Firstly, I would like to apologize for not posting anything up yesterday. I do have a reason for not writing anything and it is quite simple, I needed to play FM! I hadn’t really had a chance to advance with my game and get some solid playing time in, not to mention the fact I was desperately running out of things to write about, which is not good. I don’t believe in forced writing, writing about something because you have nothing else to write about. Anyway, things are back to normal today as I take a look at the game once again, only this time I will not be reviewing a new feature I have come across, I will be expressing my thoughts on new graphics and layout in FM10!

Layout

We have got used to the same kind of layout over the last couple of years, quite dull, quite basic and quite ordinary. However, it worked. Everyone knew were everything was and everyone felt comfortable navigating there way around it. Until I seen one of the first FM10 screenshots, I thought it was going to be the same as usual with a few tweaks. Not this time, the layout had undergone a complete makoever, it looked completely different to the game I had minimized at the bottom of my screen, it also looked very confusing. When your viewing the layout from a still image, you can’t really get a feel for how good or bad it is, which is why I refused to make an early judgement on the new setup. Deep down however, I knew what I felt of it.

When I downloaded my copy of the demo and booted it up, I was already expecting quite a lot, people had already been telling me how good it looked, how smooth it felt and how much of a leap forward it was from last years game. Obviously the very beginnings of the game were hardly breathtaking visually, they were just the same as they have always been. The main menu looked nice and vibrant which had already set off a nice positive aura of the game, the profile area was very basic, just how it needed to be. When I eventually got to view the manager overview screen, I was taken back. The arrangement of everything was superb, there was lots of information displayed on the page yet the it still looked very clean and very pretty. I also found out later on in the day that the information displayed was customizable, by that I mean you can chop and change what information you want the screen to show.

Moving on from overview screen, the news page is pretty much the same as last year if you focus your eyes on lower the 3/4′s of the page. The top of the screen is very much different, there is now a calendar bar that runs across the top, with a logo of the club on the date you are facing them. The calendar bar really is a good addition, it is now much easier to get a sense of how close you are to your next game. All the club and managers affairs are now neatly tucked away under the calendar bar. The continue button has travelled to the top right hand corner of the page and has took the preferences button with it. All in all, everything that has been changed has improved the layout, I can’t really say that I preferred anything the way it was on 09, everything seems to make more sense this way. In terms of navigation, everything is relatively easy to find providing you have spent more than an hour on the game. The game also now runs a lot smoother, I haven’t experienced any clicking delays that haunted my FM09 experiences and the game has never crashed on me. Which is more than I could say for FM09

I am definitely a lover of the new layout, I’m aware that it is not some peoples cup of tea and the fact that SI are releasing an FM09 duplicate skin with the STEAM release is a sign that they are not the only ones who have problems. Fortunately, I won’t have to download the FM09 skin or any other skin for that matter as for once, Sports Interactive have given me a skin to begin with that is actually quite good!

3D Graphics

Moving on to the real inspiration of this article, the 3D pitch. Last year, I hated the new 3D none sense. I was quite happy with my 2D players running about freely without skipping, jumping or crashing. The 3D was a brilliant idea, but it was an idea that was incomplete. The 3D ran so un-smoothly for me it was unbearable and the lack of graphics on the screen bored me to death. Having shared opinions with other people on this issue many of a time, I know that I wasn’t the only one who had grown strong hatred for the 3D pitch. It was also slightly disappointing, knowing that it was such a great idea that if implemented correctly, could of been revolutionary to the way we all view our matches. I was hoping they would do something about it rather then let it waste away.

I wasn’t aware that they were going to do anything to the 3D view before I looked at the demo, all I knew was that I wouldn’t be using it, at least that’s what I thought. As I wondered into my first match, I thought I would take a look at the 3D before I switched to 2D classic. It took ages to load as usual but when it did finally appear on my screen, I was shocked. The most obvious change was the fact we now had a crowd, which was excellent. The game now felt a lot more atmospheric and a lot more ‘real’. The players looked a lot better, they were more accurately shaped and they were more natural in motion. Most of all, despite the new graphical additions, the game ran a lot, lot smoother and quicker than it did last year. With the new Touchline Instructions, I really thought that I could give it a go this year.

