FM10 Review by Grade (long post)

This is my long overdue review, which I had the idea in writing for Football Manager 2009, but never had the time.

This is quite long so bare with me and also has pretty pictures, so it is not all text.

I’m Football Manager fan and have all installments and been Sigames loyal costumer since CM97/98, but made vacation in these games after Sigames joined with Eidos, this due to seeing that game was becoming far too complicated for my own taste, so it was fresh air when I played FM2005. This game was great fun and simple, like previous installments, but the thing is, now I see Sigames yet again making what I feel are making the same mistake as they are making the game complicated due to realism. What I mean there is too much boring realism features that sucks the fun of the game. So I decided to write this review where I explain why I personally this game as previous installments after FM2007, are average with FM2009 being in the lowest position.

A comparison will be made between FM07 and FM10. This due personally I think that FM07 is the best game in the FM series.

Before I start I have to say that the editor is a vast improvement and the league editor is great, which permits me in create my dream Portuguese Football League System. It needs to get use too, but isn’t that difficult to work with. However I felt that setting cups is not as easy, since you need to set a date for the playoffs. I wonder why is this? I have no idea where the league or European Cups are on. So why not just set when the cup starts and when the day the final would be disputed. The rest the game or the editor would figure it out. Also I find boring to have to put every club, one by one (if I not missed any button to make this automatic) inside the new leagues. Despite this great addition, so good work.

Now let jump to FM2010 itself.

This review will tackle many parts of the game so I thought it would be better if we did this by parts, because it is simpler to understand.

The first part we are getting into is the UI – User Interface or batter known as FM2010 Skin.

Well I have to say that this skin is very different from what we are used to. The side bar has been removed to give more space to show more stuff. It was also a nice addition to give users the alternative to the white background, a black one.

So let’s start from the top. Adding the date on the top and the movement of the date as you moved through the days is brilliant, even making clearly where the today’s date in game to be noticeable is a great addition and the small logos there is an excellent addition, however I might have made something differently. Instead of going right to left, I would make to go left to right and show the today’s date where the continue button is located (as shown in 1). This would give room for a bigger letters showing the hour and the date.

http://img5.imageshack.us/i/fm10top.jpg/

The continue button however is placed in the wrong position and should have been located between back and forward button (as shown in 2).

The menu is very dynamic. It lets users to choose which hot links want on the top (not everyone plays the same way) it was nice to think of the users. But here things become complicated.

http://img9.imageshack.us/i/fm10menu1.jpg/

As you can see in the picture above is comparison of the menu. It shows how clearly simple FM07 menu is. FM07 has a single drop-down menu, while FM10 has three drop-down menus (the manager, the team and league your club is in). This division for whatever decision was made, it complicates things unnecessarily. Personally these three should have been in the same menu that everything related to the manager, in this case I’m the manager of Benfica, so everything related to club I manage, should be in manager drop-down menu and the League where your club is in participating. My own name instead of Manager is mix feelings, since it is nice to see the game can be personalized, but on the other hand is tacky, so I might be inclined to have manager instead of my own name.

http://img20.imageshack.us/i/newscomplexity.jpg/

The complication continues in FM10 with the news. In FM10 you have four different windows of news, two in the manager tab (Inbox and news) and other two in the league that is related to transfers (News and Transfer Rumors). This is little more complicated I first imagine when I wrote in another thread about complexity of the game has become. While you on FM07 you have one window, where all the news go, if it is about related to my management, transfer or if Gary the Genitor’s wife had a baby. With FM10 it was not the first time I missed an important piece of information, while if it was part in the same window I wouldn’t miss at all.

The UI should not be that complicated because not only makes users navigation through the game confusing to find things specially in a new highly modified skin and can cut the fun of the users of the game. I know I feel that way.

http://img5.imageshack.us/i/newsimages.jpg/

Related to news as well the pictures that show on the news are way too small like is on the picture above. Despite the image of the players is not 140 by 180 by default, but it should be standard, because brings more life then just text and text and text. However I do understand the diminishing of the picture was not to occupy much space since many users have small screens, but the thing is with definitions of the display in preferences window, this image should adjust to size of the monitor that was chosen. Users with large screens or who play in window mode should have the 140 by 180 or 120 by 120 as standard size for pictures of players and staff in the news window and in the profile as well. I think would bring benefit to graphic side of the game.

Related to this in the profile of players, I like the overall new display with graphic next to the image. Despite liking the Personal Details that was introduced in FM08, I prefer the old style as is on FM07. The reason is quite simple it feels less cluttered and organized then the new way displaying the personal details of players and staff.

http://img5.imageshack.us/i/tacticalpitch.jpg/

Another point is the field in the tactical squad. The way is now I don’t like the way the jerseys being placed to up the field and are waytoo small (perhaps window mode bug? Or reason being due to small screens if so this last one should be resizable for large screens and who plays in window mode). The way is now is making the sensation of too much space at least in the defense.

And finally for the UI, making subtle division between things, like the calendars, that seems there is no division that makes the sensation of too much cramped especially with this new skin not having a side bar, and this also happens in the news, divisions should be noticeable like the photo above of Ricardo Carvalho of the news in FM07.

