First Impression - Waste of money

My first impression of this game is that there are still major issues that have not been sorted out yet, and dont look like they ever will. I guess the patch a few days after release should have been a warning sign, I have never known any other game to have so many bugs, how do they get away with releasing these half done versions its ridiculous?

As for game play I have to say the match engine is good, and people who complain about the graphics should back off because at least its moving in the right direction and a big step up from blobs running around. Apart from that i see no other improvements.

I still see the same problems as the last version. Too many unrealistic results and things happening, by this I mean having 20 shots but still getting beat by a team with 1 shot, yes it does happen but not every game like it does on football manager. Also constantly crap players playing like zidane and doing opposite from there stats, a player of 11 long shots spanking them in all over the pitch, yes does happen, but not all the time like on fm. While my strikers of amazing stats play absolutely dog turd for no reason at all, missing clear chances, and other players making stupid mistakes, again it does happen but not every game.

I thought the assistant manager giving feedback would be a great feature and help solve the problems of this in previous versions. But he is useless, alls i get told is such a player is making mistakes or having a bad game, every single game. And this is not one player, it happened in every game ive played with many different teams. I also get every game there is a gap between defence and midfield, despite putting players in the ' hole ' or having them come drop back i still get this same message, offering no advice on how to solve this. Completely useless feature at the moment.

Now press conferences. Good at first but get boring after a while with the same questions, and limited answers. I know you can send the assistant but then he normally just balls it up and says something wrong.

I am extremely dissapointed with this football manager and feel the game is going very far away from the pick up and play kind of game, all i want to do is have a simple 442, get some good players and have some realistic results, but at the moment like the others thats near impossible because there is every little details that you need to change and not to mention that every other manager seems to be a tactical genius and know exactly how to win each and every game. I would love to spend hours and hours going into all the detail and trying to figure it out, but as it seems the match engine is just so random and unclear that this would be hard and very time consuming. Time which i dont have. Anyway i will end my rant here, although some features are improving there is still something a miss, maybe its just moving away from a pick up and play game and getting too in depth for my time available.

Maybe you need to give the game another chance or two and pick a team that you would like managing and go from there. At first, it's not always love, but a game like this does tend to grow on you.

I wouldn't trash it right away. I didn't enjoy it for the first few tries I had with it, but am slowly liking it more and more.

I think the game is OK to be honest - its far from perfect and things like the press conferences are very/too repetitive (maybe they can/will freshen this up in a patch).

Regardless of all this I'm having great fun taking in my career game with Birmingham City

I love the features added in FM09 and think it is better than last years and for the money spent I've already had many hours of game play.

So you want a predictable game?

Sounds like fun, let me know if you find one.

It's called football mate, teams can have 70% possession and still lose, teams can play 9 men and still lose, teams can have 20 shots and still lose.

I can't think of anything worse than a game which always goes the way you think it will.

You want the assistant to spell it out for you everytime?? I think it is good that the assistant is vague it means you have to think for yourself. What would be the point of the assistant doing it all for you...you dont buy a game so that the computer plays it for you. Football is not a predictable game for example Hull beat Arsenal that is what makes football so great its unpredictability.

The reason for your strikers missing 20 chances is that your either a bad manager or have bad players. When was the last time you saw Manchester United take all their chances.

As for players having bad games and making mistakes, this happens in real life...every game. Even if a team wins 2-0 some players would still have had a bad game or made mistakes.

I think you need to get over it, you sound like you didnt win all your games and got upset. Give it another go.