As promised, I did give the 3D pitch a go and I did come away weighing up the pros and cons of both the 3D view and the much loved 2D classic view. The 3D view gave a better look at how the team was playing and how certain individuals were playing. The 2D pitch was a lot quicker and a lot more fluent. Decisions, Decisions. This may seem a bit anti-climatic, but I chose the 2D view, it’s just much quicker! However, I will still use the 3D view in games that I deem important’, that way I am getting the best of both worlds. The main point of this article is not which I have chosen, more so to prove how well SI have done to improve the 3D view, from a messy, unresponsive, unfinished concept to a…..well I’ll let you decide that.

tactics...oh dear

It’s day two of my blog, I’m sat at home in quarantine drinking Covonia by the gallon, the perfect day to write about my latest Football Manager exploits. Just like yesterday, I will be spending your time talking to you about another new feature in the game. I told you all yesterday how I had managed to use the Meet The Staff feature in a way which gave me a big advantage over certain opposition, unfortunately, due to my lack of tactical nouse and general idiocy when it comes selecting the right players to play in the right formation, I can’t promise the same success today.

Player Definitions

I was of course talking about the new Player Definitions, the thing we have all been crying out for since the stone age. I’ve constantly moaned on about how mechanical the game comes across, not only in the Transfer Filter but in the Tactics system of previous years. For once we can make use of our box-to-box midfielder and our poaching center forwards without them god damn sliders. I was surprised at the amount of options I had to choose from, I even had the option to transform the goalkeeper into a sweeper, although I’m not sure Brad Jones and his stupid uncoordinated size 12 feet are quite right for that role…

I was determined to make use of this new addition and create a killer tactic out of it, after all I had cried out for it for so long. In past games I’ve never got the ‘Big man – Little man’ partnership to work, maybe the new Player definitions would solve that. I had the midget poacher, Leroy Lita, a proven championship goal scorer. Next on the list was a target man who would win the ball in the air and put the ball on a plate for Leroy to hit home! I didn’t have much to spend and Middlesbrough weren’t the most attractive prospect at this moment in time so I had to look through the transfer and loan list and eventually found the right man for the job. I’d managed to nab Joe Garner on loan and I was hoping he would turn out to be a successful acquisition.

Instead of going through my entire team and listing the instructions to my new tactics, I think it’d be better to explain the player definitions in a few positions and what I have went for. Not everything is as clear as it first looks, I mean what the hell is a Traquartrista? Moving on to the winger positions I noticed that you had the option to choose the ‘Defensive Winger’ option which I think is great, a lot of wingers today earn their brownee points by working hard in their own half of their pitch as well as well the other teams, James Milner for example. However, I had my wingers placed in between my midfielders and strikers, as attacking wingers, yet I till got the defensive winger option. Would playing just behind the striker nullify the defensive winger or would it just mean that they push extra hard to get back and work extra hard going forward? Interesting. Not that any of that interests me as I just wanted a standard winger who would run down the line and cross the ball!

What I wanted from my midfield pairing was pretty simple, someone to win the ball and create possession for the team and someone to do something with that possession. These options were clear conveyed with the Ball-Winning midfielder option and the Advanced Playmaker option, although I had to choose whether they would ‘attack’ or ‘support’, not fully understanding what it meant by ‘support’ I went for the safe option and chose attack. Now I felt I had achieved that balance in midfield, I had the tackler and the passer combination I wanted. It was going to be interesting see how they stick to their position and seeing how they take to their new role.

I really do like the way it has all been incorporated and the vast amount of definitions you get to choose from makes sure that you get your player to play the exact way you want and the exact way he does in real life. I haven’t had enough time to see if the tactic I have created is actually any good, that will take time, but one thing for sure is that the individuals in my team are excelling in there exclusive roles.

Nice to meet you...

DAY 1 : My First look at the game and my thoughts on the new Meet The Staff feature!

