Eidos' Loss is Sega's (and Football Management Fans') Gain

Eidos has held the rights to Sports Interactive's venerable Championship Manager series for just about as long as I can remember. The series has long been the benchmark for realism and addictiveness in what is, let's face it, very much a speciality market - that of the predominantly text-based Football Management genre. When Eidos and Sport's interactive broke up after a long and successful partnership, Sega willingly stepped in to snap up the rights to continue this excellent series - albeit under a new name - Football Manager 2005

The publisher and name may have changed, but FM2005 contains the basic engine and all the elements that have kept SI's game at the top of the football management tree for the best part of a decade and a half. Once again, the player may take the reigns of a Football club from just about any division of any competition throughout the world and attempt to guide them to glory, perhaps one day rising to be the manager of a national side. At the same time, the struggle to keep your real life going becomes more of a challenge than the actual game itself. Indeed, there have been days during my university break that I have woken up, fired up a game and suddenly realised 15 hours have passed and it's time for bed. It's that addictive and the compulsion is always there to play just one more match before calling it quits for the session.

I have to say that FM2005 has taken the biggest stride in recent memory from the last incarnation of the Championship Manager series. Some years I have had to wonder if it was really worth the customary yearly release for the precious little difference in sheer game play terms, but this time the improvements are significant. The front end of the game is much cleaner now and looks more professional and modern, and sorely needed variety has been made to news releases and other facets of the game which might seem simple, but work greatly towards a more believable gaming experience.

For those of you who have no idea - This series of games basically involves the day to day running of a football club. This is done through a variety of menus and screens and is almost entirely text based. You can buy and sell players, hire and fire coaching staff, arrange friendly matches, make statements to the press, select your team and formation ...... and just about anything you would expect the likes of Sir Alex Ferguson or Jose Mourinho to do in real life. Im not going to go into a detailed description of everything you can do, because if you understand football, you will have a pretty good idea anyway.

Lovers of statistics will find themselves in very heaven, with every one of the hundreds of thousands of players having dozens of different statistics. These stats range from pace, strength and other physical attributes, to mental attributes such as concentration and of course the all important game skills such as crossing, free kick taking and so forth. In addition to all the obvious statistics, players have a heap of hidden statistics to do with such aspects as temperament, self belief, loyalty, ambition and professionalism. Statistics don't stop with the players either! Clubs (the chairmen and board) and staff all having a variety of traits which effect the game.

Of course, the most important part of Football Manager 2005 and any manager game is the playing of the actual matches. The action takes place (as always) through a running text commentary of the action. The option exists to speed up and slow down the commentary or to view a 2d representation of the match (little circles moving around a 2d field kicking a ball around - sounds lame, but it's more than adequate). This section is highly configurable -- you may choose to watch the whole game, only the key plays, only the goals, or no graphical representation and only text. I usually choose key plays as I find it provides the best balance between game speed and actually feeling a part of the match.

I have found Football Manager 2005 to be by far the most comprehensive and enjoyable manager game I have ever played. It is not without its faults however. Any game of the sheer scope and technical detail as this, especially when statistics are the all important driving force, is going to need serious play testing. I am not talking about the people in the office at SI having a quick bash -- I speak of months of play by the gaming community and the developers responding to the resultant feedback. An extensive patch has already been released to correct a list of bugs as long as your arm and another even larger patch is in the pipeline. Most of the bugs are very minor, but there are a few issues which still haven't been corrected which are of some irritation.

The first bug I notice is the tendency for left sided wingers to be the best players in the game. It doesn't matter how bad the player is statistically, if you play him down the left he will play brilliantly almost every game. A rating less than 7/10 almost never happens. I have discussed this on gaming forums and everyone seems to experience the same phenomena.

Secondly, your staff, (that is, assistant managers, coaches, and scouts) are quite simply BROKEN when it comes to giving you advice about players. They have no idea at all! You could be a non-league club scouting Ronaldinho and chances are your scout with 20/20 in "judging player ability" will claim the player would struggle to make the starting line-up. OK, so I am exaggerating a little, but this is a severe problem. Thankfully this one is supposedly being addressed in the next patch.

The final bug which I feel needs attention is the frequency with which players are presented with yellow cards for arguing with the ref. 90% of all yellow cards seem to be for this offence. Now, perhaps I watch too much of the English Premier League where they are all good boys and the rest of the world are a bunch of whining sooks, but I don't think it is ANYTHING like this. It isn't that much of a deal because at the end of the day, realistic amounts of yellow and red cards are distributed, but it would be nice if it was for realistic offences.

Perhaps the biggest down-side to the game for the average gamer is the extreme slowness that comes with calculating the comprehensive results and happenings within all the games around the world. It take's ages! The possibility exists to play with a smaller database and with very few leagues running fully, but the game is better when you have as much activated as possible. With a less than top of the range CPU and below 768 megs of DDR and You can feel free to leave the room to make a cup of coffee and a sandwich every time you cycle your turn. I find it's actually quite good to be watching a movie while playing this game so there's something to fill the pauses!

Overall, despite the inevitable bugs, Football Manager 2005 should leave Sega feeling vindicated and quietly smug about their decision to pick up the publishing rights to Sport's Interactive's game engine. Legions of football manager fans are in for a real treat, a lot of extremely late nights, a lot of annoyance from neglected family members, and quite possibly the need to purchase a new computer chair after the current one wears out from countless hours spent at the helm of their favourite club in the current best Football Management sim around.