you can also play with friends in a multi-player game. By clicking on the network option on the start page and following the instructions, you can easily set up a multi-player game either via the internet or through a home network you may have in place.

Since its initial release three official patches (9.1.0, 9.2.0 and 9.3.0) have been offered for download by Sports Interactive. They fix a number of issues regarding bugs and compatibility, as well as changes to players and club squads, so are well worth downloading if you don't already have them.

The system requirements for FM09 are as follows, bear in mind what I said about the 3D option, it doesn't work to tell of my old slow computer but everything else works perfectly.

Minimum requirements (PC)
- Windows XP / Vista
- 1.4GHz processor for XP or 2.0 GHz for Vista
- 512MB RAM for XP or 1GB RAM for Vista
- Graphic Card - 128MB Nvidia FX 5900 Ultra, ATI Radeon 9800, Intel 82915G/82910GL or better.

Minimum requirements (Mac)
- Intel Mac
- Mac OS 10.5.5
- 1GB RAM
- Graphic Card - Nvidia Geforce 7300 / ATI X1600 Radeon

Football Manger 2009 is a wonderfully addictive game, the perfect simulation of football management. The database and programming is full of depth and the game play couldn't be simpler, it's a real game which anyone can give a go and enjoy. Obviously you need to be a football fan, but other than that it's up to you. You choose whether you want to continue Manchester United's dominance or try and reignite a struggling Norwich City.

There are enough improvements over the FM08 version to warrant a purchase, but bear in mind FM10 is due out in a few months time, so it may be worth holding off till then. If you haven't played Football Manager before please give it ago, it really is so much fun, just a word of warning though you may find it hard to turn it off.

Football Manager 2009 is available to purchase at amazon.co.uk for £15.96 or currently from £11.25 on the amazon marketplace.

Some useful Football Manager websites and forums are;

http://www.footballmanager.com/

http://www.fmglive.com/

http://www.fmscout.com/

http://sortitoutsi.net/

http://www.thedugout.net/community/

Summary: The perfect football sim game