FM08 is the future

I love playing games like Football manager. I buy it every year; I used to spend hours on even the most basic of manager games on the spectrum, don't know what it is about a bunch of numbers on the screen but it's so addictive.

Lately I played FM09, hated it, Fm10 liked it at first but then hated it. I thought I just got too old for these type games but after getting withdrawls symptoms tried FM08 and was in love agian. It so more realistic than it's predecessors. They got almost everything right. Not sure what the new ones supposedly improved on but most of it seems to break the enjoyment for me. Somewhere they lost their way.

I'm not saying this because I think FM08 is easier. I'm struggling 4 years in, can not even get my club into the leauge, with 09 and 10 I got promoted every other season at worst. I can't even get a half decent loan signing. I'm struggling, but I never feel cheated like I do on the new ones. No sneaky goals when I go to tactics. Team talks dont seem to be the bee all and end all, Its just a much more enjoyable game.

Theres many other things that break the illusion of being a manager with the new ones, so many things that seem unrealistic which I think 08 nailed. Theres so many to mention, but the way the board think of you, it doesn't just reset every june, transfers, come on? 30 million for a back up player?, computer AI, crazy subs, crazy buys.

It's not even that, I can live with all that, I can understand it's never going to match realism but something just feels very wrong with the latest two and I can't figure out what. I just don't feel that with 08.

I think they need to go back and find out what went wrong to move forward.

Gonna keep it short....I loved FM 08, played it instead of FM 09 (which was a complete let down for me). But love FM 10, finally lost my addiction from FM 08 when it came out.

I love playing games like Football manager. I buy it every year; I used to spend hours on even the most basic of manager games on the spectrum, don't know what it is about a bunch of numbers on the screen but it's so addictive.

Lately I played FM09, hated it, Fm10 liked it at first but then hated it. I thought I just got too old for these type games but after getting withdrawls symptoms tried FM08 and was in love agian. It so more realistic than it's predecessors. They got almost everything right. Not sure what the new ones supposedly improved on but most of it seems to break the enjoyment for me. Somewhere they lost their way.

I'm not saying this because I think FM08 is easier. I'm struggling 4 years in, can not even get my club into the leauge, with 09 and 10 I got promoted every other season at worst. I can't even get a half decent loan signing. I'm struggling, but I never feel cheated like I do on the new ones. No sneaky goals when I go to tactics. Team talks dont seem to be the bee all and end all, Its just a much more enjoyable game.

Theres many other things that break the illusion of being a manager with the new ones, so many things that seem unrealistic which I think 08 nailed. Theres so many to mention, but the way the board think of you, it doesn't just reset every june, transfers, come on? 30 million for a back up player?, computer AI, crazy subs, crazy buys.

It's not even that, I can live with all that, I can understand it's never going to match realism but something just feels very wrong with the latest two and I can't figure out what. I just don't feel that with 08.

I think they need to go back and find out what went wrong to move forward.

its funny that you should say this, i found i needed a lot of help with football manager 08 on the tactics forum I could never get the hang of it. I never bought 09 so I cant comment on that but I find fm10 much more intuative tactics wise, like you said its not difficulty purely being able to link what the players do to what you told them to do. Fm07 was my favourite in this respect I just picked it up and "got it" straight away. To me fm07 felt most like real football i guess its all just personal preferences.

The goals when you go to tactics thing is IMO a myth. The game is calculated and then replayed up to the point when you make a change at which point it is recalculated so i fail to see how it could be doing it deliberately (if for some reason it had become sentient and felt like annoying you). How would it be sneaky anyway? So you are watching in a smaller area of the screen you still know its happened and you cant influence it.

Have you not considered you are more likely to make a change when you are in trouble and that you simply notice the goals more?

Its funny you say about the team talks because that was the complaint all over the forum when fm08 was out, the other favourite one was how people were "cheated" by last minute goals.

I suppose everyone has their favourite versions, I do miss the lack of press conferences on fm08 (usually get my assistant to do it but started a career game and maidstone wouldnt let me hire one) they are really tedious.

