http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/FootballManager
From Sports Interactive, comes the next step in the evolution of management simulations – Football Manager 2005. With over 10 years of football management gaming experience spent developing a games engine and database second to none, no-one offers a greater depth of knowledge into the real world of the beautiful game than the team behind Football Manager 2005.
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Football Manager: because the guy in suit is always the one that matters.
Football Manager, formerly known in the USA and Canada as Worldwide Soccer Manager, is a football management sim where, unlike games such as the FIFA and Pro Evolution Soccer series, you control all the management aspects of the club rather than actually controlling the players on the pitch itselfnote . It's up to the player to buy and sell players, control the finances, tactics and setup of the team as a whole.Advertisement:
The series is the successor of the hugely successful Championship Manager series of the 90's and early 2000's before the split between Eidos and Sports Interactive in 2004. Sports Interactive managed to retain everything but the name and Football Manager (now distributed by Sega) displaced the Championship Manager franchise as the number one Football Management sim in the world. Championship Manager by contrast fell behind as Eidos had to start everything from scratch, and was discontinued from the 2010/11 season.
At least part of the game's success is due to the fact that almost any real life player can be loaded into the game, no matter how unaccomplished.
The games composing the FM series began with Football Manager 2005, which covered the 2004/05 European Football Season and so on up to the most recent release. They all ultimately have roots in the Ur-Example, 1982's Football Manager on the ZX Spectrum.
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Spinoffs:
- Football Manager Mobile, originally called Football Manager Handheld (2006)
- Football Manager Live (2008) - MMO style game with a dismal launch, was a huge failure for the company and was shut down in May 2011.
- Football Manager Touch (2016) - the Classic Mode of Football Manager 2013, 2014 and 2015 as a standalone game. First appeared in 2015 as Football Manager Classic, only being available for tablet devices.
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- The Ace:
- Maxim Tsigalko in CM 01/02, the one player that almost everyone signed. He became so notorious for this, they even put it on his Wikipedia page.
- To Madeira.
- Eder Álvarez Balanta is a modern example, being the best defender in the game in the 2014 and 2015 versions, and one of the most cost-effective in 2016.
- Your player character, if you are good enough. It reaches the point where you can apply for, say, the Barcelona job as the current Real Madrid manager and they will still beg for you to join them.
- Of course, any of the best players in the world in real life, as they will be accurately modelled in the game.
- Added Alliterative Appeal: Almost all news titles in which the press criticizes or praises a player's form. That is, when it's not an Incredibly Lame Pun.
- Always Male: True for the actual footballers, but clubs can have female staff (prominent example: Corinne Diacre, manager for French Ligue 2 team Clermont) and players can play as female managers.
- And the Adventure Continues: Forever!
- Asbestos-Free Cereal: A variant of the trope is the the game being promoted by talking about an outlandish number (in the hundreds, and in the later versions, over 1000) of changes and updates, even if 99.99% of those updates are mere bug fixes or generic UI changes.
- Audience Reactions: Many of these are played In-Universe by way of the News section.
- And the Fandom Rejoiced: Whenever the player's team wins a significant cup or the player does a significant sign-up. 'As <Team>'s boss <Manager> completed the transfer of <Position> <Player>, delighted <Team> fans gathered outside the ground to rejoice.'
- What the Hell, Hero?: If you apply for another managerial post while you have a job. Do it constantly, and you can get sacked.
- Win the Crowd: Winning any official competition (such as a Cup or even the League itself) when the main objective is 'stay clear of relegation'. In the first management year.
- Win Back the Crowd: Whenever the player's team achieves something important after a bad season.
- 8.8: When the Board are only mildly happy about massive achievements like winning multiple trophies.
'The board revealed they always expected the team to win the competition. The board are keen to impress on the manager that celebrations are kept to a minimum in order that the club may focus fully on future challenges.' - And the Fandom Rejoiced: Whenever the player's team wins a significant cup or the player does a significant sign-up.
- Bad Boss: You can be one, but don't expect to have a happy squad if you don't treat them well. Before the 2016 version, the AI was an unintentionally good example of this, with it simply being incapable of dealing with unhappy players well.
