FM-Britain has become aware that its jingoistic moniker may well be putting off non-British people from becoming members in the assumption we only cater for Angles and Celts. Nothing could be further from the truth. One of our moderators is from Germany and another lives in Australia. Our favourite football team is the way-cool FC St Pauli. We even have a US Professor in our membership roster (see how I slipped in an Americanism there to make him feel more at home) and one of our training experts is Thai. In recognition of our multi-cultural perspective we have asked one of our Members of the Year, Hauk, to allow us to release his review of Football Manager 2008, originally published in the Norwegian newspaper, Dølaposten. We thank them for giving us permission to do so. The following is a slightly idiosyncratic translation of that article. We hope you enjoy it.


The FM-Britain Team


Football Manager 2008 is for a football fan what titties are for babies. You get hooked.

Scenario: I am not pleased with Wolverhampton's start to the season. Why the hell is Mick McCarthy putting Freddy Eastwood on the bench? He scores goals to order! Unfortunately, I have no influence whatsoever regarding Wolverhampton in real life. Or any other team for that matter. What I have got is Football Manager 2008, a game that allows me "unlimited" virtual power over the team in my hardworking heart. This is the game of opportunities and dreams. This is the game where Redditch could qualify for Champions League, and even go on to win it. Crazy? Yeah. Do we like it? Hell, yeah!

Scaringly Good

All shiny medals got a back page. So does Football Manager 2008. It hooks you in a way you didn't know was possible before it happens. It's worse than heroin, porn and nicotine. Combined! Your social life will get pushed into your reserves in your chase for victory and glory. The manager occupation is definitely not the thing for those who need people around you. You'll always want to play "just one last game" before going to bed in the evening. But as evening turns into night, and night turns into morning, you still find yourself in front of the computer. "Next game" has become "Next month", and before you know it, the "Next transfer window". I therefore have to warn you: Don't buy Football Manager 2008! It gives you so much joy that you will forget about the surrounding world.

So! What is the game about? Well, in plain words: You are managing a football club of your own choice. Here, the possibilities are many, as all the top and middle leagues in Europe are included, as well as a lot from all the other continents. Loads of the leagues now come fully licensed, which means authentic kits, club badges and pictures of the players. The player names are mostly real, with a few exceptions (like the German national team). The details when it comes to players and teams are huge. Football Manager 2008 is devised for statistic freaks. Nothing is left for coincidence. It's also good to notice that despite the amount of data, the loading time has been kept to a minimum. The game floats well, but of course, this depends on your computer.

A manager's day fluctuates. You have to buy and sell players, hire and sack staff members, and get people around you to pull the same way as you are. This means you have to pay attention to the training schedules and be considerate in human relations. You can talk to everyone around you, from your worst player in the U-18 team, all the way up to your chairman. You can praise your players, or ask the board for more funds to buy new ones. If you're not sure what striker to buy, you just put your scouts to look at the matter.

A new addition this year is that before the season gets kicked off, you'll have to talk to the grounds inspector. Depending on your game style, you can now change the dimensions of the pitch on your home ground. If you like to play with quick wingers, well, then you should probably pick a wide pitch, as this gives you more room in the middle as well.

Selecting a Captain

Another important conversation before the season gets started is the one with your assistant, regarding who's going to be your team's captain for the following campaign. Because your squad is loyal to different leadership figures in your team, it's important to pick the right captain and co-captain. If you give a recently signed 18-year old the job to lead your men, most of your players will protest, causing agitation in your squad. It's highly recommended to follow the assistant's advice when it comes to this matter, because the players seems more clear about their own existence compared to previous versions. They say what they mean, without hesitation.

There is a lot happening outside the pitch in Football Manager 2008, but the most important is the match itself. Sports Interactive has changed the foreplay, cutting it up in separate pieces. First, you will be given statistics from both teams' recent form and meetings. You can also see stats about today's referee. Then, you will be taken to the screen where you pick your team and your tactic. They are both making the foundation wall to how the game will develop. It is a good idea to change your tactic to suit your opponent and where you play. If you use the same tactic for a long time, the game will sooner or later crack it, and you will be given a long-term period of recession in reward.

