How does FMH fare in the FM series? Here's what i think...

Let me start by saying, FMH is a fantastic achievement. Getting the look and feel of FM on a little device like the PSP has made the need for me to lug a laptop on large journeys redundant. Thank You.

I’ve been playing this over the Easter weekend and there are some slightly disappointing parts of the game I’d like to share with you that come to mind compared to the rest of the FM series and I hope the thoughts come across as useful rather than a good moan

Starting with the interface:

The use of UNF is confusing compared to the full FM game. Doesn’t the usual status of a player go from Red INJ to Orange INJ to UNF (if the player is lacking match fitness but is uninjured?)

On the Handheld version there is no orange INJ so it’s confusing to see if a player is UNF because of too many games or because he is still injured. Would it be possible to bring back the Orange INJ for the handheld version to make it easier to see from the squad screen who is still injured?

The Club info screen’s handling of the finances is a little frustrating. With Everton I’ve managed to spend all my transfer budget before the Jan window and I’m doing very well in the CL. I can’t see the potential impact of this success on the club finances, so I don’t know what I should be doing money wise (offering low contracts, etc) as there’s no indication on how much money will be available to the club as a whole. If you had a slight indication of the current club financial status, you’d know whether to go mad with contracts and scouting good players, or whether it’s time to look at the Bosmans and release those big wage starts. Can we get some sort of overview?

The awards at the end of the month, we get the manager of the month for every division but not one player or youth player of the month? It’d be better to get just the information for you league (manager, player, youth) rather than just the manger for every league. Knowing how well other managers are doing doesn’t really affect my game.

I’m yet to see any international call ups? Are they included or will they only happen at the end of the season when there’s a European Championship or World Cup?

Red cards! I think the number of the cards is fine, but when a player gets sent off there’s nothing you can do about it. For example, in my game – Hibbert gets sent off against West Brom and is suspended for 3 league games. I can’t fine him to show my displeasure, so I play him in the next match (European) as he won’t be eligible for the next league match. He gets sent off in that European game, so 2 reds in 2 games. I can’t do anything to influence this except not play him, which is slightly frustrating.

An option to fine a player (if this controls aggression to some extent) would be nice.

Lack of scouting options, would it be possible to have the scout filter targets, like the normal search as I usually don’t take players over 27. The scout kept coming back with players 30+ so I just stopped using the function.

I haven’t had any media options yet or interaction, which means now I’ve spent my transfer budget, all I have to do is pick the team, look at injuries and press continue now till match day. It just feels a bit empty really.

But that’s about it. Everything else is spot on, the match engine is great and I like the return of the text commentary. The formation settings are really easy to use and you can tell it’s really been thought about as most of the stuff is done without thinking about it. (Like when you select a player to sub, it automatically jumps to the subs list.) I’m impressed with the number of clubs and teams in the game and the loading times (which I was worried about the most) are hardly noticeable when you’re playing the game.

So FMH fits in to the FM family well, but I think it needs to go a few steps further to really achieve its potential.

If you need any help in testing the next version, I’m only down the road in Mayfair so I’ll be happy to pop in on my lunch hour

PS – Out of interest, back in the Amiga days when we had about 3 or 4 floppy disks per game and no HDD, How hard would it be to do a conversion of the old 97/98 type game onto the PSP? You had a lot of functionality back in those days that fit into just a few floppys, what’s changed? (apart from the match engine which is probably much better now!)

Let me start by saying, FMH is a fantastic achievement. Getting the look and feel of FM on a little device like the PSP has made the need for me to lug a laptop on large journeys redundant. Thank You.

I’ve been playing this over the Easter weekend and there are some slightly disappointing parts of the game I’d like to share with you that come to mind compared to the rest of the FM series and I hope the thoughts come across as useful rather than a good moan

Starting with the interface:

The use of UNF is confusing compared to the full FM game. Doesn’t the usual status of a player go from Red INJ to Orange INJ to UNF (if the player is lacking match fitness but is uninjured?)

On the Handheld version there is no orange INJ so it’s confusing to see if a player is UNF because of too many games or because he is still injured. Would it be possible to bring back the Orange INJ for the handheld version to make it easier to see from the squad screen who is still injured?

The Club info screen’s handling of the finances is a little frustrating. With Everton I’ve managed to spend all my transfer budget before the Jan window and I’m doing very well in the CL. I can’t see the potential impact of this success on the club finances, so I don’t know what I should be doing money wise (offering low contracts, etc) as there’s no indication on how much money will be available to the club as a whole. If you had a slight indication of the current club financial status, you’d know whether to go mad with contracts and scouting good players, or whether it’s time to look at the Bosmans and release those big wage starts. Can we get some sort of overview?

The awards at the end of the month, we get the manager of the month for every division but not one player or youth player of the month? It’d be better to get just the information for you league (manager, player, youth) rather than just the manger for every league. Knowing how well other managers are doing doesn’t really affect my game.

I’m yet to see any international call ups? Are they included or will they only happen at the end of the season when there’s a European Championship or World Cup?

Red cards! I think the number of the cards is fine, but when a player gets sent off there’s nothing you can do about it. For example, in my game – Hibbert gets sent off against West Brom and is suspended for 3 league games. I can’t fine him to show my displeasure, so I play him in the next match (European) as he won’t be eligible for the next league match. He gets sent off in that European game, so 2 reds in 2 games. I can’t do anything to influence this except not play him, which is slightly frustrating.

An option to fine a player (if this controls aggression to some extent) would be nice.

Lack of scouting options, would it be possible to have the scout filter targets, like the normal search as I usually don’t take players over 27. The scout kept coming back with players 30+ so I just stopped using the function.

I haven’t had any media options yet or interaction, which means now I’ve spent my transfer budget, all I have to do is pick the team, look at injuries and press continue now till match day. It just feels a bit empty really.

But that’s about it. Everything else is spot on, the match engine is great and I like the return of the text commentary. The formation settings are really easy to use and you can tell it’s really been thought about as most of the stuff is done without thinking about it. (Like when you select a player to sub, it automatically jumps to the subs list.) I’m impressed with the number of clubs and teams in the game and the loading times (which I was worried about the most) are hardly noticeable when you’re playing the game.

So FMH fits in to the FM family well, but I think it needs to go a few steps further to really achieve its potential.

If you need any help in testing the next version, I’m only down the road in Mayfair so I’ll be happy to pop in on my lunch hour

PS – Out of interest, back in the Amiga days when we had about 3 or 4 floppy disks per game and no HDD, How hard would it be to do a conversion of the old 97/98 type game onto the PSP? You had a lot of functionality back in those days that fit into just a few floppys, what’s changed? (apart from the match engine which is probably much better now!)

Some good points

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

Some good points </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Which ones?

Ack - i mean't 93/94

I was thinking, surely that size of game could be ported to a platform like the PSP?!

Anyway, comment on my FMH comments!

there were people who played cm93 on amiga emulators in the early days of the psp - personally i dont think this version is all that different