- Batman Gambit: You are managing one of the teams with the most reputation in the game, and you've spotted an ambitious player at a weaker team that could be a great asset to your team. You try to buy him, but the team's manager states he's not for sale. So what do you do? You make a laughably bad offer so that it's turned down, or they ask so much money you stop negotiating - the ambitious player gets angry at his manager for not letting him go to a big team, and is transfer listed by request... where you can get him for far less money than what they wanted at first.
- Bland-Name Product: Football Manager includes a lot of leagues and cups around the world, but a more believable amount of licenses, so there're competitions like the European Champions Cup instead of the UEFA Champions League.
- Call-Back: Classic Mode (A standalone game called Football Manager Classic since 2015/2016) is this to earlier games in the series, as it lacks most features of modern Football Manager games, making it more similar to a polished Championship Manager 03/04.
- Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Every team, as in Real Life.
- Competitive Multiplayer: Any number of players can join in at any time, either on the same computer or on a network game.
- Completely Missing the Point: There are times in which the board agrees with your request, but refuses it because of a lack of funding. Said refused requests may include spending less money...
- The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard:
- Sorting your players by value, you'll often find most of the injuries happening to those listed higher up. The teams you face for international and continental competitions, however, don't have to worry about injuries in most installments and if they're part of a league you haven't selected. And they never have to worry about squad rotation either, since their players never get tired playing in their 'ghost' league.
- Losing a match after leading at half-time when the opposition go from horrible to playing like Brazil, and seeing the opposition players 'praise their managers team-talk' in the news item brings up this reaction in people.
- Creator Cameo: Search 'faceinthegame' and you'll get computer-generated players and non-playing staff that take the name, nationality and a few other traits (such as birthplace and favourite teams, among others) from people involved in the making of the game (such as researchers for each country). In earlier games, some of them (the Sports Interactive staff in particular) even had strange personality traits based on pure Rule of Fun (especially if you scout said player). Depending on the amount of credited people, don't be surprised if you find multiple 'faceinthegame' people based on the same person. At the same time.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: The player's team can can easily rout opposing teams if it gets good enough. It's usually much more common in cups and friendly matches where the top teams play with the weaker and lesser league/non-league teams.
- Developers' Foresight: The availability of certain actions can vary when some uncommon events happen:
- You cannot have a Private Chat with a player that has been reported absent from training.
- You may tell the press that you disagree with a certain player being called up for his national team. This cannot be done if you manage said national team.
- Difficulty Spike:
- Once SI took over, and all of the brilliant players that would go to Conference clubs were systematically axed, the game obviously got much harder. It still doesn't stop people from taking clubs from said Conference to the Champions League, though...
- This can naturally happen over the course of a save. In nations such as Spain, the first promotion to top-flight as a minnow can be an unpleasant experience as you have to face extremely powerful opponents with hardly any TV revenues to bolster your team.
- Down to the Last Play: Can happen quite often, as it can in real football.
- Dude, Where's My Respect?: If you want fans to strongly appreciate your success, said success must be very long-term. It does not matter if you took your team from the fourth (And lowest playable) tier in the country to top-flight (Where it had never been in the past) in less than 10 years, you will merely be Favoured Personnel. The fans' stubborness also happens with players, as they need several seasons at a very high performance to be Favoured Personnel, and even then it may not be enough. The manager's situation is averted with the board, however, as they are much more willing to appreciate what you have done. But they will still not expand or build a new stadium, or increase scouting range, sorry.
- Early Game Hell: The first transfer window's budgets are often much smaller than the team's quality may suggest. Once you get to the second transfer window, said budget can rise drastically if your team is one of the richest. Going from less than 20 million pounds to over 100 is not unheard of.
- Endless Game: Double Subverted. The player character manager ages, but will eventually stop ageing and is immortal.
- Every Man Has His Price: Can be invoked by offering so much money for a player that said team's board will accept without letting the manager do anything.
- Expy:
- Because of copyright disputes the un-modded German national team only selects 'greyed-out' fictional players while German goalkeeper Oliver Kahn was renamed Jens Mustermann (the German equivalent of John Doe). Similar problems have existed with France and Japan among others. These can easily be fixed by simply deleting particular files.