As you will all know the Football Manager 2010 demo was recently released and not only is it far better than any other Football Manager demo I have ever played, it’s the fastest, sleekest and most breathtaking piece of programming I have witnessed in a long time. Yes, I have only played it for around an hour and an half but for once that is more than enough time to appreciate how good this game is and how epic it is going to become. Anyway, unless you have eminently avoided the title of the post you will have realised that this is the first of many analytical (Yeah, right) posts on my experiences with new demo, this blog will hopefully be updated every day up until I stop playing on the game. Without wasting any more of your time, let the adventure begin:

Steam was relatively easy to use, I heard about the release of the demo in the Fifa thread ironically, not realizing it was the 14th Of October. With the demo creeping up behind me, pinching me in neck and then running off waiting to be caught, I quickly booted up Steam and spunked in my pants at the FM page I’d waited to see for so long. After waiting around half an hour for the game to download, it was time to boot it up and be disappointing. The game crashed and skipped a couple of times, translated the words ‘ Football ‘Manager’ (presumably) into an array of obscure languages and eventually loaded up the main menu.

My first game was decided naturally, I was of course going to go as Middlesbrough. It didn’t take me long to key in my details and with in a matter of seconds I had my profile complete and team selected. At this point, wow, just wow. The home page was just spectacular, I had random boxes of information plotted about that told me what news I had unread, what injuries the team had and who my first game was going to be against. The layout looked fantastic, the smoothness of the whole thing was completely unexpected. Any initial worries that the skin was a bit too bright were immediately nullified as I selected the dark skin and continued to be amazed. Like a lot of people, it took me a few minutes before I managed to press continue; I spent at least a minute struggling to locate the god damn thing granted but the rest of my time was spent gazing at the lovely arrangement of everything.

I eventually found the Continue button and distracted my self long enough to be able to press it and get on with the game. Steve Gibson greeted me with the usual message, Agnew explained the clubs current transfer obligations to me and then suggested that I take time out to meet the clubs staff, WHAT…!?

Meet The Staff

When I first seen this message I was expecting to have to speak to each member of my backroom staff in a press conference type interface. Fortunately I was wrong. Each member of the team had an important piece of information to share with me and the occasional piece of transfer advice, I have to say that this is considerably better that the assistant report at the start of FM 09. As well as the transfer advice, I was told which formation suited the team the most and was given the option to import the said tactic there and then. Mr Cooper also told me who the best youth prospect was and that I should concentrate on youth to maximize the clubs excellent academy system.

As for the important information I mentioned earlier, it really is quite useful, that’s if it is going to be used correctly. Every single attribute of the team was broken down and compared to other teams in the league. I now knew how fast my team were, how aggressive they could be and how tall they all are. Most importantly however, the staff also told me who the worst and best was in each attribute field. I knew Newcastle were the most aggressive and fastest team in the league and that Coventry were the slowest and Swansea the shortest. I knew that if I took note of these factor, I could have a huge advantage going into my first couple of games.

For the first time in Football Manager, I created a ‘note’. This note would entail everything I had found out from my meeting with the staff. I was planning on referring to this ‘note’ before every match so that I could edit my tactics to suit the team I was playing. My first game was against Sheff Utd and annoyingly I had nothing on paper over them, however there style was a bit obvious, they liked to utilize the target man and pack the midfield with lots of pressure on the ball. We drew this game 1-1, just like real life! we matched them in aerially but still got bullied on the deck despite my aggressive approach.

We were visiting the Liberty Stadum in Wales next and I knew I had something on them. I quickly referred to my ‘note’ and seen that they were the shortest team in the league. We were no Stoke but we had some big players who could head the ball. Due to injuries I had to play four center halves at the back which played right into my favour. I made sure they all went up for our corners and attacked the ball. I also decided to use my loanee target man Joe Garner upfront with the goal poaching Lita, I was expecting Garner to win everything in the air and Lita to be there to get hold of the knockdowns. I had the perfect plan and setup for this game, surely it couldn’t go wrong?…It never, I won 3-1, scored twice from a corner and finished it off with Garner smashing the ball off the bar with his head and letting Lita tap in the equalizer. The two center halves powered two headers into the roof of the net and my target man dominated aerially all game, we leaked a cheap goal but my plan worked and I had successfully utilized information given to me from a member of my staff team!