Oh and I preferred the financial model on fm08, cant stop my champions league winning team with a below average wage total losing money on fm10 due to "non football costs". I wanted to make them the richest club in the world but i dont think i can spend another 10 seasons playing the same teams again and again for small gains.

Wow, FM08 was my all time worst, going all the way back to cm01/02

my top 3 (in terms of fun had at the time) have to be 2007, 2010 and cm 01/02

Wow, FM08 was my all time worst, going all the way back to cm01/02

my top 3 (in terms of fun had at the time) have to be 2007, 2010 and cm 01/02

Agreed dude. FM08 was imo, the worse of the FM series. FM2007 ftw.

I loved FM08.My best too.The only flaw in it was selling players,other than that it was brilliant.

Gonna keep it short....I loved FM 08, played it instead of FM 09 (which was a complete let down for me). But love FM 10, finally lost my addiction from FM 08 when it came out.

Exactly this.

FM08 is the past, FM10 is the present and FM11 is the future.

FM09 is the game for me.

on FM08 you could not sell players at all, you were lucky if you got 50% of their value. FM05 ftw.

FM08 was not that good imo if i remember right.

The AI 4-2-4 formation was murder to defend against, player's stats dropped way too rapidly as soon as they hit 30+.

But i must say i did not find FM08 as frustrating as i found FM09, i never really enjoyed FM09.

FM2010 was great with the original patch, a breath of fresh air compared to FM09. But with 10.2 it became frustrating again. 10.3 is better, but the match engine just doesn't seem as good as the original/ release day patch.

But there are too many bugs that i can't live without now, to make me go back to 10.1.

One problem i have with FM10 at the moment, I could be on a 15 game unbeaten streak then every time i quit and exit the game, the next time i load up the result's go the total opposite.

I will say struggle to draw at home against a team in the bottom half then followed by lose lose draw lose draw.

It happens the other way around too, i could be on a losing streak or 7 games without a win. I quit FM then the next time i load FM i will go and win 4-0.

It's like the game just as a total random feature that happens everytime you start up FM..

I really hate it when it's time to go to bed when i'm on a good run of form, because i know the next time i load it up there's a high chance that form will have gone out of the window. ( But i'm still not sure if it's just me, being paranoid?)

One thing i miss from FM08, well not just FM08 all previous FM/CM's is the old Arrows.

They were nice and easy to use, i could get my team to play anyway i like with the ball and without the ball, and play stuff like how Barca play in real life.

But with the new arrows, it's really hard and i've read near on impossible to do what Barcelona do in real life on FM now.

FM08 had a major flaw with regens though didn't it? I loved it and its the furthest I've ever got on a game, but pretty much every regen had shocking physical attributes

One problem i have with FM10 at the moment, I could be on a 15 game unbeaten streak then every time i quit and exit the game, the next time i load up the result's go the total opposite.

I will say struggle to draw at home against a team in the bottom half then followed by lose lose draw lose draw.

It happens the other way around too, i could be on a losing streak or 7 games without a win. I quit FM then the next time i load FM i will go and win 4-0.

It's like the game just as a total random feature that happens everytime you start up FM..

I know what you mean. In the LLM forum, they call it "aquaplaning", going along a streak of form without needing to put in much effort, and it changes everytime you boot up FM. This was supposed to have been fixed for 08 or 09, but I too have been noticing it reappear in FM10 which is disappointing.

fm 08 was crap

the worse one ever

fm10 is great

Cm96/97 best game ever

CM 00/01 followed by FM07

Agreed dude. FM08 was imo, the worse of the FM series. FM2007 ftw.

Wow, FM08 was my all time worst, going all the way back to cm01/02

my top 3 (in terms of fun had at the time) have to be 2007, 2010 and cm 01/02

fm 08 was crap

the worse one ever

fm10 is great

Fellas, I think that all three of you have been too much time in a Pub.