- Unticking the 'Use real players' option when creating a game actually replaces players with expies that have the exact same stats and age and play in the same positions with the same proficiency, and play on the same team. The only differences are their names, their lack of career history, their favourite personnel being replaced with their equivalent expies, and their generated faces. Occasionally the nationality changes, but, more often than not, it doesn't.
- The Faceless: The Manager is never seen above the mouth in the cover art. When he appears as a playable racer in Sonic & All-Stars Racing: Transformed, he wears a motorcycle helmet that conceals his upper face.
- Game Mod:
- There are extensive user-created additions to every game in the series, although none would be considered a true 'mod'. These additions range from updated databases, better logos and team shirts, additional leagues, expanding leagues below the currently playable leagues, and the creation of entire fictional countries such as the 'Koana League'.
- Championship Manager 01/02 has an extensive modding site available that aims to keep the game up to date with the Squads, leagues and seasons of 2010/2011.
- Guide Dang It!: Some elements of the game require the user to look up detailed information to understand, like Training and Tactics. Quite a few nations have unusual playing conditions and rules and going in blind is a sure-fire way to get sacked. These can include:
- Odd qualifying and playoff systems to decide champions, promotions or continental competition places. Holland's Eerste Divisie (2nd tier) has a promotion/relegation system where the 18th team in the 1st tier is replaced by the champions, but then has a promotion play-off that includes the 16th and 17th team's from the 1st tier, and then the best team in the four quarters of the seasons, and then next 4 highest clubs that weren't one of the top 4 from the quarters of the season, giving a 9 team playoff.
- The Argentinian leagues have the average points system, which span three seasons. The two (Four in the Primera B Nacional) teams with the worst average points get relegated.
- Up to Eleven in Football Manager 2015. The first six months feature the Primera División the way it has been known for years, but the Primera B Nacional involves two groups of 11 teams, in where five teams of each group gets promoted. Starting in 2015, the Primera División has thirty teams playing one time against each other, bar rival (Or close) teams, which are played twice. It will be very complicated again when the 2016 january transfer window patch is released. The thirty teams will be split in two groups of 15 (Rivals or close teams are not placed in the same group), playing once against each other, plus two derbies, and only one team is relegated. Then it goes back to the 2015 format, though starting in mid-year instead of spanning a single year.
- Belgium has a system so bizarre across the entire league pyramid that you're better off just trying to win every match than bother trying to understand it.(In resume: Everyone plays each other twice, then the league cleaves into 3 groups of six -And the points obtained at that point are halved-, deciding in order; The championship[1-6];mid-table[7-12];and who gets relegated[13-18])
- Major League Soccer in the USA and the Australian A-League have atypical drafts, salary caps, squad size and nationality restrictions, play-off systems and special 'marquee' player slots.
- Brazil's league system has multiple league competitions running as national, state and local competitions. Some of these also have splits and playoff systems not determined solely by final position. The main useful difference compared to European & Asian leagues is that the season takes place via calendar year.
- An example for a 3rd division team playing in the Ceara State league. At the start of the year this team along with the rest of the country will play in the state league. The Ceara State League is split into an 'opening stage' and a 'closing stage', of 11 games each. After these 11 games the top 4 teams play in a straight knock-out to determine the winner of the stage. If the same team wins both the opening and closing stage finals, they win the State League title, but if not, then there is a final between the two teams. After this State League season, there is a three month gap for the 3rd division team, then the 3rd division starts. 3rd Division is split into 4 groups of 5 teams who play a total of 8 games. The bottom team is relegated to 4th Division, and the top 2 of each group then enter a second group stage comprised of two 4 team groups. The top two in each group are promoted to the 2nd Division, but there is a final played between the top team in the two groups to determine the champion.