After this team selection, you will be taken to the match analysis, where an expert is tipping who is going to win, and what player in each team that will characterise themselves. You will also find an overview about all the players closing in on a milestone in their career (25 league goals, 100 league games, etc). In the end, you will have a pre-match talk with the team, where you (or your assistant) say some motivating words to your players. You can also give your team specific instructions on the opposing team, like marking their star striker, or bringing their playmaker out of the game.

This chain of action before kick-off might seem like a strait jacket to some of you, but it is a magnificent took to make sure everything that has to be done is done. Also, the match day gets a touch of holiness when this ritual is done. After the game, you will have another chat with your team, and the expert will summarize what has happened. This expert is not really a stable person, as he might give a lot of credit to a player that hardly played, because of injury or a red card. Strange! You will also be given an overview over players that reached a milestone during the game.

Ok, the game has been kicked off! Normally, I play the games on maximum speed, without highlights from the game, as the good, old commentator system is my own personal ritual. But as this is a review, I have to look at some of the match, and to be honest, what you are given is impressing. Even though you still have small dots running around on a pitch, this year's match engine seems more like real football than ever. The dots show the intelligence (or lack of it), that distinguish professional footballers. You also get a visual experience of your tactical changes.

Passivity

As a reviewer, I have to find some negative things in the game, or at least look for them. The defending players are very often waiting and passive when it comes to close down on the opponent, independent of your tactical settings. This often leads to dangerous situation in front of your own goal. As you know, I only have the commentator on most of the time, and I never watch the first half. In my superstition, I think that the computer is watching me, and knows when I watch. Which is why the computer always scores a goal when I maximize the screen! I tell you this: My monitor has been an inch away from being destroyed more than once.

The tactic menu is actually one of the biggest new features when it comes to the game. Now, you can change tactics and players at the same time as you watch the game in a small window to your top left of the screen. This gives you a feeling of natural flow, compared to earlier editions, when you could take a time off for 10 minutes if you had to go to the loo.

As in the earlier editions, you always have to deal with the press and other managers. Only, this year there is more of it, but as far as I can see, there are no huge changes in this matter. A tiny, great detail is that you get noticed when a rivalling manager is spotted on the stands, watching your game. Some might be there to watch a player of yours, while others might have a look at the way you play. Managers interested in one of your players are actually more active when it comes to mind play. They will go public, praising the player, and state that he wish he could buy him. Irritating if it is a player you want to keep, but as the game tries to be realistic, you can't control what another manager says to the media.

When this is said, you are free to use the same dirty tricks yourself, which could lead to a rather huge fight with your colleagues (read: abhorred rivals). If you get to manage a national team, you can travel to different arenas, watching possible candidates for the national team. The press coverage of the national team has become heavily improved, which I found out as a coach for Senegal. The experts and players always wanted to speak to the press about the upcoming game, and their expectations to this. All in all, it feels better to train a national team in this version. But you just can't do it fulltime. Without managing a club besides it, it becomes very, very boring and protracted, and I'm sure Steve McLaren is playing Football Manager in real life, just to get the days going.

In Trouble with the Board

The key to success in Football Manager 2008 is trust. Thanks to bar graphs, you can always get a good overview on how safe you are in the manager chair. Comments from the board and a bar, represents how pleased they are with the different results. If you beat a rival away, there will be a party in the board room, and you will be praised. But if you lose to the same team at home, they will be grumpy, and your abilities will be put to the test. The board also emphasize the way you spend your money, but unless you have a chairman who loves to interfere, they won't mix with who to sign.

Because, that is something the fans does. Each club got their own spokesman, who is not afraid to tell you what he thinks. What's scary is that what the fans think affects the board, so you need harmony among your fans to stay in the job. As an example, I bought Vincent Pericard from Stoke to Wolves for nothing. A terrible purchase, the fans said, and the board agreed. What a waste of money. The fans also love to give you their opinion after each game, and if you thought the board took a loss to a rival bad, think again.

