FOOTBALL MANAGER 2012 Review

rating:4.5

This coming Friday sees the latest release of the juggernaut Management Sim franchise that is Football Manager, risen from the ashes of the formerly glorious Championship Manager series (which of course continued in name alone), and we were lucky enough to get our hands on a very early copy of the game from Sega and SI Games. Since then I haven't slept properly, I find myself jotting formations on any scrap of paper to hand, and my social life has evaporated as I make elaborate excuses in order to get back to my laptop and the curious comfort of watching comparatively poorly animated footballers make me a hero and pouring over endless statistics. That's how I know Football Manager 2012 is yet another franchise high for the development team. Football Manager is for obsessives, pure and simple. And in those terms, 12 works perfectly. The game has always offered a comfortable, accessible environment, ergonomically tuned, and aesthetically unassuming which facilitates extended sessions of play without pain or boredom, even outside of the matchday experience. It is possible to learn almost every function and every feature within a very short period of time, because everything is so well sign-posted, and for those who need the help, Sports Interactive have included a Tutorial - separate from the main game, which was a good move for series veterans like myself who would no doubt have only grumbled when faced with the option to sit through a tutorial (even if averting it was only a matter of clicking no) - that's elitism for you. The tutorial is thorough and helpful for both entry level players and those who want to feel comfortable with the new features and set-up before starting a new game, and the How To section remains within the game for any check-ups, with a search function that makes navigating to specific query areas almost effortless. That in itself is a good safety net for those not patient enough to find out where old features have been moved to - or to help identify the difference between the different screens offered at different resolutions. In another new adaptation, playing at a higher resolution means higher data volume on screen - making the 1920 x 1080 option the best one for fans of huge amounts of information. I count myself as a member of that camp, and the option to see a fixture list, team stats, and a league table on the homepage without having to navigate to another page, and the additional visible features on the player home page are a massive advance for me. Those who complain about the added information on screen obviously don't play the game for the same reason as me. Not only does it make the Homepage more of a hub (which it was always intended as, and not just a landing page to always move away from), it also cuts down the click-through needs that can grow slightly tiresome fifteen seasons down the line. And the fact that I usually have my screen set up at the higher resolution made me feel rewarded in a lovely personal touch that SI definitely didn't intend. As with every new yearly addition to the franchise, 12 comes with a raft of evolutionary features, and not just the two major ones already stated. There is a huge uplift in communication between the player and the coaching team and playing squad, and the post-game team talk page in particular is a lot better, and a lot easier to communicate both team messages and individual ones to suit the development of the team. It's also a lot easier to find a suitable response to the team's performance, rather than impotently staring at six or so prefigured team talks that simply don't adequately convey how much rage is flowing after a dismal midweek League Cup defeat at Bradford. The greatest, most quantifiable result of those tweaks in the communication set up is the added level of control the manager will feel on team morale, which was something of an enigma in the past, but which now feels actually maleable, meaning your ability to eventually affect your own man-management statistics is far more realistic (formerly there seemed a wholly arbitrary relationship between what you did and how the game judged you. Overall the refinements have been brought in to help chase that ever-shifting Holy Grail of ultra-realism: transfer budgets feel more realistic (though Newcastle and Aston Villa fans will wonder why their billionaire owners can only scrape together £8m and £6m respectively for player acquisitions), and player stats also do (meaning they generally meet my own evaluations - which is an incredibly self-serving qualifier, I admit). The strange contradiction that every Football Manager title faces of course is that the player has no real idea of how close to reality the experience of football management is, so SI Games are forced to adapt not only to that reality (built up thanks to their professional advisors) but to the collective expectations of their very vocal, very committed fanbase. The fact that the franchise consistently meets those collective expectations, as well as appealing to players on as personal a level as I just professed is a huge achievement. That's not to say the game is totally perfect: there are a ridiculous amount of injuries, which feels like a glitch, given that it was pointed out when the demo was released, and doesn't appear to have been fixed, unless the SI squad have decided that realism means more short-term injuries. The 3D match engine still only slightly trumps Sensible Soccer for graphics, but there are a few more animations added in this year to make it all feel a little bit better than last time out: even if realism doesn't come into it at all, there is still a lot of value in seeing how your players react on the pitch, and keep their shape. It's just that the lack of gloss inevitably means you don't quite trust that what you're seeing is an accurate reflection. Some will also find time to criticise the Steam requirement, though that makes sense given the astonishing piracy figures that convinced SI Games and Sega to go for that approach in the first place. And how much of a stumbling block is having to be connected to the internet to download, when the majority of homes now have an active, and fast enough broadband connection anyway? Overall, it's another winner for the franchise. Glitches aside (and they will be ironed out fairly quickly going on SI's past track record), all of the evolutions have a positive effect on the gameplay or the interface - my favourite being the new ease with which you can negotiate with the board over individual transfers without fear of immediately having to reach for the ultimatum and being rewarded with the sack, since that was the tale of more than one season for me in past FM games. Football Manager 12 rewards the time the player puts in, without there ever being a compromise in entertainment for realism, and creates an environment (both in-game and in the forums and communities it inspires across the web) in which the gamer feels completely comfortable with their obsession. And rather than just featuring updated team and player information, 12 features some genuinely valuable improvements which more than justify the price-tag, and the question of whether it is good enough to abandon FM11 doesn't even come into it. But, of course it is. Season 2011/12 Stats Team: Newcastle United Sales: Shola Ameobi, James Perch, Danny Guthrie, Peter Lovenkrands, Danny Simpson, Leon Best. Acquisitions: Fraser Fyvie, Wayne Bridge (Loan), Daniel Sturridge (Loan), Erik Pieters. Final Position: 6th. Just like in real life at the end of this season, then... Football Manager 2012 is released this Friday for PC and Mac.