Football Manager 2010 (PC)

The ultimate in Football Management is back with Sports Interactive’s latest offering in Football Manager 2010 but what does it have to offer and is it worth buying?

I understand this review isn’t for everyone, it’s mainly targeted for Football Manager fans or those looking to purchase this game for the first time.

Off the shelf it hasn’t been worth the money over the years as the game has been bug-ridden on release and ...
...to remain the largest in football management games containing over 390,000 players and staff from all over the world. The developers claim to have more than 1000 scouts around the world who consistently gather up-to-date statistics on clubs and their players. It is no coincidence that you hear about unknown players on Football Manager first and then see them on the TV or hear about them in the media a few years later. They have clearly done a good ... more

The ultimate in Football Management is back with Sports Interactive’s latest offering in Football Manager 2010 but what does it have to offer and is it worth buying?

I understand this review isn’t for everyone, it’s mainly targeted for Football Manager fans or those looking to purchase this game for the first time.

Off the shelf it hasn’t been worth the money over the years as the game has been bug-ridden on release and usually rushed out in time for Christmas. It has usually taken 2 or 3 patches released throughout the year to get the game up to scratch so it has only worth the money by that time. My initial impression of this version however is somewhat different for a change. Although there are one or two minor imperfections pre-patch, the game is spot-on and fit for purpose at last.

Skin Layout
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The most noticeable change in the new version is the complete revamp of the skin layout. It can be described as being more crisp, vibrant and better presented than previous versions as the use of an intuitive tab system is a welcomed addition. The continue button now appears at the top of the screen next to the search window. Your Inbox where you receive your news items is accessible from the bar along the top with a red numbered bubble appearing to indicate the total number of new items received. The decision to change the way the date is displayed (now at the top of the screen) has been a poor one in my view as it doesn’t look very good and you always tend to keep looking for it in the bottom corner where it has been located in previous versions for the last few years. There is the added bonus however of showing you up and coming fixtures along the same bar by displaying the next 4 days which includes a team badge of the team you are due to play on that given date.

Navigation has been slightly improved with the inclusion of a better placed and presented ‘back’ and ‘forward’ buttons. The most frequently used options tend to be available right in front of you with the lesser used menus accessible by additional buttons within the tabs.
Overall, everything seems to be located in more logical places than in previous versions but it will take getting used to. The skin can be customised as always to change the way it looks or if you want to add extra detail such as manager photos and official team badges (albeit via an unofficial add-on).

Tactics
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I’m not one to delve into the tactics too deeply as I often rely on basic tactics with the purchase of players who can do the job I want them to do. However, with previous versions, if you wanted a defensive minded midfielder for example, you had to play them as a DMC, which I never liked doing. You can now set a player to play MC but set their ‘mind-set’ to be defensive or attacking minded. This is much better as you can keep your preferred formations but have more control over what you want your players to do on the pitch.

Another smart addition is the advice you get from your backroom staff prior to matches in relation to recommendations on tactic improvements. This was very basic before but you now have in-depth information on how best to beat the opposition e.g. Chelsea play poorly against teams with a 4-5-1 formation who play with a narrow width and to put in hard tackles on Nicolas Anelka. You can then tweak your tactics accordingly. You also get advice on how to improve your player’s training which should help improve match performances e.g. it is recommended that Rooney stops trying to shoot from long range as he is breaking up a lot of attacks and being wasteful. There is a button you can click to apply this recommendation automatically which is a lot easier. I’m not sure how much of a difference this makes on your team’s performances but I did manage to implement a recommendation for Anderson for Man Utd on getting forward into the box more often and he ended up netting an injury time winner for me a few games later. I’m not ruling out coincidence!

Touchline instructions have also been introduced in the new version. This appears as a drop down menu from the 3D match highlights window so dishing out quick instructions (or shouts) without having to stop the game through the tactics option makes it a vast improvement. Some of the options you can set include; Pump the ball into the box, look for over-lap, get stuck in, hassle opponents and play through the middle, to name a few. Hassling and getting stuck-in to your opponents seems to work quite well although I’ve not really had much benefit from the other settings as yet.

Match Engine
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The 3D highlights in the previous version was a nice addition but it lacked realism as the player animation was very bad and buggy. The new version has been vastly improved in this department. The animations are now more realistic (noticeable mostly when goalkeepers throw the ball out) with better movement of players on the pitch and better performed actions. The developers claim 100 new animations but you can’t really back this claim up visually, you just have to trust them on that one. The addition of the crowd in the stadiums however is very poor as they look 2D, have little variation from one person to the next with almost symmetric coloured tops and they all jump up and down at the same time which is a pathetic attempt at cheering. The developers were probably better off leaving them out.
We now also have new stadiums that represent the home team so they look more realistic rather than the previous limited few that were available.
Goals now look more realistic than before with better ball movement on shots and net ‘rippling’ effects when the ball hits the back of the net. It makes those 30-40 yard screamers much more pleasurable.
One of the additions I’ve been most impressed with is the weather effects during the match, I’ve not yet seen the snow but the rain looks rather realistic.