When you are going to buy players, it's always a question about money. What means most to you is of course how much you can spend on players and salaries. If you find these small, you can always ask the board for more. Unfortunately, it's mostly an Uncle Scrooge sitting as your chairman, and you have to deal with what you have. A new feature of the year is that you can balance your budget for players and salary, giving you more to buy for, and less to pay them. Or opposite. It's here important to think about what you are going to do. Are you going to buy players on free transfer, well, don't spend money on a transfer budget that won't get used! In Football Manager 2008, you can swap money between transfer budget and salary budget as you like. This makes the days in the transfer marked go around easier for you.

Even though you are a manager with success, you will sooner or later face disappointments in this game. When it happens, you will have to face your abilities as a manager. The reason is that this year's version seems to me to be much more difficult than previous ones, but there is a lot to do when it doesn't go your way. Try new tactics and styles of play. Maybe you've become predictable? Or, get rid of those who don't do their jobs. In this matter, your coaches can help you, or you can talk to your players. People who wants to go dislikes you as a person, and is not advisable to use. Try playing with as many players liking you as you can, and make sure your key players are happy at all times.

Football Manager has never been a joy when it comes to graphics as the focus has been on the functionality. This year, the game has gotten an overhaul visually. The menus are designed in delicious white, with changing backgrounds. Also, there has been added more icons and shortcuts, which makes your day easier in the long run. You won't have to scroll through menu after menu to get somewhere. The use of bars instead of numbers when it comes to certain statistics gives you as a player a good alternative, even though I personally prefer the numbers.

As the days after this release goes by, there will be a lot of graphical modifications and backgrounds to download from the FM-scene, and gives you a better choice. But I do like the white design myself, and I will keep using for the time being.

They say that with other people, you are strong. Well, Football Manager is first and foremost a game for the lonely wolves, but a true pleasure if you are more fighting for the bone. You can gather with friends in a local network, and there is no doubt: It is much more fun to win the league against three other friends sitting in the same room as yourself. If you don't have friends interested in football (or friends at all), you can play the game online. Here, your game depends on faithful players, if not; you wasted a lot of time. After all, Football Manager is a time consuming investment, and it's not fun to play with someone who stops when it turns Christmas in the game.

Searching for Something Negative

I have been looking for something negative with Football Manager 2008, and of course (after all, the game is not patched yet), I had to find something. I had this bid in for Per Nilsson, where clubs actually bid more than the release clause in his contract. These bids were automatically accepted, and I thought he was lost to me. But, the sale never went through, as the transfer window came, and all deals were off. Weird, and mystic, and you might have to face them yourself from time to time.

I also mentioned that players hardly playing a game might get praised by the expert. At least he could've been more critical towards the key players' performance.

A few other bugs were found, but it doesn't ruin the game play, so I won't mention them. Now, I haven't tested every league and every club, because that would take 200 years. This means there might be some mistakes here and there that I didn't find during this one-season test of the game. Mistakes like this, Sports Interactive fix all the time, making patches every now and then. You might find one before Christmas.

Conclusion

If you still doubt: Football Manager 2008 delivers the goods by miles. It's the best game so far in the series, and I have been so fortunate to play every edition of the series so far. Despite a few bugs, closer to perfection it's hard to come in this genre. The game literally smells of football, and the feeling of actually being a manager is there. The choices you got are endless, in this eternity filled with entertainment, happiness and sorrows.

So, if you as a football fan is not hooked by Football Manager 2008, may I suggest another hobby? Log floating perhaps? Football Manager is a wet dream that has turned real.

Rating: 9/10

I take a look at Football Manager 2008, can it clone the success and addictiveness of FM 2007?

Well, another year starts... another season starts and alas a new installment of Football Manager arrives. Usually this is met by a frenzy of pre-ordering the game and hyping the game among your friends. However, this year is different, at least for me that is.


Last year I gave a 9/10 review out of FM07 and I loved that game and have played it endlessly, truly endlessly. Sadly I can't say the same for FM08...