You do need to duplicate windows, because that will only confuse people. Try to keep things simple has I believe that brings more fun and keeping the realism of the game.

Also a note regarding the UI. Well I’m not a skin maker or graphical maker of anything. I just bloke that doesn’t wants the sensation of being all text, I want to have a more graphical side to balance the text. Of course SI can’t do all the work, since there are outnumbered as it is. I want to them to focus in the important stuff – the heart – of the game. So it would help if SI make skin makers and other makers life a little easy, since these are people that do this stuff in their freetime and don’t make no money with it. In the same note I would like that logos size need sorting, since for example the rotating logos don’t work that great in the header (way too small and this problem has been since FM08). Also the kits in information tab on match window need to be a standard size, like 140 by 180.

The other part of this review is the ME (Match Engine). This is a feature that every year is among the principal line to gets a lot of reviews and critics. Lets face it like or not it is the central core of the game. So I wouldn’t go much in here about this, because it is vastly discussed, but as reference I feel that the Match Engine is improvement from FM09 despite its bugs, but the best is FM07. But my biggest hate of ME and 3D is my GK doesn’t rush to the ball, when the ball is less then 2 or 3 meters away, giving time for the opposition striker by collecting the ball and scoring for his team. This does cheapen the ME experience and ruins the fun of the game.

Related to the ME, the 3D currently is an improvement, but it is in very basic stage. I mean the players hardly tackle, but I have fate that SI will work it out on the patch.

Another note relating to the ME, the names of the players on the match, in 3D are way too small.

Boring features, these are the ones that make the game tedious with the same thing over and over again. The most immediate feature is Press Conferences. I mean it is very limited and personally in long term game will be tedious. To be honest I don’t see much difference between twenty same questions with one or two questions changing from Press Conference to Press Conference, then the old single question of FM07 (I’m not if the question of the media was in FM06 and FM05). It is one those things “yeah it is there, now what do I do with it?” moments. Some users say that training is part of it, others say the micromanaging of tactics may be part of the boring features.

Another part is team talks. Well it is great addiction, but I’m one of the minority that don’t use it. It may come to a shock to many of you. I always set my Assistant manager to take care of team talk. When I clicked this on FM07 the team talk would only appear if I click it off in the team options. However this is not the case in FM10, because both Opp. Instructions (which I don’t use) and team talk appeared even my Ass. Manager is in charge of it. I don’t see the reason why to this. For me, it feels that they simple forgot to add that feature for 3 games straight.

The subs is another thing that goes into my nerves. With new continues the time subs, when making a sub I can’t cope with it how much I try it. Yes it is great addiction to the game, but it is yet another thing of realism replacing the fun. I mean I liked when you make sub that time in match stopped and you would make the subs in tranquility and analyze some stats. Now you don’t have time for that. What makes even more angry about it is either I make mistake or when I’m making a sub the other team is scoring. Now every time I need to make a sub I need to pause the game and then make the sub. Despite being a solution, I’m asking for the last three games if it is that difficult to put box in preferences and choose what kind of subs you want. The one that time stops (like is previous CM series, FM05, FM06 and FM07) or continuous time subs (as is now). This way everyone would be happy.

To the last point of business is Transfers. Well this is among the features that year after year needs tweaking for some apparent reason. With this relates economics of clubs and so on. Well I have to say I haven’t try much the transfer system much on FM10, but for my little use with it, I feel that FM07 transfer system was better. It was not perfect, because had two major problems. The first was that it is extremely hard to sell a player especially if it is players that is rarely use, even if you set at price of 0. The second was that when player reached 34 the club would not use them and release them from their respective clubs and no club, not even second division club as no interest in them, not because the players don’t want to, because I’ve seen when they are approached by some club they accept no matter what. If these two where fixed the Transfer system would be near to perfect. So it confuses me when they remade the transfer system altogether. It wasn’t that bad!!

Also on a note in Transfers, why does several staff members are bluntly come in the open and say they want to join that club or my club? Is this something that happens regularly in England? I ask this because here in Portugal it rarely happens with staff members. It is frequent with players that were probably to transfer to a new club other then that I feel that is career ender in the clubs they are working for.

On an end note, I think that SI as done great job, but have lost some of the basic parts of this game due to some factors among them realism. It is possible to retain realism and fun in the game. Heck many of you do, but I think if they bring simplicity and fun, keeping the depth of game those people that don’t like due to bugs or complexity could enjoy it and those that already do, you wouldn’t just like it you would love it and even having many hours of fun.

With that I conclude my review. I can’t say much more about other stuff because I haven’t try it yet properly.

Thanks for your patience in reading this.

Any comments?

Not much point in reviewing it here, tiger, best off re-posting at Amazon. Most bods here will have bought it so like me will not need to read any review.

You have point, perhaps I wasn't clear in my first post. The idea of this review was not help people to decide to buy the game or not, but my idea was to show SI and the people here at the forum the things I don't like in this game, despite seeing FM10 is an improvement regarding FM09. However FM07 is the best game in the series.