This little feature is a brilliant edition to the game and if used correctly can be the key to ensuring the best tactical setup at all times. If I had never been given the information from my staff, I would of approached the game very differently and lessened my chances of walking away with the three points. I now value the opinions of my staff team a lot more, in past Football Manager games they have done nothing but annoy me, now I see them as an important part of my club.

Since the end of FM09 is around the corner (for me anyway)  I thought it best to go back to my most successful game since my domineering Leeds team on Championship Manager 01/02.  Merseyside is the setting and Everton are my team; the year is 2012 and we are coming back off one of the most epic seasons I have ever witnessed on any football management game, time for a flashback:

After a 14 game winning streak that has seen my Everton side clime 10 points clear of Chelsea I was hit with the most depressing news since the death of my cat. I knew the finances weren’t the best but I didn’t think we were anywhere near the depths administration! How I was wrong. In case you haven’t already worked out what has happened, we got deducted 9 points for going into administration. We were still top of the league but it didn’t take long for me to work out that our lead wouldn’t last for long. The changing rooms were similar to a funeral reception in terms of atmosphere, self sympathy and depression, we were suddenly and ironically hit with a plague of injuries and now a top 4 finish seemed many miles away.

After losing a couple of games on the bounce, something needed to happen. That something came in the form of the first season top scorer now re-named Cunt.  Since the bollockless Hulk and Rossi couldn’t buy a goal between them, I had no other choice than to let the Cunt unleash. His goals not only won me a couple of important games, the confidence boost throughout the squad was immense. We managed to get level on points with Chelsea on the last day and that’s what it was all going to boil down to. To my shock and immediate sense of ‘oh fuck’, we were going up against Chelsea on the last day in a match that would decide the season and decide my legacy as a manager. Fortunately we managed to mastermind a 2-0 Victory at the bridge that won us the title. The scale of different emotions that this one game put me through was frightening, from crying in bed on the night of administration, to organizing a house party to celebrate the title winning triumph. That is why I love Football Manager.

(This happened a while ago so some of the finer details may not be 100% correct)

Enough of the sloppy shite, we are back and ready for the new season.  We got took over and the finances were apparently stabilized.  I knew that a few would leave and few would need to come in. I wasn’t sure on how much I would have to work with considering the Administration and the title win. To my relief, I was given 53 million to work with which is more than enough to create a team that can challenge once more. I had targets from previous seasons that I didn’t manage to land so I didn’t waste any time letting them get away.

My first signing was Aleksandar Kolorov from Newcastle for a fee of 13 Million. I had been playing Vermelean at left back last season but his defensive mentality cost me quite a bit, I wanted someone who would bomb forward to feed my target man but still willing to get back and put in a good tackle. Kolorov was just the man for the job. To fit in with my new fullback system, I need a similar right back to Kolorov. That man happened to be Valon Behrami from West Ham for 12 Million. Although he wasn’t as good going forward as Kolorov, you could guarantee he would still get up and down the flank and remain reliable at the back.  I now had two perfect full backs.

I had been after the next player for a while as I have never had him on any other of my games and I have heard great stuff.  The player in question was now Rangers star player, John Fleck. I managed to pick him up for 10 Million. He was not going to be playing every game in his first season but I had no doubt that he could fit straight into the team in a couple of season’s time. The next signing was an orgasmic one. This young lad a loan spell a couple of seasons ago and was a hero, becoming a fans favourite and left with Everton very close to his heart. I’ve wanted to get him at Goodison permanently for a while now but this time another loan signing was the only deal we could materialize. Franseco Bolzoni joins on a loan deal from Inter Milan.