To me, the FM series seems to be on a decline and it's something I hope SIGames fix A.S.A.P! Football Manager 2008 has a dreadful skin, it's aimed at making the game more user-friendly but it does quite the opposite and the whole aura of it has actually caused 23 epileptic fits and four elderly men who played the demo to go blind. A sad tale indeed... :( Honestly though, who on Earth had a look at that and said to themselves; "that is one beautiful skin!" Hopefully the scene can make some worthy skins and perhaps some that aren't as bright as the one being used...


Then there's the new features... well they're hardly making me want to spend 20 quid on a game. The FM2008 blog on the SIGames.com website boasts "weather forecasts", I'm sorry but hasn't that been around since CM days? Boasting old features as new is cheap and marks trouble for the FM series in my opinion. There is of course the advisor which is highly beneficial for the new user but for the old ones it truly is a pain. Why would a die-hard gamer enjoy that new feature? Why not expand the lower leagues more, improve the youth system, start taking suggestions from the users like you used to? Then there's the match-day interaction which honestly gets furiously tedious after three matches and you just ask yourself; "why can't you customize what you want to see?" [wait to see that in FM09...].


Then of course there are the new small cosmetic features such as choosing your captain, the improved board interaction and what not which I agree are quite a good addition to the game but hardly fundamental.


Nonetheless, the scouting has greatly improved in this version in my opinion and I'm glad to see that at least they've done one thing right...


In short? I'm far from impressed, they boast about fundamental new features such as a new skin (zzz) and manage to screw that one up. I have played a preview edition of it (means there's no season limit) and I only managed to play one season before being bored and going back to FM2007. That speaks volumes seeing as I've NEVER returned to an old game before once I had access to the newer version. I for one will not be buying FM2008 and will be waiting for a third-party data update for FM2007 and will thereby be saving myself a nice 20 quid to go drinking.


FM2008 = A disappointment.


My score? 6/10. -- I'm being generous.


-Rehashing of old features = not impressive.

-Scouting is a strong point of the game.

-Skin is crap, sounds are still neglected.

-Facegen is just a daft idea.


There are other features and elements I didn't mention, and there's a reason for that... not worthy. (Also the huge PR campaign by the folks behind FM2008 just kind of show that they're worried themselves.)

We take a brief look at what the CMFrenzy forum members think of the newly released FM08

Well with the game out, and with the general negative buzz that surrounded the release. I figured it would be interesting to see what some of CMFrenzy's forum members thought of the game as a whole.



"I'm generally a happy chappy when it comes to the new FM. SI haven't gone over the top and added loads of stupid things, apart from the facegen, which I just find annoying when you have three U18 players with the same face!" - Vertanno


"Not really a big improvement from what I've seen...it needs a revamp with a lot of changes but [at the same time] keeping the core together." -thebudweiserone


"Not overly impressed with it this year, some one said to me the other day that they only get these kinds of games every two years as the difference is more notable and to me that seems like a very good idea after this display. I haven't really gotten into yet but I know the time will come when I just get stuck in and do a season or two then get bored and not touch it until the new version is out." - Dow


"I'm generally quite pleased. I really need to find a decent skin though, I have serious issues with the default one." - sif3m


"I think the playability has improved a lot, some media parts still annoy the shit out of me, I like the way peoples potential has been toned down a lot too!" - Ice2900


"Well Chuffed with it." - brianakirk


"I like it now. At first it seemed more unplayable than previous versions, but it has definitely grown on me." - noakesy



So why not? I know for a fact a few people who where members of the scene, and still are to a lesser extent, don't actually own a copy of the new game. For reasons unknown, whether it be lack of money - the student life getting the better of it, nevertheless that doesn't matter. What does matter, is making sure they buy the game and don't regret it. I deemed it necessary to put together a personal review of the game. Consider it my 2 cents whether the game is worth buying or not. I will argue the toss, but to be fair to those whom may not have the game, and will be reading this.. I will talk about the things that may put you off.

