Well Football Manager 2008 was released on Friday in the UK and I was wondering if anyone (bar me) picked this up?
I left it the weekend so that anyone who did could comment on it and give their thoughts on it.
Personally I think it's fantastic, it has bettered 2006 and 2007 in so many ways, has totally up to date teams, realistic transfer prices, stricter player statistics and more options and settings to choose from. It's brought together in a fantastic new layout that makes you wonder how you ever did without it in past ones. I'd say it's the most radical leap since Championship Manager 3.
There is a couple of flaws though and they all relate to the stick.
The setting of the left analogue stick is far too sensitive, so much so you can actually trigger movement with literally a couple of mm of movement on the stick.
The problem with this is that unlike the other 2 console releases, you don't scroll to an option, press 'x' and then choose from a list. You now scroll to the option and then scroll left or right to make your selection, however with it being so sensitive you often change the settings of every other option simply scrolling to the option you want to change making it longer to change the important options than in previous releases.
Secondly, when you're trying to sign a player or set a value for a player you now have to scroll from left-to-right to select the value. These values always start at either the players value price, or 0. Now that wouldn't be such a problem if the game didn't go through so many individual prices; 1k,2k,3k,4k,5k,6k,7k,8k,9k,10k etc... It only really starts flying through values when you hit 5m, so it becomes tiresome, especially with the twitchy stick which means you might often accidentally scroll off the value up or down to another option (and change it).
Thirdly, and finally, sometimes the stick ends up with a life of its own, self-scrolling to the very left. This isn't too much of an issue and has happened only 2 or 3 times.
I'm hoping they patch it, but with a 9month wait for the first patch on FM2007 I think it's a case of living with it. It's not that difficult and you get used to having to be very careful. The positives of this release far outweigh the negatives though. Anyone with an interest in Football should get this, it's great.
And please, no "better on the PC" comments, whilst it's brilliant and I've played them all (bar this one) on PC, I won't be agreeing or disagreeing with you. I like relaxing with the joypad (it's excellent with the chatpad) and it's also very, very quick.
Unlike previous releases you don't need a hard-drive either. So not only have they made it faster, more detailed, they've shrunk the gamesave size for MU and removed the need for a HDD and caching. Well done Sports Interactive.
From 9pm Friday night I've already put over 36 hours in.. addictive to say the least. I must say, it's brilliant.
I'm going to put it on now.
For those inclined to ask, I've checked the SIgames forums and no, there is no release for a Playstation 3 version according to staff, I would hazard a guess it's to do with the style of the game, the fact it's one big database and programming it for the Cell.
I left it the weekend so that anyone who did could comment on it and give their thoughts on it.
Personally I think it's fantastic, it has bettered 2006 and 2007 in so many ways, has totally up to date teams, realistic transfer prices, stricter player statistics and more options and settings to choose from. It's brought together in a fantastic new layout that makes you wonder how you ever did without it in past ones. I'd say it's the most radical leap since Championship Manager 3.
There is a couple of flaws though and they all relate to the stick.
The setting of the left analogue stick is far too sensitive, so much so you can actually trigger movement with literally a couple of mm of movement on the stick.
The problem with this is that unlike the other 2 console releases, you don't scroll to an option, press 'x' and then choose from a list. You now scroll to the option and then scroll left or right to make your selection, however with it being so sensitive you often change the settings of every other option simply scrolling to the option you want to change making it longer to change the important options than in previous releases.
Secondly, when you're trying to sign a player or set a value for a player you now have to scroll from left-to-right to select the value. These values always start at either the players value price, or 0. Now that wouldn't be such a problem if the game didn't go through so many individual prices; 1k,2k,3k,4k,5k,6k,7k,8k,9k,10k etc... It only really starts flying through values when you hit 5m, so it becomes tiresome, especially with the twitchy stick which means you might often accidentally scroll off the value up or down to another option (and change it).
Thirdly, and finally, sometimes the stick ends up with a life of its own, self-scrolling to the very left. This isn't too much of an issue and has happened only 2 or 3 times.
I'm hoping they patch it, but with a 9month wait for the first patch on FM2007 I think it's a case of living with it. It's not that difficult and you get used to having to be very careful. The positives of this release far outweigh the negatives though. Anyone with an interest in Football should get this, it's great.
And please, no "better on the PC" comments, whilst it's brilliant and I've played them all (bar this one) on PC, I won't be agreeing or disagreeing with you. I like relaxing with the joypad (it's excellent with the chatpad) and it's also very, very quick.
Unlike previous releases you don't need a hard-drive either. So not only have they made it faster, more detailed, they've shrunk the gamesave size for MU and removed the need for a HDD and caching. Well done Sports Interactive.
From 9pm Friday night I've already put over 36 hours in.. addictive to say the least. I must say, it's brilliant.
I'm going to put it on now.
For those inclined to ask, I've checked the SIgames forums and no, there is no release for a Playstation 3 version according to staff, I would hazard a guess it's to do with the style of the game, the fact it's one big database and programming it for the Cell.
Lots.
.