- If you play as a first or second division side, you still have to deal with your state league, there is also the Brazilian Cup, the very top teams play the continental competition Copa Libertadores instead of the Brazilian Cup, and then you play a typical 38 game league season for the First or Second Division trophy, making a season that can be over 80 games long. The season will start mid-January, the state league finishes in April, the 1st or 2nd Division starts in May, and doesn't end until early December with maybe a two week break at the end of the season before it begins all over again. It's not just tiring for the players, it's mentally tiring for the human manager especially towards the end of the season, as the manager has to juggle running the team in the current competition while simultaneously working toward improving the team for next season (which Division the club will be in may not even be confirmed yet), under the tight deadline of the quickly oncoming season. For the massive amount of games a season in Brazil has, there can be an advantage: If your team plays in a weak state league and is also playing the Copa Libertadores, you can use a reserve team for state matches and keep your best players resting for the difficult matches.
- The Korean leagues force the some of the teams' players to be sent to Sangjum, the military team, at a given point every year. Luckily, however, this does not apply to the Korean players competing in non-Korean leagues.
- France's fourth tier (Championnat de France Amateur, better known as CFA) has a strange points system, in which you get 4 for a win, 2 for a draw and 1 for a loss. The Ligue 1 reserve teams also play in this tier, although they cannot be promoted.
- Team talks are a major bug bear for many players, although once mastered they become extremely predictable, because there are only really a handful of typical variations on the match status, and some are simply obvious (such as a leading a weaker team to victory, you just praise the team for their win). Effectively there are two sets of three variations, the two sets being dependent on if your team is better or equal, or worse than the opposition.
- If better, you assertively or passionately demand performances before the game, tell them not to get complacent if they are winning at half-time or won the game, and if they went behind or drew you can generally go apeshit nuts and yell at them angrily at half and full time.
- If not as good as the other team, then calmly tell them to relax or not to fear the opposition, and then encourage or sympathise with them depending on how the game went at half-time or full time.
- 100% Adoration Rating: It's practically impossible to do it literally, but there is an achievement that requires having at least 90% of the board's confidence overall.
- Immortality: The player character can technically live forever in the game and can only be removed from the game by retiring; see Endless Game above.
- In Name Only: The current Championship Manager-descendants share the name of what was arguably the original football management sim, Addictive Games' 'Football Manager'. Massively successful when it came out in the early '80s, it spawned countless ports and a number of sequels before the series fizzled out in the early '90s. The current series is not directly related, although it is arguably the original's spiritual heir.
- Just One More Level: Lampshaded in that there is a status screen which rates your addictiveness level the more hours you play, usually to play that extra game or win that cup final or make sure you have signed that star player. It is common for players to rack up hundreds of hours of playtime on the game, having games which span several in-game decades. The longest styled games such as the Country Hero challenges can last over a thousand hours.
- Lethal Joke Character: RGOUR Minsk is a team in the fourth division of Belarus, a division so low that it is physically impossible to play in without a custom database, and the best player from their academy is probably the Zenit goalkeeper Yuri Zhevnov. However, this tiny club in a usually inaccessible league has a perfect 20/20/20 score in Youth Coaching, Facilities and Recruitment. To put this in perspective, Barcelona (producing Xavi, Andres Iniesta and Cesc Fabregas) have 20/20/19, Ajax (who produced Johan Cruyff and Marco van Basten) have 19/19/19, and Boca Juniors (with Diego Maradona and Carlos Tevez) have 18/19/20.
- Taken to the logical extreme with the PowerGen Game Mod for the recent games - it gives every club - that is, every club, from Barcelona to Ajax to defunct Brazilian non-league club Novorizontino the same 20/20/20 scores.
- Loads and Loads of Characters: Although this trope applies to all team sport games this one is probably the king of the trope, if you played football professionally or even semi-professionally anywhere in the world during the last season its more likely than not that you are in the game, considering football is the most popular sport in the world, that's a lot of people. The game also features the Managers, Board Directors and Members, Coaches, Physios, Scouts and even the guys who relay the pitch. Only somewhat subverted in that even with a cutting edge computer it may be impossible to load all the players in the database for a game and play at a reasonable speed. It's only somewhat subverted because even just loading a few leagues will still provide a lot of characters - you don't only get the first team, but the reserves and youth players at the clubs as well. Too add to that, certain free agents and the bigger players from leagues you haven't loaded may also appear in the game depending on what database size you choose. As the game progresses more and more 'regens' (fake players) appear in the game world as well). The game itself recommends a maximum of 75,000 players, though depending on your computer you might be able to load twice as much without seriously impacting performance.
