Football Manager 2006
Posted August 17, 2006
(Compatibility Note: I'd like to point out that, while this game is designated for European (PAL) systems, it works perfectly fine on any U.S. Xbox 360. It's completely region free, so import away if soccer is your passion.)
Decidedly caught up in its own statistical breadth, Football Manager 06 is a highly technical simulation of every soccer league covering the globe. From the head coach's perspective, decisions regarding match strategy, money management, bidding & purchasing, training & development, setting matches, and ultimately job security are left up to the gamer. The amazing deluge of information that hits the player immediately can be quite confusing and intimidating even with an intermediate knowledge of soccer leagues.
The presentation of the game is almost entirely comprised of menus. Nary a 3-dimensional element in sight, Football Manager is loyal to the type of game it claims to be. The menu system is quite drab, unappealing, and incredibly confounding to navigate successfully. The manual does little to alleviate the game's shortcomings either. Without playing a previous version of Football Manager, I found myself randomly guessing at menu selections and button presses most of the time.
Gameplay:
As the game begins, the gamer is instructed to pick a nation to keep up with and eventually a league to manage. At the outset of the game, your position is announced as new manager and the season begins. Most clubs have several friendly games before launching into the various tournaments and cup championships. While I'm unfamiliar with the sport, the majority of major competitions seem to be represented within the game. Additionally, if you select a nation to manage instead of a specific club, you can play through the world cup qualifying event as well as the entire tournament.
When a game is actually played, a soccer field is shown and strategies can be applied before the game or on the fly. Dependent on your love of the game, you can choose to see only the highlights of the game or watch the event in its entirety. One helpful option I found in a submenu related to the speed of the game. You can increase match and highlight speed as well as turn the instant replay on or off. The game typically takes 5 to 10 minutes to watch all the highlights, more so for the instant replays. In any case, the matches are very low-key and seem out of the gamers' control.
Information about your team and the surrounding teams within your nation is passed along to via email messages. For instance, if a player is feeling neglected and voices their opinion about it, a message will pop up the following day. At this point, you have a chance to respond to the message positively or negatively with a large variety of messages. Also, email will allow you to make choices about players with injuries, trading players between teams, or responding to rival coach's remarks. All of these little nuances add life to the game and seemingly creates an authentic coaching experience.
The loading times are perhaps the worst aspect of Football Manager. For a title that's almost completely text based, simming through a week takes an insane amount of time. Forget about going on holiday for extended periods of time. Leaving for a year could take a couple hours of waiting. Even during a season, waiting for tournaments to work themselves out can take several minutes. Additionally, the load times increase drastically as new seasons start. Prepare to wait for extended periods of time if you pick up this title.
As mentioned earlier, the control scheme is vastly perplexing. The title almost seems more at home on the PC as the number of pop-up menus via various button presses is astounding. The left and right bumpers/triggers open menus and the multicolored buttons navigate the background menus. Many times, I'll open a menu only to be greeted by sub-menus which have their own sub-menus. While I applaud the amount of intricate information that went into the game, navigating through it is nothing but an arduous chore.
One menu I did appreciate greatly is the options menu at the start of the game. Within the options, you can change currency type, height & weight measurements, and temperature scale among other things. These wonderful adjustments allow for greater understanding of the game since you can adapt the stats to your own country. This Yank found the game much simpler to understand when selling a player for dollars instead of pounds. Kudos to the developer for the ability of adaptation.
The achievements are split between 50 tasks for 1000 gamerscore points. The points are heavily favored toward single player achievements as the multiplayer only provides about 6% of the total points. The achievements are completely geared at replay-ability as many of the tasks take weeks upon weeks to complete, although half the points can be knocked out within about 10 to 15 hours of play. The developer did an excellent job assigning points for challenging tasks, but failed to provide enough fun for anyone to continue playing.
Graphics:
Bland is perhaps the key aspect of the graphical capabilities for this 360 title. Without any 3D elements, the graphics engine is limited to modeling a massive amount of text and menu structure. On the plus side, the text is completely legible and easy to read. The menus offer very little visual flair with its constant blue/black backgrounds. Actually, the only moving portion of the screen comes into the 2D soccer matches. Due to the lack of 3D definition, the overhead view of the dots playing soccer is hopelessly boring and almost arduous to watch.
