A veteran's perspective on FM09

Yes, yes, I'm getting old. You can tell that by the fact that's it's getting harder to find players any older than me. It just wasn't like that when the very first CM diskette was safely in my hands.

Thank God I'm an AC Milan fan...at least 2/3 genuine geezers can still be found in the team. But I'm digressing.

On to the game

General Overview

First off, let me tell you that I have had no activation issue whatsover, nor suffered any sort of graphic glitches, despita my pc being a good three years old.

After one season (successful, 'course..being AC Milan...), I find the game compelling as usual, some things have improved (transfer, finances, media), I like the 3D, while bugs are still there. Now, to be more specific.

- Match engine and tactics (score 7.2)

The Good

+ got rid of the silly side arrows. Maybe one day tactics will become realistic: there's no way you could tell Gattuso to play offensive 8 out of 20 and pressing 13 out 20.

+ much more realistic passing

+ much more realistic results

+ less unrealistic long shots

The Bad

- Absurd number of "hit the post/bar", pretty much one every two goal. Should be 1 every 20, more or less (Has the game been play tested)

- Way too many injuries during the match (4-5 a game per match, should be around 1). This is potentially a show stopper. (Should have been fixed in the patch, but hasn't)

- Wingers never cut inside

- Transfer market (score 7.0)

The good

+ It is now possible to sell players. Woot!

+ More realistic pricing

The bad

- Scouts have become utterly useless geography teachers (trust me, if a football team sends a scout somewhere, and the fella goes back to the president telling him he found out the capital of France is Paris he gets fired)

- Youth players refusing too many offers

- Interface and graphics (score 6.5)

The good

+ The 3D is good, fits the purpose of a managerial game

The bad

- the ugly, eye stressing, white background is still there

- the OI button sometimes disappears at half time

- if you try to field a 1 Forward formation, the tactics screen gets all messy (can't believe play testers didn't find it)

- the 3D switches from full match to key action to nothing on its own (Play testing anyone?)

Media (Score 5.9)

+ The questions make some sense

+ The player interaction has improved slightly

- All teams have suddenly become rivals in the fans comments (Ok, either they used blind play tester, or mute ones)

- All teams in the Continental cups are considered underdogs (Journalist "You have this easy away game with Barcelona, do you think your players will lack concentraion?" You: "err...")

That's all, folks

Much appreciated info. Im a longtime lurker here who has been playing since the CM days, and I must say I was very hesitant to buy this game - but I did plunk down my money last night. It's good to hear that old timers are still playing the game and enjoying the new version. Gonna have a go with Newcastle tonight.

Nice and easy read.

Agree with most of your points. I keep bleating on about the game being close to great but there are so many rough edges, even with the first patch. I'm not getting any major injury gripes game to game, although I do have about 3 good players out long-term; I dont consider that unrealistic. I never put anyone on hard training, the max I use is one notch below hard.

The interface and general graphical presentation is an area SI are woefully poor in (IMO, fully understand some will like it). Game made by coders I've downloaded smurfdudes new Flex 09 skin which has gone some way to improving a lot of stuff.

I cannot understand how some people are having problems with match engine settings and others are not (sliders not remembering where you last left them, different views starting up randomly, sometimes the game doesnt follow the action and you have to manually intervene). I can understand graphical issues to a certain extent (however, my keepers and officials always appearing in a white kit not fall into that bracket).

All in all I'm enjoying, but I do consider the game a bit of a mess if I'm honest. Which I try to be!

Nice review. Why didnt they ask you to test the game? Are there actually people employed by SI as testers? Are they blind? They should do a case study special on all these questions. My main gripe with some people is that they think this game is PES or FIFA so they criticise the match engine based on these other games however FM is not like any of these. Apart from that its a good game but does need work though many of the bugs are so obvious that you wonder who they used as testers. I was wondering waht David Blunkett was doing these days...

T4RG4

- Thanks for the hint about the skin, much much better

- My keepers and officials actually have green colors (though the glowing green referees are quite funny, I also had the black man, head to toe, skin included, and I mean pitch black)

- My training settings are just a notch above the mid-range

Thought you'd like it.

I've had a ref in green... once. Played half a season so far. Bug? yes.

So, your training is less harsh than mine... hmm. I tend not to play anyone below 90% fitness if I can help it. I quite frequently give players 2-3 days rest after a tough game if they have another coming up soon. Seems to work for me - tried that?

I'm sure in a previous game from this series you could automatically give people rest days, setup in their training schedule. Might have been the time when we could pick training specifics (5-a-side match etc.)