FM08 was not the worst of all FMs, not even by far, despite being somewhat critical about it.

FM09 is the worst FM game ever. How worst is it? It is worst that I can even taste CM4. Despite however FM10 was an improvement is not the best by far and I happy for those that are enjoying it.

To the OP, I feel the same the last two games don't feel right, but instead of FM08 i think that FM07 is the far best, despite having small issue with player reaching the age 33 that no club is interested in them it is hard to sell a player, but i usually put them in reserves squad.

FM08 was easily the worst for some time. 07 was brilliant. 09 kicked the arse of 08. Heck, 05 and 06 ruled above 08. 10 is the way though and as Crouchy says 11 is the future

FM09 was terrible. I don't know how anyone could prefer it to FM08 which was actually pretty good once the third patch came along.

I hated FM09 because the tactics felt too difficult to implement and too time consuming to set up, it was just frustrating and I felt like I needed a degree in football studies to actually play it. FM10 I've enjoyed a lot, It's given me back the love for football manager games I had back when I was playing the original SI CM games (CM2 etcetera) and while I don't think it's perfect, and i've spotted a few bugs too, It's still addictive enough.

FM09 was terrible. I don't know how anyone could prefer it to FM08 which was actually pretty good once the third patch came along.

This.

FM09 was terrible. I don't know how anyone could prefer it to FM08 which was actually pretty good once the third patch came along.

I prefer having too many good regens than too many poor ones.. :c

Not sure about the AI buying of players. They are constantly after my best players. On FM10 I went about 10 years without a single bid from the AI. I couldn't even give good players away on that game. Most teams had basically the same team they started with a decade on. Not sure how patch 10.3 changed things, I didn't give it much time but it seemed like it was going to be no different.

Regens seem good but over 32 year olds often have 1 for pace and accel.

It is easier to make money on 08, even without buying or selling I still make a profit. On FM10 I was hemorrhaging money, I'm surprised I didn't go bankrupt. Not saying thats a good thing. FM08 seems slightly too generous and FM10 seems far too expensive. Lower/non leauge clubs were losing about 300k a year. Something doesn't seem calculated right. No real lower/non leauge clubs would survive losing that much every year.

I was thinking about going back to 07 first, I think 08 was very similar to 07 but just with a years more polish. I remeber after getting 08 thinking how much improved I thought it was over the last one.

Overall though, I'm struggling to see anything that FM10 does better.

My personal favourite was 01/02 but I went back to that not long ago and it isn't as good as I remember, very basic now.

Into leauge 2 now with bromley. It's about 2013.

But I'm glad I went back to 08, into leauge 2 now with bromley. It's about 2013. The world cup has made me miss managing and I couldn't wait till next Feb for FM11 (by the time they finish patching it) hoping they get it right this year.

Not sure about the AI buying of players. They are constantly after my best players. On FM10 I went about 10 years without a single bid from the AI. I couldn't even give good players away on that game. Most teams had basically the same team they started with a decade on. Not sure how patch 10.3 changed things, I didn't give it much time but it seemed like it was going to be no different.

I'd have to say it is the opposite for me. in my current save as Wishaw (revamped Scottish leagues) pretty much every one of my players is wanted by some other club, probably due to the fact i am dominating scottish football and doing well in Europe. Every season i get quite a few bids for most of my players from various other clubs.

I have found selling players to be quite easy as well, maybe a bit too easy. Usually i will offer them out at 10 times there value and usually a few clubs will put in a offer that while not 10X there value will be a pretty good offer, usually more than they are worth or close to there worth.

this is with 10.3 patch BTW.

back on topic now and i have to say that while i enjoyed FM08 hugely when playing it i have found FM10 to be far the best one i have played in all the series i would say. It is the only one in recent memory that ihave had a long career game on, i am now in 2025 and cant see me stopping anytime soon as i am still enjoying it.

Oh and i though FM09 was very dissapointing i think i loaded it up twice before givig up on it completely, just could not get into it.