- In terms of players included, the only significant omissions from the game are the those playing in the J-League system (regardless of nationality) since they don't have the license to the names (held by Konami as of 2012). Japanese players signed to foreign clubs are all included, however.
- This also means that for every one wonderkid that SI/Eidos actually got right (Falcao, Aguero, Messi), nine were incredibly wrong. Madeira didn't even exist, Tsigalko ended his career due to persistent injuries, Cardenas, Cerrajero, Millan, Samba, Kerr, etcetera are all still unknowns...
- Loads and Loads of Loading:
- Loading times depend on how many leagues the current game has loaded. Loading up all of the available leagues can take up to 8 hours of loading time on a decent computer.
- The passing of days, and how the player gets to matches. Usually done quickly so this is not a bad thing.
- The march of computer technology has made modern versions much faster, especially when lesser levels of detail are used.
- Championship Manager 4 and Championship Manager 03/04 suffer this really badly on modern computers, due to them being unable to work properly on multiple-core CPUs. The average modern CPU core is weaker than the average single-core CPUs from the times those games were released - as a result, they run much slower than both older and newer games of the series.
- As a savegame goes on and the number of players increases (Even in non-playable leagues), the game steadily slows down. This cannot be avoided, but it takes a long while before it's noticeable.
- My Rules Are Not Your Rules: In the 2013 edition, when you are managing an amateur team, if a player you want to sign decides to remain at his team, you have to wait a certain amount of time before trying to sign him again. The computer doesn't. This reaches its logical extreme in transfer deadline days, where you try to keep one of your plays, you do, but during the loading screen, they do another offer and the player leaves... and of course, he won't want to come back.
- Nostalgia Filter:
- Championship Manager 01/02 is still arguably the most popular installment of the game (following whichever one was recently released).
- One of the most popular fan-made skins is the Flexion theme (discontinued for 2013, sadly). It is actually the 2007 game's skin with the attribute hexagon included.
- Obstructive Bureaucrat:
- The board and chairman can often feel like this. There are a range of options that require the human player to ask the AI board, and they will often deny them for no apparent reason. These can include: Denying the player a larger coaching staff. Refusing to build a new stadium when the old one is packed to capacity every match. Not allowing your scouts to visit other countries. Refusing to upgrade training facilities. Not entering into useful partnerships with other teams. Giving you a tiny wage or transfer budget.
- Starting in Football Manager 2015, if you have a request refused by the board, you can leak that event to the press. It almost always ends with the player being sacked.
- The ultimate example of this would be when a new chairman takes over a club, they may fire the human player from the team and replace them regardless of how well the player does with the team.
- The board and chairman can often feel like this. There are a range of options that require the human player to ask the AI board, and they will often deny them for no apparent reason. These can include: Denying the player a larger coaching staff. Refusing to build a new stadium when the old one is packed to capacity every match. Not allowing your scouts to visit other countries. Refusing to upgrade training facilities. Not entering into useful partnerships with other teams. Giving you a tiny wage or transfer budget.
- Red Herring:
- Can happen with players that were not previously scouted. If there is a minor knowledge of the player's country, one may be lured by one or two amazing stats, when the others are actually terrible.
- This can also happen with young players. Even with the best scouts and a great team to measure their potential, it's still inaccurate to an extent. It's only up to around the age of 24 where their potential can be more accurately determined.
- Silliness Switch: Some events can only happen to newgens, and not real players. For instance, they can get injured by falling over a cone.
- So Last Season:
- Expect more teams to use defensive tactics against you if your team has been successful recently. If you don't take this into account, you can get some surprise defeats and draws...
- It also happens when a new edition of the game is released, or when an update makes changes to the match engine. That successful tactic you've used to dominate for several seasons suddenly does not work anymore.
- Sturgeon's Law: Applicable to young players. For each 10 young players the scouts find, only one of them is a great fit for the player's team, and the other 9, well...
- It could be circumvented in earlier versions of the game (back when it was still Championship Manager). You see, the 'newgens', or youngsters created by the game, were just younger versions of retired players. They had the same Potential Ability, position, nationality and a couple of Mental atributes. So, when Zinedine Zidane retired, a new French Attacking Midfielder would show up, with potential to be at least as good as him.