Played every version since mid 90s, first version I played was the one with the 6 big buttons!

Did play something similar on my old Amiga a few years before!

Is 09 supposed to have crowds, I just have grey areas instead of fans/graphics??

Nope, no crowds. I think half of SI decided stadiums were okay to put in (which I think was the right decision). However, they do look weird and unfinished.

You ignore it over time though, the action is on the pitch.

Community will improve the look of the game I suspect.

What happens is that I try and field players above 95%, but that doesn't help, they still get injured too often during the match. I am not complaining about the serious ones, but the annoying green crosses that turn into a 2 months problem unless you sub them right away.

I think the cause is due to an overdone sensibility to tackles. Every two/three hard tackles result in injury, that is the issue, and that is why it is not related to training.

I can field a weak central defender with 50% condition and he won't suffer, but a 100% fit attacking midfielder with low injury proness will be tackled and thus injured.

Oh I do recall the "Pig in the middle" days...those training schedules were just plain sick!

As for the stadium graphics, they are ugly. They should just get rid of them imho, they add absolutely nothing, this is a simulation, not Fifa. I mean, even my girlfriend plays Fifa, so you know what I'm talking about.

Do the injuries come when playing certain teams? Maybe the weaker ones are coming in hard against your players. I'd try playing faster (less time wasting/higher tempo) against those. That's what I'd do in real life, in FM... you could just try it Long shot...

For some reason I dont get this problem. At present I'm managing QPR so I'm hardly considered the highest ranking team when facing opposition.

As for the stadium graphics, they are ugly. They should just get rid of them imho, they add absolutely nothing, this is a simulation, not Fifa. I mean, even my girlfriend plays Fifa, so you know what I'm talking about.

Agree and disagree. I would love more of a special occassion feeling for certain matches (Champs league final, evening, floodlights, huge crowd, louder and unique SFX). I would love to see better representation of weather (corner flags moving in wind, boggy pitch) than we have at the moment. Most of it is still represented in Ass Man feedback or match preview text. I'd love to see whether I was playing against a small team (little stadium, few supporters) or challenging AC Milan away... Secondary matters no doubt, but the 3D match engine has removed some of our ability to 'imagine' the scene so to speak. I'd love to see this area of the game slowly improved. I really dont think it'd take all that much effort, but its something that is ignored. It could only help sales IMO and would not be to the detriment to gameplay.

For the point 'has the game been play-tested' - yes

For the early part of the year, the focus of ME development was through the FM Live beta, which saw thousands of players playing tens of thousands of games every single day - massively more testing than it's ever had before.

Since early summer, it's been focussed back for FM09 only - so it's benefitted from that attention too. Having the ME shared between two games is what has allowed it to make such massive strides forward this year.

Luke,

Brilliant review, brilliant.

I couldn't agree more with each and every point you made !

Cheers

Yes, yes, I'm getting old. You can tell that by the fact that's it's getting harder to find players any older than me. It just wasn't like that when the very first CM diskette was safely in my hands.

Thank God I'm an AC Milan fan...at least 2/3 genuine geezers can still be found in the team. But I'm digressing.

On to the game

General Overview

First off, let me tell you that I have had no activation issue whatsover, nor suffered any sort of graphic glitches, despita my pc being a good three years old.

After one season (successful, 'course..being AC Milan...), I find the game compelling as usual, some things have improved (transfer, finances, media), I like the 3D, while bugs are still there. Now, to be more specific.

- Match engine and tactics (score 7.2)

The Good

+ got rid of the silly side arrows. Maybe one day tactics will become realistic: there's no way you could tell Gattuso to play offensive 8 out of 20 and pressing 13 out 20.

+ much more realistic passing

+ much more realistic results

+ less unrealistic long shots

The Bad

- Absurd number of "hit the post/bar", pretty much one every two goal. Should be 1 every 20, more or less (Has the game been play tested)

- Way too many injuries during the match (4-5 a game per match, should be around 1). This is potentially a show stopper. (Should have been fixed in the patch, but hasn't)

- Wingers never cut inside

- Transfer market (score 7.0)

The good

+ It is now possible to sell players. Woot!

+ More realistic pricing

The bad

- Scouts have become utterly useless geography teachers (trust me, if a football team sends a scout somewhere, and the fella goes back to the president telling him he found out the capital of France is Paris he gets fired)

- Youth players refusing too many offers

- Interface and graphics (score 6.5)

The good

+ The 3D is good, fits the purpose of a managerial game

The bad

- the ugly, eye stressing, white background is still there

- the OI button sometimes disappears at half time

- if you try to field a 1 Forward formation, the tactics screen gets all messy (can't believe play testers didn't find it)

- the 3D switches from full match to key action to nothing on its own (Play testing anyone?)

