Magazine Review thread

How much space did they both devote?

yeh i read the oficial ps2 mangazine review, a very good write up indeed.

was a 1 page review

are we allowed to post up the reviews for others to read, if so i dont mind typing up the PSM2 mag review but didn't know if it would be copywrite or anything?

I'm not sure what the actual answer is to that question saintsfc but if you're going to do that then it would be best to ensure you quote the source of information, the issue number of the publication and the page number the article appeared on.

ok will do then Neil cheers, it will be up in about 30 minutes if anyone is interested

Pssst Neil can you send us a review copy of FMPSP

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by saintsfc:

ok will do then Neil cheers, it will be up in about 30 minutes if anyone is interested </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

gonna be much longer mate? thanks.

Credit goes to PSM2 Magazine, April 2006 Issue, Pages 76, 77

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"> This is strange. On the one hand, Sport Interactive's footie venture on PSP feels as empty and dry as an Alcoholic's hip flask. But on the other it's easily one of the most enjoyable management games we've ever played. Veterans of the Football Manager series, however , will froth at the mouth as you see how many key features your're missing from the PC version. The transfer system has been streamlined to the point where you can't even exchange players to make up for your lack of funds, and there's no reserve team. Heck, you can't even view a match report to check key moments of previous games. But when you sit down and really get to grips with Football Manager Handheld and these minor fractions will fade to oblivion. You'll be too busy fretting over the five million you've just splurged on Djiril Cisse to worry about minor flaws. It's five million more than he's worth.

Almost as oddly as parting with cash for Liverpool's goal shy miss-man, Football Manager Handheld kicks off at the beginning of the current 2005-2006 season, but with the moves from the January transfer window. Vidic is at Man Utd, Walcott's at Arsenal and half of the Spurs team are at Portsmouth. It feels weird, but it sort of makes sense.

From the outset, FM Handheld feels accessible. A couple of menu clicks later and youre ready. You can only manage a single country's teams throughout your career, rather than, for instance, being plucked from League two obscurity to manage Inter Milan. Shame. But PSP's not exactly full of memory and you get a solid match engine in return - more on that later.

After settling into your team's dougout you'll initially be disappointed at the lack of intricate options. Most frustrating of the lot is the fact that you can't dabble with your team's formation. You're forced to choose one of 17, and unlike Championship Manager PSP you can't draw on directional arrows for passes or runs. You can still give a player instructions like run right/left/centre, mind, but you can't even move your players around the pitch to customise your formations.

However, the developers have trimmed things for good reason - the match engine. Here's a fundamentally sound piece of software that mimics real football in purest form. Apart from watching aghast as Alex Ferguson took the reigns of lowly Doncaster (PSM2 took over MAN UTD), everything else feels true and observed. So don't worry about absurd transfer action, like Quinton Fortune being incessantly romanced by the likes of Chelsea and AC Milan - he's rather more likely to be shipped out on loan to Wolves, just like in real life. While we're on the subject, however, you can't recall players on load so be careful who you farm out. And so long as you don't go all Souness and put out the same useless side every week, you won't be getting randomly drummed by lower quality teams every match.

With so much emphasis on bread and butter management, FM Handheld should wind up being lacklustre. But it isn't. The magic distilled in it's core delivers an accurate and entertaining football experience thanks to its extensive database of players, clubs and competitions. Even without the 2D pitch of smartie-esque players, FM Handheld stokes your imagination and you end up creating your own stories (Saha owes his career to us - we fantasize about giving him a big hug, the amount of winning goals he scored) although Rooney whinging about being dropped for a single game almost shatters that illusion. The fact is that while there's a lack of "bells and whistles" to a distract you from the main game, Football Manager Handheld is confident of its delivery and gives you exactly what you need. You won't find a more enjoyable managerial game anywhere else and, given the continually improving PC Game, we're in certain that FM Handheld will be in for a similarly long and illustrious managerial career on PSP.

GAMEPLAY

+ Every decision makes you feel in complete control

- It's just stat management. No More, No Less

GRAPHICS

+ Sharp and Stylish menus are easy to navigate.

- Where are the little dots running around on the 2D Pitch?

SOUND

+ Er....there's a clicking sound when you, well, click.

- Seriously, theres nothing else apart from that.

LIFESPAN

With so many different teams to choose from - each offering a new managerial experience - you'll be coming back to this for months.

IN SHORT

As a no-frills footie management game that feels properly solid, FM Handheld is seriously hard to beat. A great first attempt at portable Mourinho-ing from Sports Interactive.

FINAL SCORE

80%

Few glad ive finished that. they also have a little box on who to replace as Roy Keane thought i would add it in.