- Took a Level in Badass:
- Rarely, personal events can drastically increase a player's mental stats, more often than not Determination. Inversions can also happen through this method.
- A club can take multiple levels in badass if a rich chairman takes over the team and keeps investing on it, but if not properly managed, once the chairman leaves they may end up in square one again.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: In the 2015 version, players are very prone to negative responses, even when congratulating them for scoring their first international goal. Even if the player is a club legend and you tell him he's welcome to come back anytime he wants.
- Wide Open Sandbox: The games apply this philosophy to the world of football/soccer, letting the player choose from any of thousands of clubs from anywhere in the world to manage. The victory conditions, such that they are, are framed in the form of 'this is what the board/fans expect'. There are no win conditions as such, meaning that the game can go on for decades of game time and months of real time. The player makes all the decisions the manager would in real life, making the game ideal for anyone who's sat down in front of Match of the Day and said something like 'well, I'd have played him there' - this likely accounts for its popularity even in spite of the fact that it's complex enough to make Paradox Interactive think twice.
Index
Football Manager 2007 | |
---|---|
Basic Information | |
Video Game | |
Sports Interactive | |
SEGA | |
Football Manager | |
Football Manager 2006 | |
Successor title | Football Manager 2008 |
Association football, Simulation | |
CD-ROM | |
Keyboard, Mouse | |
Microsoft Windows, macOS and Xbox 360 | |
Retail Features | |
Ratings | |
Technical Information | |
7.0.2 | |
European Release Date(s) | |
Microsoft Windows and macOS October 20, 2006 Xbox 360 December 1, 2006 | |
Australian Release Date(s) | |
Microsoft Windows and macOS November 2, 2006 Xbox 360 December 7, 2006 | |
Awards | Changelog | Cheats | Codes | Codex Compatibility | Covers | Credits | DLC | Help Localization | Manifest | Modding | Patches Ratings | Reviews | Screenshots | Soundtrack Videos | Walkthrough |
Football Manager 2007 (sold in the United States and Canada as Worldwide Soccer Manager 2007) is the third game in the Football Manager series of football management simulation games by Sports Interactive, published by SEGA. It was released for the PC, Mac, Apple–Intel on October 20, 2006 with Xbox 360 version following in December 2006. It was also released on PlayStation Portable as Football Manager Handheld 2007.
The game's developers claim that the new version includes over 100 new features as well as small adjustments and bug fixes but it is, essentially, the second seasonal update of Football Manager 2005, following on from the successful Football Manager 2006.
- 1New Features
- 3Reaction
- 6External Links
New Features[edit | edit source]
As a result of user feedback and continued evolution of the game in general, Sports Interactive has introduced over 100 new and revised features to Football Manager 2007. These include:
- A new default GUI, created with the input of user feedback. The new interface is said by SI to be more user-friendly.
- A revamped scouting engine, allowing for more realistic scouting of potential stars. including the ability for scouts to 'learn' from their experience. A 'scout report card' is also included, in order to provide easier access to important, detailed information about scouting targets.
- Enhanced media interaction, including the ability to make comments on any player in the game world. In previous versions featuring media commentary, managers could only comment on other managers.
- An improved youth team system. The method for generating new players is completely revamped, with the older 'regen' system - using recycled statistics from retired players - no longer in use.
- Pre-match team talks. Previously, only half-time and full-time team talks could be given. SI has also increased the half-time team talk functionality: managers can now target individual opposition players for special attention, such as instructing players to close them down or always to tackle them with force.
- A hints and tips screen appears when the game is being saved or loading is taking place.
- An option to ask your own team's players what staff (e.g. coaches, physios) or players they would like you to bring to the club has been added.
- Interactions with the board are improved. The board can authorise the building of new stadia. Clubs can be taken over by a group of investors, who may opt to fire the manager (a player may get sacked in the process).
- The manager, as well as NPCs, can comment on referees' decisions, which are not always correct.
