Football Manager 2009

Posted June 8, 2012 by Speed - 0 comments

“The best job in the world” is what Football Manager 2009 says about being a manager of a soccer club. Unfortunately not everyone has the fortune to get that job so Sega’s Football Manager has succesfully been doing its best to be as realistic as possible to give anyone the opportunity to get a taste of it and also this year some changes have been made to make it even better than it already was.

One of the things that often got criticised is that there was no 3D game engine so you could only follow a match in 2D with moving dots that were supposed to represent your players. In the 2009 version that finally changes and the 3D game engine is here. Don’t expect earth-shattering graphics though, as in reality they’re quite oldfashioned. However, one can’t really say this is a downpoint as the most important thing remains to be whether or not your team plays well and graphics aren’t going to change that one bit.

Whether your team plays well depends a lot on your tactical plans. The feedback from your assistant manager, which is new, will help you a lot with this. Before, during and after a game he will give information on how good or bad your team is doing and what you can do to keep dangerous opponents out of the game. Certainly at the start of your career this comes in handy to get familiar with the tactics in the game. Tactics that haven’t changed a lot compared to last year’s edition by the way.

Also the transfers you do are important. The game’s database follows the tradition by being huge and including just about any team you can think of, from the best to some you probably have never heard of. Those that want to discover upcoming talent will have to scout a lot and sometimes the press will publish something that might give you info on unknown players or possible transfers from other clubs.

Also new in Football Manager 2009 are the press conferences where before or after a match the journalists get to shoot some questions at you and you get about five possible answers. After this event the press will send out a summary and say whether you answered in a confident or tense way. To be honest, these conferences do add something to the more important matches as you really get the feeling that something depends on them and that you really need to think about what you’ll be answering.

Football Manager 2009 holds on to the qualities of its predecessors. The enormous depth of the game remains present and gets added with some fun new functions. Finally the 3D match engine has arrived and we even get an assistent manager who gets more importance. Those of you who liked the 2008 version will no doubt have even more fun with this one.

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