Marriage Breaker of a Game (Football Manager 2009 (PC))

Member Name: Avenging_Arnold

Product:	Football Manager 2009 (PC)
Date:	08/10/09 (27 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Everything

Disadvantages: You will lose days and weeks of your life

Its around that time of year again and the anticipation is growing for the latest installment i this franchise of amazing games. It is also the time of year my wife hates and my overall well being goes down the pan, the beard grows, the black bags under my eyes return and my overall cleanliness takes a drastic drop.

Yes its true i am hopelessly addicted to this game and how could you not be.

Football Manager previously Championship Manager started in 1992 and is created by Sports Interactive and published by Sega. It is a interactive football management game that offers the player the chance to manage a team from numerous leagues around the world and take that team to glory.

I have bought every single version of this game from 1992 when i first had it on the Amiga and now 17 years on i am thoroughly looking forward to the new release hopefully being released on the 30th October (but like we all know this game is often forced into release date delays due to the sheer amount of information it contains).

With each new release of the game comes added new features and this makes the game constantly fresh and always adds a new depth to explore and to love. In 2009 it added a 3D game feature mode (i wasnt a huge fan of this) it also added the press conference facility (which i hope the makers have expanded for the new release) as well as a more detailed feedback facility from your assistant manager on things such as team talks and players general well being, plus his opinion on players to buy that will improve the team.

The Game requirements differ depending on what platform you are playing the game on but it is highly recommended that you have a powerful pc/mac to run it to its full capacity. It is simple to install, pretty much pop in the DVD and follow the instructions and you will be up and running in no time.

The game itself has so many aspects to it and you can chose to be as involved as you like in the day to day running of the club you have chosen to play with. You can decide training regimes (i never do this unless i have misfiring strikers), you can control your reserves and even your under 18's if you like also (again i dont do this). You can amend and play around with your budgets taking money out of the transfer kitty and move it to wages and visa versa.

The main aim of the game is simply to win, to take your chosen team all the way to the top and then to maintain it. I always tend to start off with Liverpool as that is the team i follow but after a few goes with them i try teams from other countries then as a major challenge i often try and chose a team from the lower leagues and take them to premiership glory.

There are many other games like this on the market but they simply should be left to clean the boots of this game as nothing even comes close to its game play. It has so much information that you can spend hours on end just looking through the players and clubs from all over the world in a attempt to scout out the next big thing.

The players are generally very accurate in their attributes and the hidden attributes such as big game play and personality are normally spot on. Like every year and if you are a regular player of this game you will already know this but there will be some youngster that turn out to be world beaters and if you look on the forums (there are so many to list just google it) you will normally find a list of these players so you can get in their early and sign them and nurture their talent (but i do find doing this a bit of a cheat).

In 2008 Sega and Sports Interactive released the Football Manager Live facility allowing FM to be played as massive online multiplayer game and although i am telling you this i have never used it so i cant comment on how it works or what its like but i do believe with the new version of the game i may well give it a go.

The official football manager website http://www.sigames.com will give you patches and updates for the game if it has any little glitches and it also has a good selection of forums to discuss all matter FM. I have also just seen that you can now get a 21 day free trail of FM2010 so i guess thats going to be the end of my reviewing for the forseeable future lol.

If you are a football fan and are unfamiliar with this game you must be insane, if your a wife of a addictive football manager player i feel for you and im sure there is a support group out there for you, if you do find one please leave me a comment as i know my wife will be interested. Finally if your new to the game or a fan of this game already as simply as i can put it ENJOY!

Summary: The greatest computer game in the world