Feeder Clubs[edit | edit source]
A significant new addition is the ability to create a feeder club affiliation. This allows larger clubs to set up a relationships with a smaller club and vice versa. This can be used by users managing larger clubs to 'farm' out players to their feeder club to gain the first team experience that they are unable to get at higher levels. They both work together for mutual benefit, Smaller clubs can benefit from the ability of these players on loan deals, and can also receive financial help. The larger club may also profit from merchandising in the smaller club's country.
The smaller club may also benefit from lucrative friendly matches against their parent side, as well as getting 'first option' on signing players that are to be released by the larger team. American and Chinese teams used as feeder clubs are generally known to be extremely lucrative to a parent club's income through merchandising.
Many fans had requested of SI the inclusion of feeder clubs in recent years, both on the official message boards and elsewhere. Fans of SI claim that the uncommonly close relationship between the design team and the players leads to the inclusion of such desired features.
Demo[edit | edit source]
On September 30, 2006 a demo of the game was released in four different versions: Strawberry and Vanilla for both Mac and Windows.
The Vanilla demo is basic and only includes English language, and the English league, with no kits, player photos, sound, graphics etc.
The Strawberry demo includes playable leagues for Brazil, Denmark, England, Finland, France, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Scotland, Spain and Sweden, many kits and player photos, and language support for many other regions.
Reaction[edit | edit source]
The game has been met with mixed reaction at release. Many fans are delighted with the faster gameplay, smoother graphics and scrolling, a cleaner data editor, accurate squads, realistic scouting, and generally, the more immersive world.
On the other end, many fans have complained about the lack of options available in the data editor. Features like changing the colours of a kit, changing the amount of kits of one club, creating a club or a competition were removed. Also, an option to edit the feeder clubs is not available. In defense, the editor was created from scratch and there was not enough time to implement all of the features from the data editor in FM 2006.[1] A patch has been released that deals with these editing problems and much more. Also, Football Manager 2007 lacks the 'huge' database that was popular with a portion of fans, although it can be restored with an easy hack.[2] The developers have stated that the removal of this size database was due to long-term games becoming unbalanced in numbers. The developers have told people who wish to have a 'huge' database to utilize DDT retain player files or to select more leagues from different continents when starting a new game. There has also been an issue with the way club finances are calculated for example leaving teams with crippling debt despite making a profit.
Despite these qualms, however, the game received almost universal critical acclaim on release, with an average score of 88 on Metacritic. GameSpot described Football Manager 2007 as a 'truly immersive football experience', while PC Gamer suggested that 'no other game comes close.'.[3] Football Manager 2007 was also nominated for a Golden Joystick and won 'The GamersAward at the BAFTA'S [1].[4]
Patch 7.0.1[edit | edit source]
The first patch for the game - 7.0.1 - was released on November 30, 2006. The patch is save game-compatible and fixes a wide range of issues.[5] Due to quickly-discovered bugs, an updated version of the same patch was released seven days later.
Patch 7.0.2[edit | edit source]
The second patch for the game - 7.0.2 - was released on February 21, 2007. The patch is save game-compatible and fixes a wide range of issues. It also updates the database to include January 2007 transfers.[6]
See also[edit | edit source]
- Football Manager (series) - Main article on the Football Manager series
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑Sigames Forum - FM2007 Editor (login required) (October 17, 2006).
- ↑Sigames Forum - No huge db? (login required) (October 18, 2006).
- ↑Metacritic (November 15, 2006).
- ↑FOOTBALL MANAGER 2008
- ↑sigames.com
- ↑patch release announcement
External Links[edit | edit source]
Below is a list of several external resources which contain various features relating to the Football Manager scene (both official and unofficial) such as patches, articles and downloads.
Official[edit | edit source]
- FootballManager.net - Official game website from SEGA and Sports Interactive
- Sega Europe - Sega's site showing a brief summary of the game.
- SIGames.com - Official Sports Interactive website
- Myspace - Official Sports Interactive Myspace Page
Affiliates[edit | edit source]
Sports Interactive has set up an Affiliates section (SIAS) which fansites can join. They offer a number of benefits to users, such as free games to give away in competitions, exclusive news and opportunities to visit Sports Interactive in Islington, London. You can view all the affiliates here
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