Football Manager 2012

A game that divides opinion between mind numbingly dull and pure genius, Football Manager once again returns for its eighth instalment. Having trounced every other manager title during the last years, hopes were high for the latest revamp of the game and once again the team at Sports Interactive have delivered another quality game.

Evolution not revolution has been the policy of the FM games and this edition is no different, with conversations between player and manager being one of the key improvements. Previously you could get away with being fairly inept and blagging every conversation, however the revamp gives you more options and your tone of voice is now a factor! Because of this I couldn’t get the useless injury prone Michael Essien to retire from internationals and had to sell him on the cheap! Team meetings are a new introduction too, with players reacting differently to both tone and comments. I had my team rebelling as I tried to introduce a weekly meeting, ended up going on a losing streak!

One nice addition for FM 12 is the option to select and deselect leagues, speeding up the gameplay drastically in the process. Prior to this you had to select every league you wanted to play in at the start of gameplay, making ambitious managers like myself select 10-15 different countries and making the gameplay slower than Eric Pickles in a marathon. However now because you can add them as and when, the gameplays speed reaches an all new high and you can glide through a season in record time.

Although the much maligned press conferences have been improved, the feature once again proves to be one of the most disappointing elements of football manager. The repetitive nature of the conversations with journalists become tiresome after 5 or 6 matches into the season and the fact it makes little difference to the gameplay just adds to the frustration. Although the team at Sports Interactive have tried to improve international management by adding greater interaction as well as teams for the upcoming Olympics, you still can’t really manage England without being a club manager simply because there isn’t enough to do. Chucking in a few club vs country rows, media rumours about FA issues etc would liven up the experience drastically.

As Football Manager is generally viewed as a glorified spreadsheet, it’s unlikely the new game will attract further followers to its giant fanbase. However with the subtle yet refreshing changes this time around FM will continue to appeal to fans and although the game hasn’t hit perfection yet, it annihilates all other competition yet again and proves to be the champion of football management games.