It’s a game of two halves…
HQ
HQ
It’s 3am and the scene is all too familiar. Another year, another Football Manager, another reason to lose sleep.
It’s been interesting to follow the reactions to this year’s Football Manager online. The game has always provoked strong emotions, not particularly surprising given the feelings football gives rise to. Steam reviews and other fan commentary reveal a split player base. There is a bit of unrest, even if there’s nothing majorly wrong here. If it doesn’t get censored by the almighty editor-in-chief (who bears the burden of being an Arsenal fan) we’d say Football Manager finds itself in the same situation as the Gunners. There is a great deal of potential here, but there’s also the sense that a revolution and renovation is overdue.
We’re not saying there haven’t been changes made to Football Manager 2018. The new Dynamics feature helps illustrate squad building issues, social groups, and is a great tool for aspiring desktop gaffers.
Same as last year our first campaign was for a club we don’t really have any strong feelings towards: West Ham United. We have a relatively good grasp of their players and it felt like there was room for improvement and growth there. The first season was largely disappointing, but having signed players like Jack Wilshere, Divock Origi, Claudio Bravo (a veteran keeper isn’t a bad choice short-term) and a couple more, while managing to retain the best players already in the squad, we started to climb up the ranks the following year. It felt very familiar, which in itself is not a bad thing, Football Manager is a quality product, but much like Arsenal, as fans, we’re itching for decisive changes.
As you’d expect you’re getting a copy of Football Manager Touch, the more casual variation of Football Manager 2018 as part of the package. What’s not included and instead exists as paid DLC is the data editor. Bad news if you’re a fan of a smaller more obscure league where the scouting isn’t of the same standard as, say, the English league system or the major leagues on the continent. It feels a bit petty to be honest, not that it costs a lot, it’s just that it used to be included. Apart from the standard RPG-like career mode, there’s a fantasy draft mode, online career, and create-a-club.
The scouting system has been updated, but we’re not sure we’re that keen on it. It’s supposed to reflect real-world scouting, but we’re not sure it does (other than that Man Utd scout who traveled to Iceland instead of Qatar to see an international friendly). There’s simply a better level of knowledge of footballers around the world thanks to various video services and analysis software. It sometimes feels like you’re unfairly punished for having rubbish scouts whereas there’s a better base knowledge overall of what players are capable of as you’ll soon google for the most talented wunderkids and bargains instead of doing the work inside of the game. Then again, that’s always been the case.
A few areas persist as problematic in Football Manager. Press interaction gets repetitive and boring almost immediately as very little has changed in recent years. Sure, there are more transfer rumours plucked out of the air (a pretty accurate reflection of reality), but overall, there’s the feeling that you only engage with it cause you don’t want to risk your assistant saying something that will affect player or squad morale.
The same can be said of training, an area that’s also difficult to enjoy and that’s heavy on micromanagement. Something we do enjoy is the number of choices you’ve got in terms of player roles when you set up tactics. Getting your players to play well in a position, as well as in a particular role, is very important.
And while you can pass off the micromanagement of numerous areas (we always assign management of reserves and youth as well as scheduling of friendly matches to our assistant), it feels like you’re asking for trouble if you let your possibly not always excellent assistant handle things that could sour relationships.
We ran into a rather immersion-breaking event during our first season. José Mourinho transfer-listed Zlatan Ibrahimovic in March of 2018 as his contract had three months left. The transfer window was clearly closed and we were asked to comment on the transfer listing by a journalist (this actually happened twice, but that’s not the real issue), we said we were surprised and wouldn’t mind snapping up the player as we sensed a possibility of getting the ageing striker for a sunset season. It would beat having to rely on Chicharito, Carroll and Sakho. Now The Special One responds how it is going to take a lot of money for us to get Ibrahimovic. First of all, by the time we can make a bid his contract will have run out. Secondly, the listing was for less than a million. Thirdly, given the relationship that Ibrahimovic and Mourinho enjoy this would never happen in real-life.
As much as the 3D engine has improved it’s still not particularly enjoyable to look at. It does the job and we appreciate the effort that goes into having the numbers dictate the outcome of every single situation on the pitch, but we also wished that we wouldn’t see the number of odd situations where people lose the ball only to stand completely still (and upright) for three seconds, or where a defender inexplicably pushes up to provide a winger with a clear run at goal, or even stranger the number of direct shots we’ve seen at kick-off. Maybe it is tried a couple of times per year across the major leagues, but when the same player tries it twice with just a couple of matches in between it’s just weird.
As always Football Manager has to be commended for the insane depth and research that’s gone into the player database. To some extent, this might be what’s holding back innovation to some degree (it’s hard for SI to abandon the foundation of their work to try new ideas of how to portray player skills), but at the same time, it ensures a realistic and highly addictive product.
The game started out with Qatar being removed as hosts for the 2022 World Cup, same as Brexit last year this is an event that may or may not happen (Brexit will happen here, its effects vary). One thing we didn’t experience was having a player come out as gay, though this feature is there in the game and may occur as the computer-generated replacement players start coming of age.
The fact that football transfers went insane during the last transfer window is reflected in the game, but it’s still very much based on the foundation from previous years, so don’t expect transfers to work markedly different. However, if a team wants to hold on to a player you may have to pay a great deal of money. Another area that’s been majorly revamped is injuries, and we really liked how it is now reflected and tracked. It feels less like rolling the dice with injury prone players, and managing this aspect is better presented. Having Wilshere and Carroll on the same team makes you appreciate this improvement all the more.
We’re playing Football Manager 2018 on a fairly powerful desktop and the speed is certainly there for this sort of setup, and we enjoyed playing it in windowed mode while multi-tasking. The menu system felt natural straight away. However, we have had a few crashes and freezes happen. Nothing too frequent, but more than we’d like to see.
As usual, our verdict on this year’s Football Manager is based on what we’ve managed to play during a couple of intense weeks (50 hours or so) and compared to the number of hours we tend to put in with each instalment that’s not a great deal. Nevertheless, we feel we can hand out a verdict, and we feel that this year’s product doesn’t really make the sort of leap forward we had been hoping for. It’s still a great game, it’s just not a special one.
HQ
Keyword: Football Manager 2018