So.... people keep asking just who will be the next Roy Keane? The answer is simple... no-one . He's his own player. Still this didn't stop us from testing out three potential 'engines' for United's midfield. Step forward Aldo Duscher (Deportivo), Mahamadou Diarra (Lyon) and unlikely candidate Kevin Nolan (Bolton). So how did they fare in FM Handheld?

Diarra - His wage demands were high and he was rubbish. Sold him to Villa for £3million

Duscher - Was busy in midfield and got red carded twice. An ideal replacement then.

Nolan - Not the best choice for that position but he bagged 25 goals. Nice One.

Right thats saintsfc calling it a rap guys hope you enjoyed the read. And can't wait until the game comes out now especially after reading that. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Cheers

Saintsfc

Cheers for that Saints FC, much appreciated.

Fairly positive review methinks

yeah definately and also lots of new pics in the mag as well of the game which look cool. all in all should be wicked game.

thnaks for the post mate. cannot wait.

Hmm...I wasn't expecting that you wouldn't be able to part exchange players or be able to modify formations...this sounds a bit disappointing

me again ill go down the shop in a mo and see if they have the mag, and write up the review again on here if i get it.

unfortunately all 3 newsagents in cheddar dont have it but im going to town tommorow morning so ill pick up a copy then and do the review at lunch time sorry guys

right back from town and got the mag. love the review and will write it up some time this afternoon/evening. one little screenshot made me laugh of Ferguson putting Scholes on the transfer list for 1.8million actually not that funny but still.

Yeah,i agree saintsfc got the mag today as well and very good write up and some interesting screens,not long to go now !!!

cant wait for the write up!

right guys just got back from work and am knackered so ill write up the review tommorow morning. sorry guys.

right here it is, credit to GoPlay Issue 4, Pages 62,63

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"> It's a funny old game, as they say. In pretty much every other genre, a stripped down PSP outing for a current-generation game would - and should - be critically panned right across the board. However, Football Manager Handheld, a conversion, of the PC stalwart that has run to the present day from around the dawn of time, was actually somewhat in need of the old hairdryer treatment. Therefore the features lacking here represent more a trimming of dead wood than uprooting the tree outright and planting thron bushes in the void that remains. The continuing strength of relatively intangible elements too, such as news generation and transfer dealings, comprehensively hide the fact that all you're really doing is playng a jumped-up game of top trumps. With Yourself.

It's indicative of just how smoothly the Football Manager series slots you into the shoes of your average outspoken gaffer that it's actually quite a difficult game to review. Simply, it stubbornly refuses to be broken down into its constituent parts. If done properly, technical issues in management sims, such as the interface or the mathematics behind your team's performance on the pitch, become almost anonymous: all you should see in your mind's eye is a jinking run down the win or some lardy-boy agent trying to squeeze some extra cash out of you. It's a hard facade to keep up, though: if anything way, way out occours, any sense of realism and fairness is lost and the entire point of the game is compromised. Somehow, Football Manager Handheld always seems to straddle this crucial barrier; remaining accessible enough to lure you in and complex enough, behind the scenes, to ensure you never quite declare its treatment unfair. In short, its the most realistic sim this side of winning the lottery, buying a club and being manager yourself.

Setting the difficult business of explaining exactly why SI's title stands head and shoulders above any other, a few more factual titbits might prove useful. First, there's no moveable cursor in place of a mouse here. Pretty much the entirety of your managerial life is contained in a menu on the left-hand side of the screen, from which you can bring up everything you need. The left and right shoulder buttons cycle forwards and backwards through your page history, whilst certain pages - like the recent xbox 360 conversion - feature teletext style commands mapped to the four face buttons to a quickly flick to the relevant information.

After picking your team from one of seven available countries (that's England, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Scotland and Spain, fact fans!), it's time to get to work. The essential functions of a manager remain: picking the team, deciding on tactics, negotiating contracts, working out training schedules, and so on. There's no function to set your training to be administred by an assistant, however such decisions have been largely reduced to whether you want "light", "medium" or "intensive" training in a number of key areas. This might provoke some PC owners into a particually vicious gesticulation of the mouse, but where the different options and choices of staff involved with stipulating training regimes had begun to confuse Football Manager 2006 players (not to mention throw doubt upon just what effect it all had), this PSP version's simplicity allows you to have a rather enjoyable but non-committal stab at it.

