Football Manager 2008

Caporegime
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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.
 
Yeah, the controls were perfect in the other 2 releases, as I said the problem comes with the new interface (which is brilliant) and how options are chosen by horizontal scrolling.

It's a problem with the threshold settings on the stick, I'm sure SIGames could sort it out by knocking out a patch in a day if they wanted, simply lowering the threshold would sort it out.

But even with that issue it's still absolutely brilliantly good.
 
Yeah I'll give the demo a try, but I had FM 2006 (might have been 07) on the 360 briefly and I just couldn't get over the controls.

I must admit, it took me a while to get used to, but I'd say after a few days it became so natural. I slated it originally for its controls, but having nothing else to play, forced myself to play it and ended up thinking the navigation was genius (seriously, whoever came up with it deserves an MBE).

I was always one of the bunch who said FM could never be done without a mouse or without touchscreen.
 
Compared to a PC Nokkon, how fast is the game? My mate had FM06 and every other screen it was "processing". I know you said this one is faster but is it massively or just a little bit faster?

This is fast for sure. FM2006 on Xbox360 was pretty speedy, but the further you got into the game the more it started to chug. I've completed my first season on FM2008 and it never became a problem, for the most part it blinked on and off so quickly you don't notice it.

I'd say this one does everything quicker, especially gamesaves which are impressively quick.
 
Totally agree about the conditioning of the players, this is something I forgot to mention. I got to the final of the FA Cup, final of the Carling Cup, Semi-Finals of the European cup and won the league and not one of my players were 'jaded'. Now I did rotate (obviously as you start with a good squad at Man Utd), but Evra played every game and Ferdinand only missed a couple, so right away I could tell that it was far better.

I would say everything has been improved bar the controls, which as I say, are only shown up by the styling of the new interface (as you have to slide left and right and you never had to before).

Do you find it a lot faster to load wedgie? What's your gamertag? I'll give you some games online.
 
I've not encountered a crash, nor have I read reports of it being to do with the game. That could well be your consoles Kyle :o.

Wedgie, you must have flown through your first season! I've done 1 season as Man Utd (obviously), and I'm 1/2 way through the Spanish season with Barcelona. All told I've spent ~55 hours I'd guess, but I've been changing little things with tactics every match, creating training schemes, scouting players and I also like to have "Key Highlights" as opposed to "Only Commentary".

I've not tried it online yet, but from what I've heard it's a definite improvement over FM2006 (which wasn't great, but when there was only me and Haly on it (in the world :p) we had no problems finding each other and playing.
 
just started playing this on the pc

Same old blooming annoying game, I've had a great season now all of a sudden for no reason I cant buy a goal let alone a win

Didn't bring Keegan in did you?
Sounds like your current season. Great season, then no goals (when Keegan arrived).
 
You could probably get Saha, he despite the fact I was gonna sell him, when I needed cover he always banged goals in.
In Spain I got Aguero, he's a freak.
 
Given is one of the best keepers for me, I think he got Keeper of the Year at the end of the season!

I got Bosingwa at RB for about £6m and Rafinha for around £9m and both did me the world of good on counter-attacks, especially as Rafinha can play RW, so those are potential, superior replacements to what you have.
Try and get Pique off Man Utd, he's ridiculous, I started playing him instead of Vidic.
I've not had a chance to go scouring as I didn't get much money in charge of Man Utd, but if I find anything I'll let you know. I think we'll keep this thread for anything FM2008 Xbox360 related such as players, tactics etc..

I've noticed a lot of the players aren't as good as in the PC version looking at players they're recommending on forums.
 
Just trying to get Silva from Valencia, his agent "has indicated that his client will require a 5 year contract with wages around £0 per week in addition to a signing on fee of £4,000,000"

Odd. Bonus.
 
Lucas looks good on it, I was gonna buy him (or attempt to) in my second season. Shame about missing out on Pique. I've not looked at our reserves. Infact, I sold a load of them :p.
 
What I've found quite interesting is that in my season with Barcelona I have around 5 different tactics and I rotate them after each game, never using the same tactic more than one in a row, but cycling through all 5 at random and I've gone 51 games unbeaten and it mentions how I'm a 'tinkerman' after every game.
 
Took a risk in selling off Carlos Tevez for £22m to Intel Milan, decided to gamble on taking Inter Milans out of favour striker Adriano after he returned from his loan spell at Sao Paolo. Inter Milan held me to ransom (I'd already sold Tevez and the season was starting in a week) and I ended up paying around £5m more than I wanted to, and secured him for £17.5m (a £4.5m profit over Tevez as I needed to fun the transfer of a new CB (I opted for Gonzalo Rodriguez).

Turns out Adriano has fit in alongside Rooney brilliantly, even more so than Tevez (who got me quite a few goals last season [not a many as Rooney - hence why Tevez was sold, not Rooney]) and has surpassed expectations. He's notched 20 goals in 15 starts (it's only November 4th). I now have a frontline of Adriano-Rooney-Aguero which has cost me around £55m in buying Aguero and Adriano.

To fund transfers I sold off Nani for £30 to Arsenal. David Gill automatically accepted the offer as it was too good to turn down which was kind of a shame as Nani did well in the few games he played for me last season though he spent the majority of it injured so not too bad. Sold off other players like Campbell, Dong, Eagles, Lee etc.. and made around £10m from reserve players.

Made a total of £68m in sales including a cracking £5m for O'Shea, £5.5m for Fletcher, £3.8m for Park and £2m for Simpson!

Taken gambles on some South American players such as Lulinha (Corinthians - £4.8m), Alex Teixeira (Vasco - £5m), Cristian Rodriguez (Free), Maxi Rodriguez (Free), Gonzalo Rodriguez (Villareal - £11.5m), Sergio Aguero (Athletico - £37.5m!!! :o) and re-bought one of my FM2006 favourites, Tomas Sivok for £8m from Udinese.

Most of them are only kids who I'm playing rarely, but I'm hoping they either work out or I sell for profit. Massive changes but I've sold a lot of players off to take the risks.
 
I had him for Barcelona and he was ace, but he's done nothing for me at Manchester United so far, very unimpressed. He's my substitute striker for now.
 
One to consider, trouble is....Nokkon already owns it, so i can't flog it to him like i did with the 06 version if i can't get in to it :( ;)

I had FM2006 too, but I punched my Xbox360 and it killed my disc, so I had to rebuy it :p.
If you don't like it I'll buy it off you again (as long as it's not too expensive) and give it to my friend :).
 
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