You may have read about the game an heard a lot of up raw about the game, and the amount of bugs it possess. Now, this problem should be quashed due to the fact the patch is out, and I can guarantee that it improves the game with an immense effect. To make things clear, it is essential to get the patch.

In terms of graphics and other such things to do with the look of the game, has been a major talking point of the new game, negative speak at that. The skin was created by Ter, as known on the scene. Ter used to work for Championship Manager (CM) and it was taken from his blue prints of the one he was working on. Some may say it should have been left with them. However, I quite like it. Its easy on the eyes, and that's what you want when playing many a Football Manager (FM) all nighter. After all, its not the be all and end all. There are many a site dedicated to creating graphics and skins, which will range to suit all tastes.

Continuing the graphics in the new game; faces have been total revamped. The new look of face pack, is to help merge the new facegen (face generation) feature in. The faces are all cut from the background. This causes quite a few problems, as they are a lot hard to make an they take a lot longer to make, than previous ones. Yet again, its not the be all and end all, as there is the good few mod (moderation) which means it can support different types of face packs. So realistically, you won't have to change your face packs from your previous issue of the game.

I touched on the facegen or the face generation feature previously. Basically what it creates a generated face for regenerated players, or regens as you may know them as. So basically, when all the players have retired whom start on the original database, say in your 40th season and what not, all players will have a face to go with the name. Hey! If you don't like it, there is a feature to turn it off, so everyone's a winner.

Concluding the graphics in the new game, you can say they are an improvement, but more than every feature its down to personal taste. But if you like all the default stuff then that's great, and you will save yourself some time. Nevertheless, if you don't like them you can spend a few hours sorting out all your graphics, downloading them from the relevant sites in order to get it to just how you want it. Getting it to just how you want it, is made ever more easier if you download the relevant modifications.

Having gone over the graphics, it would only make sense to speak about the new features. Now don't expect loads of new features, but lets face it who wants that? Too many cooks spoil the broth and all that. Cast your mind back to the days of CM, too many drastic changes may not work, it could spoil the whole persona of the game, notably like it did to CM 4. I feel that its quality over quantity in terms of features. However I would like more, the mix is very nice and a couple of the new features are very refreshing.

On with the new features. My most favourite feature of the new game is the whole revamp of the finances; Finances revamp - To reflect the changes in modern day football, Sports Interactive have updated the finance area of Football Managerâ„¢ 2008 to better reflect the ever changing football world, with more information available to the manager too, including, but not limited to, corporate match day income, season ticket news, investment funds, improved sponsorships, collective win bonuses, and the ability to move around funds from the wage budget and transfer budget (and vice versa) at any point to help you in your quest for the ideal squad.

The way in which you can move around the funds of your wage and transfers budget means that you can cater for all your needs, and make the most out of players available. Its more relevance to teams outside the top leagues, whom may not have as much money at their exposal as the likes of them in the top divisions. Generally making your experience of a manager a lot more varied and means that you can get a loner enjoyment out of the game as you can play more levels for longer.

Now there are little things that you take for granted, however they do improve the game beyond any doubt. It's a lot easier to navigate and use. Mainly linked to the new skin. But the new advisor system makes it easier for the new player to work the game - don't think it will be too complicated to play if you're new to it, this system will quash all of them disbeliefs. Also, coach reports make taking over a new team easier, and the new calendar system lists all important dates throughout the season.

Yet again something that you take for granted is the speed of it all - you don't want to be sat for ages waiting for your game to process, or save so you can actually get to bed so you don't miss work in the morning. Saving and loading is now significantly quicker. Along with network gaming.

For me FM'08 is a complete step in the right direction, and a big one at that. Don't get me wrong its nor boarding on the CM4 state of things, with the Luther Van Dross spin on things. I would recommend the game, but make sure to patch her up . Otherwise, you may just be a little disappointed. If you're not a fan of the graphics, be sure to check out a few sites and search deep and hard to find the relevant downloads and modifications to perfect it to your standards. All other things depending, the game is well worthy of its price tag, which is indeed considered as a bargain in many a players eyes.