Of course, some compromises have had to be made for such a Number-crunching behemoth to appear in handheld form and it'd be unfair not to list them at least. For the record, the maximum squad size is 36 players. This may sound as if it's more than adequate, but there isn't really such a thing as youth and reserve sides. Consequently, each club is lumbered with a load of transfer-stopping kids at the game's outset that you're only really going to ditch straightaway. Second, it's only possible to have one league set as "active" per game, - in European competition your opposition will always be at a disadvantage due to this fact.

It really is a tremendous effort to offer as much as Football Manager Handheld, whilst fitting your save file into on measly Megabyte. If you're after te ultimate in immersion it's the PC version you're after. For management nuggets though, there's simply no comparison.

A Truly spectacular 30-yard drive. Back of the Net! 88% </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Phew finally finished. hope you all enjoy it. Saintsfc signing out....

wow! thanks.

FMH got 8/10 from a swedish (?) magazine called something like player, format or along those lines

Pure PSP Mag gave it 8/10, dont have the mag saw it in town today.

i love how the board has got extremely busy since Monday and before then it was quite dead with the usual people on here

90% from GamesMaster

loads of good feedback i see! no bad reviews as of yet!

just add in skinnable game, updatable game, music player and stuff and you'll get 100% for fmh07

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">just add in skinnable game, updatable game, music player and stuff and you'll get 100% for fmh07 </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I wonder how FM compares to CM2007 on PSP, I'm sure FM is kicking butt but I'm curious, anyone know?

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by s33r:

I wonder how FM compares to CM2007 on PSP, I'm sure FM is kicking butt but I'm curious, anyone know? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Um ... how can I put this nicely.

A bit of a 'mixed reception@ I think

http://www.championshipmanager.co.uk/forums/showthread....c80e5&threadid=37763

sounds like Eidos are having fun with it then. I played a demo of the first CM after the split and I've never touched it since.. I'll stop there tho as the less said the better

Good review here http://www.gamesradar.com/gb/psp/game/reviews/article.j...=2006041191459328057

Another good review here but this one is for the 360 http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=63913

Pocket Gamer has posted a review tonight.

Pocket Gamer review

7/10

Really likes FM for what it offers, but thinks it lacks some of the off-pitch colour of PC version?

7/10 nar thats being a bit harsh.

It would be good if someone compared the lastest cm and Psp handhelds.

I think the reviewer must be a Villa fan.

"After settling into your team's dougout you'll initially be disappointed at the lack of intricate options."

mate, coat+taxi.

I'm not your friend

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by ntfc:

It would be good if someone compared the lastest cm and Psp handhelds. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

i would do but i cant be bothered to even touch Champman PSP let alone take out FM Handheld and then replace it with a crappy version of it.

Zoo gave the PSP version 8 out of 10 byt the screenshots are from the 360 version because it shows the 2d highlights

I got Play magazine today,

FMH got 82%

Verdict : "As expected, the loading times are a pain and the controls are fairly clunky, but neither take the shine off a brilliant management game that goes into a ludicrous amount of detail. Say goodbye to hours and hours of your life."

LMAO... there was also a review for CM2006 in there..

It got a really bad review with 32%

Verdict : "Another lazy attempt by Eidos to ride on the name of the franchise. A near-absolute failure. Lacks just about every element that makes a football management game playable. You could probably win the Prem with Sunderland."

Personally I think the loadin times for FMH are fine. an yes there are bugs, but compared to whats available this game is the berrys.

The champ review speaks for itself.

Another review http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=64001

CM: PSP is the worst management game I've ever played, and I've played a fair few. Heck, Premier Manager 2000 is better.

It was fun at first, but it is SO unrealistic. I sold Shola Ameobi to VfB Stuttgart for £22.3m!

FM Handheld was one of the reasons I decided to buy a PSP, but when I found it wasn't going to be realsed until Spring, I took the plunge and bought CM: PSP.

I bought FM Handheld on the strength of reviews and the desire for a decent game when I was back in England last week and it's brilliant.

A lot of CM owners are annoyed at Eidos for releasing CM 2006 so soon, thus rendering CM: PSPs resale value lower.

Play

Overall Rating: 82%

Review Summary Blurb:

As expected, the loading times are a pain and the controls are fairly clunky, but neither take the shine off a brilliant management game that goes into a ludicrous amount of detail. Say goodbye to hours and hours of your life.

I dont't know about that, the load times are amazing I think, so fast, so quick, hardly have to wait, great work guys getting it to load that quicly.

Oh I found another review over at http://www.gamespot.com/psp/sports/footballmanager2006/review.html

Although it is a web site and not a magazine, is it ok to put it in this thread?

CM on the PSP is C R A P.

Have played FM 2006 (BILs) and its BRILLIANT.

Gonna get it this week.