Looking at my squad I realised that there was absolutely no backup for Sergio Asenjo, before looking at bidding for someone I had a snoop at the free agents and found Ferdinando Coppola who signed a couple of days after being offered the deal. Now that I had the goalkeeping situation sorted I needed a target man to give me a different option up front and to finish off the physically dominant team I was creating (Felipe, Fellaini etc) Knowing that I still needed a centre back I opted to loan the highly rated Pavel Pogrebynak for one year. He was pretty much perfect for my team. Now we move on to the much needed Centre back to partner the much loved Felipe. I was desperate to get Zapata, Felipe’s partner at Udinese playing in blue colours as his pace would of been a real asset. However, AC Milan had a massive shit on that one plan. Panicking slightly after having bids for Federico Fazio and Steven Taylor rejected I had a look through my fellow Premierleague clubs. I finally settled on a surprise signing, no other than Pascal Cygan’s early child, Philipe Senderos for a massive 22.5 Million. I know what you are thinking; why the fuck have you wasted 22.5 Million of the administrators money on that big fucking donkey! But wait, Senderos is actually a beast on the game, great physical stats matched with equally good mental stats. He was pretty much like for like with Felipe and he fitted in perfectly.

That will do for now, my fingers are aching and I need to play the game so I have something else to write about! The second update will feature my new look team and the first few results of the new season! Also,  I should mention that this will be my last season with Everton as I look to move on to another club/nation to stop this blog from getting boring.

We use this a lot when we are creating databases such as super leagues, It makes for a really fun game and on the whole It’s pretty simple to do. I’m going to take you through the basics of creating a simple Super League and hopefully by the end of this you will be fully confident in creating your own Super League. There is various other ways you can create a slightly more advanced Super League, such as moving teams down leagues etc, but that will come on another day.

Let’s get Started.

Firstly you will need to select the league that you wish to edit, you’ll need to pick a league that has the same amount of teams, that you want to have in your Super League, for example if you want 20 teams in your top tier Super League, you’ll need a division that already has 20 teams in it, such as the EPL. League rules can not be edited on the game, so make sure the league you have picked Isn’t to obscure and the rules are simple and generic.

Now you have your league, you will need to decide on the teams that will be inhabiting it. In this tutorial we will be directly replacing the teams, for example, if you swap Sevilla with Tottenham, Sevilla with move to the the EPL and Tottenham will replace Sevilla in La Liga and so on. Once you have an idea of the teams you want to move into the Super League, your ready to start some editing.

I need to get my self onto the screen that shows all of the teams that are playing in the league I searched for, to do this : Find – Competition – [Name Of The League] – Teams : You should have a screen similar to what I’ve got below (Obviously dependent on what league you selected):

Starting from the top, click once on the first team listed in the league, the swap button located at the bottom will of now became active and you can now click on it. After you’ve clicked Swap you should be confronted with a search bar, you’ll need to key in name of the team you want to replace the team you clicked on. I’m going to swap the team I clicked on (Sunderland) with the first team I noted down on my 20 teams to go in the Super League (Real Madrid) So I’ll input “Real Madrid” into the search field and double click on them when the search is finished. I’ll then have Real Madrid in my league in place of Sunderland, who will of replaced Real Madrid in La Liga. I now need to double click on Real Madrid and view there competition screen which will look like so: (Depending on the team you picked)

If you look at where is says “Last Division” it still says the Spanish First Division, of course we want to make this database as realistic as possible so we need to change that to “English Premier Division” unless you want Madrid to be one of the promoted teams. You’ll also need to edit where it says last position, as you can see it says “1″ It’s ok to leave it as that, but make sure you don’t use the number 1 again for the last position. Which is why It’s very important to look at every team you re-arrange. You also need to coincide the continental seeding with their last league position. Once you’ve done all that there is nothing else you are required to edit, of course you could edit the relationships, records and history if you find it necessary. You will need to follow this procedure for every team you move into your Super League, and most importantly, you need to make sure everything coincides together (Last Position) – (Last Division) etc, remember you’ll need to set 3 teams Last Division to the Championship and have there last position set to 1-2-3 respectively. Obviously, some of this will be different depending on what team you are editing, the structure and procedure is still the same though.

Once you have all your teams added into the Super League and you’ve checked each team individually and of course followed the criteria listed above, you are done for that tier. You still have your old teams randomly scattered about different leagues, if you want to add some of them to a Super League Division 2 or whatever, the same steps still apply, only differently suited to the league you are editing. There you have it a very simple Super League you can have fun and mess about with, I’ve tried to explain this to the best of my ability and make it as simple as possible, if you have any further questions are queries feel free to post them below!