Media (Score 5.9)

+ The questions make some sense

+ The player interaction has improved slightly

- All teams have suddenly become rivals in the fans comments (Ok, either they used blind play tester, or mute ones)

- All teams in the Continental cups are considered underdogs (Journalist "You have this easy away game with Barcelona, do you think your players will lack concentraion?" You: "err...")

That's all, folks

There ought to be a "Reviews" thread on the forum then all the "I'm me so my opinion is important and here it is" threads can be together for people to actually compare different views!

I agree with a lot of that, but certainly not the injuries issue. Personally, since the patch, I have found these to be much more realistic, with the exception of some injuries bein too lengthy. To me it sounds like you need to heighten the intensity of your training. I have all of my schedules just one notch below heavy and have not experienced any problems.

I whole heartedley agree about the wingers though. My wingers are set to cross from the byline, but have a high level of creative freedom, so you would expect the player to think for himself a lot more. So what does Benayoun do when Torres plays him in? Does he cut inside and run at the goal? Of course not, he moves out even wider, allowing the defence to regroup before wasting his cross. Well done clever clogs.

Finally, I too would like an improvement on the current slider system for tactics, but have to be honest, I have never seen a suggestion that would actually work better then thesliders actually do. The only improvement I can think of would be a graphical representation to show what some of the sliders are doing, such as adjusting a players mentallity causing him to move up or down the pitch slightly, or when changing the players closing down instructions, seeing a little box representing the zone in which the player will close down in either grow or shrink depending on how you adjust it. With the sliders, I just don't see a better option at the moment.

- Scouts have become utterly useless geography teachers (trust me, if a football team sends a scout somewhere, and the fella goes back to the president telling him he found out the capital of France is Paris he gets fired)

That made me laugh. Yet true

Finally, I too would like an improvement on the current slider system for tactics, but have to be honest, I have never seen a suggestion that would actually work better then thesliders actually do. The only improvement I can think of would be a graphical representation to show what some of the sliders are doing, such as adjusting a players mentallity causing him to move up or down the pitch slightly, or when changing the players closing down instructions, seeing a little box representing the zone in which the player will close down in either grow or shrink depending on how you adjust it. With the sliders, I just don't see a better option at the moment.

^^ thats something i have previously suggested too with the sliders... kinda like LMA. But better

Murraymint:

not sure about the kids, but this babe has certainly grown :-)

Bongo-Bongo:

I'll try and see what happens with tougher training, thanks for the suggestion, my point though is that even the opposition ALWAYS ends up with a couple of players injured on the field.

SuperBladesman:

then if it has been tested, either obvious and easy things to spot failed to catch the attention of an army of testers (way too many hit the post/bar, all opponents considered rivals, ...) or these issues have been raised and not fixed.

On the sliders:

All I'm saying is that they are overcomplicated. Anyone who has played football knows tactics are a tad simpler when it comes to "mentality" or "passes" (yet much more complicated when it comes to free-kicks and OIs). Maybe a 5 notches slider would be more realistic (ultradefensive, defensive, normal, attacking, all-out attack).

About the passes, while slow, direct, long makes some sense, another set of key options ahould allow you to tell your players to play lateral, accross the field passes, or vertical, up field passes. This is not fully implemented with the through ball system.

I have been playing football management games since football director on the C64 and I have played this series for well over 10 years now. I love what I see being done to the game, not that it is perfect it is far from it but it keeps moving forward. The new views that have been added over the year, from only text to 2d and now 3d has been one of the things to really take the game to another level, as you can actually see what is going on. In the beginning the view wasn't very accurate it gave some imformation but only roughly.

In the last couple of years I get the impression that it has become more and more accurate in telling you what is really going on. To continue that development I think going to 3d was the only sensible thing to do. Not to get flashy graphics fifa style but to be able to really see the players movements. At this point I really hope what I see on the screen really isn't a very detailed view of what is going on in the field though. I like the new 3d because I see great potential with it but it will need a lot of work still. I'm also happy they put it in the game because it is the large amount of players playing and commenting that will improve it.

As an oldtime player I'm happy to say I still enjoy this game a lot and if nothing drastic happens I will keep buying the new versions.

What about match speed. As many have said, its loading pretty slowly =(