Match Analysis
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This useful tool can be used both live and post-match to show where shots, passes, crosses, headers, tackles, fouls and interceptions have been made on the field for both the team you are managing and your opposition. The tool makes it clearer to see where your weaknesses are in your team so that you can tweak them. I would imagine that this would equate to better possession and use of the ball although I’ve not tried this to any extent. I guess if you can see which opposition team player is making the most passes and creating chances for them then you can possibly instruct your players to close them down whenever they are on the ball and maybe even man mark them.
Individual players are usually singled out by your assistant manager if they feel the need to comment on their poor or exceptional performance.
With the topic of match analysis, I always wonder how well my loan players have done in their matches whilst out on loan and have often had to go into the player’s history profile on their return to the club to view the information. You now get news items back which comment on their performance so if that player is a striker for example, you can now quickly and easily see how many goals they scored during the loan period and how many matches they played.

News Centre
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One of the most annoying aspects in previous versions is the amount of news items you receive that are not related to your club directly, such as other competitions around the world that you have no interest in. A new subscription feature now allows you to select what news events around the world you want delivered to your Inbox. No more clicking though useless junk mail!
I recently made a good discovery in my inbox where one of my staff members recommended a world class coach that had just become available and I signed him up straight away. It saved me looking for one and he was actually much better than most of my present coaches.
An integral part of your news now consists of post match comments from your team’s supporters. They make comments about which players they think have played well, what they liked about the performance and on the negative side, who they think didn’t play well and whether the players you left out could have done a better job. I am unsure if this links into supporter confidence however. If you do end up playing one of the players they suggested could have done a better job than an under-performing player then does their confidence in your managerial ability go up with a positive result? I guess this is going to be trial and error as the supports may not even know what they are talking about!

Data Editor
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The data editor includes a new Competition Editor that allows you to add competitions and extra levels for leagues currently in the game. If you ever wanted to take control of FC United of Manchester for example, this is easily done with a few button clicks as opposed to spending time tweaking the editor. You can easily add regional premier divisions such as the Northern Premier League Premier Division (where FC Untied play in the 7th tier of league football) as well as creating your own new leagues and competitions. I’m not sure I would ever have the need to create my own competition as there is more than enough content in the game to keep you going till the next release.
If you wanted to you could also recreate existing leagues with the view to changing various rules that exist. So if you wanted to put caps on squad sizes, change transfer windows, alter yellow & red card disciplines or even link cup competitions between Scottish and English leagues for example, you now can. It doesn’t just stop there either as there are many more additions which will come as a nice surprise.

Other Improvements
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There are far too many improvements in the game to go through every one individually so I will use this section to mention any other additions I feel are relevant.
Monthly board updates keep you up-to-date with profit and losses for the previous month and physio summaries tell you about who is currently injured and who is on their way back, complete with recommendations on the possible games that players will be fit enough to return for from injury.
It has to be mentioned that the database has again been expanded to remain the largest in football management games containing over 390,000 players and staff from all over the world. The developers claim to have more than 1000 scouts around the world who consistently gather up-to-date statistics on clubs and their players. It is no coincidence that you hear about unknown players on Football Manager first and then see them on the TV or hear about them in the media a few years later. They have clearly done a good job with their database and Everton would agree with this as they even use it for their scouting network!

Recommended?
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Previous releases have merely been upgrades but there are more than enough improvements in Football Manager 2010 to warrant a purchase which is priced between £25 and £30 depending where you look. You can of course download the game online from Steam at a reduced rate of around £15.
There are very few noticeable bugs in the release which makes it more appealing. I did notice that the speed slider on the 3D match highlights didn’t work correctly as I always have it at the last setting from full speed so that it is slow enough for me to see what is happening in the match but fast enough not to take up too much time. This setting did not appear to exist as it was either too slow or too fast but it looks like the latest 10.1 patch sorted out this problem.
There are still some minor annoyances in the game post-patch such as the ridiculous amount of offers you get from other clubs for your coaching staff and its an up-hill battle to keep hold of them, but I can live with that.
I’ve not noticed any error messages appear yet having got through ¾ of a season which is a good sign as you often got ‘out of range’ messages on the previous version when several contracts were offered in row.
You can obtain a full list of other minor mixes from the patch (mostly data related) from the official Football Manager website.

If you have a dual-core or quad-core processor in your PC then this game is a must buy for performance. The game is designed for multi-core technology so you can afford to run a huge database and not suffer lagging on the data processing.

Overall I would have to recommend this game to any Football fan. All the old familiar functions are still present along side the new and it is definitely the best version to date. I promise you’ll be impressed.
 

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