Audio:
Wow, I've never experienced a complete absence of music or sound effects in any console game. Football Manager doesn't have a lick of tunes, nor does it offer up any effects beyond menu clicks. The silence only adds to the monotony of the simulation and detracts from spending much time with the title. Thankfully, the custom soundtracks of the 360 pulled me through; otherwise I would have quit an hour into the title.
Conclusion:
Football Manager 06 is really an interesting type of sports game, regardless of its lack of entertainment. I can easily see how enthusiastic soccer fanatics around the world would play this game constantly to see their home team achieve greatness. But I can also see how this title would never catch on in the U.S. due to lack of interest in the sport and the mundane style in which the game is presented. Sadly, other elements such as the loading times, control scheme, and lack of audio bog down an otherwise unique attempt at statistical sports.
I can only recommend this game to soccer fanatics, statisticians looking for a good time, or gamerscore junkies desperate for a leg up on the competition as less than 1% of users listed on MyGamerCard have even played this game. Everyone else should leave this title on the other side of the ocean for now and wait to see if Football Manager 07 yields any changes for the better.
Decidedly caught up in its own statistical breadth, Football Manager 06 is a highly technical simulation of every soccer league covering the globe. From the head coach's perspective, decisions regarding match strategy, money management, bidding & purchasing, training & development, setting matches, and ultimately job security are left up to the gamer. The amazing deluge of information that hits the player immediately can be quite confusing and intimidating even with an intermediate knowledge of soccer leagues.
The presentation of the game is almost entirely comprised of menus. Nary a 3-dimensional element in sight, Football Manager is loyal to the type of game it claims to be. The menu system is quite drab, unappealing, and incredibly confounding to navigate successfully. The manual does little to alleviate the game's shortcomings either. Without playing a previous version of Football Manager, I found myself randomly guessing at menu selections and button presses most of the time.
Gameplay:
As the game begins, the gamer is instructed to pick a nation to keep up with and eventually a league to manage. At the outset of the game, your position is announced as new manager and the season begins. Most clubs have several friendly games before launching into the various tournaments and cup championships. While I'm unfamiliar with the sport, the majority of major competitions seem to be represented within the game. Additionally, if you select a nation to manage instead of a specific club, you can play through the world cup qualifying event as well as the entire tournament.
When a game is actually played, a soccer field is shown and strategies can be applied before the game or on the fly. Dependent on your love of the game, you can choose to see only the highlights of the game or watch the event in its entirety. One helpful option I found in a submenu related to the speed of the game. You can increase match and highlight speed as well as turn the instant replay on or off. The game typically takes 5 to 10 minutes to watch all the highlights, more so for the instant replays. In any case, the matches are very low-key and seem out of the gamers' control.
Information about your team and the surrounding teams within your nation is passed along to via email messages. For instance, if a player is feeling neglected and voices their opinion about it, a message will pop up the following day. At this point, you have a chance to respond to the message positively or negatively with a large variety of messages. Also, email will allow you to make choices about players with injuries, trading players between teams, or responding to rival coach's remarks. All of these little nuances add life to the game and seemingly creates an authentic coaching experience.
The loading times are perhaps the worst aspect of Football Manager. For a title that's almost completely text based, simming through a week takes an insane amount of time. Forget about going on holiday for extended periods of time. Leaving for a year could take a couple hours of waiting. Even during a season, waiting for tournaments to work themselves out can take several minutes. Additionally, the load times increase drastically as new seasons start. Prepare to wait for extended periods of time if you pick up this title.
As mentioned earlier, the control scheme is vastly perplexing. The title almost seems more at home on the PC as the number of pop-up menus via various button presses is astounding. The left and right bumpers/triggers open menus and the multicolored buttons navigate the background menus. Many times, I'll open a menu only to be greeted by sub-menus which have their own sub-menus. While I applaud the amount of intricate information that went into the game, navigating through it is nothing but an arduous chore.
One menu I did appreciate greatly is the options menu at the start of the game. Within the options, you can change currency type, height & weight measurements, and temperature scale among other things. These wonderful adjustments allow for greater understanding of the game since you can adapt the stats to your own country. This Yank found the game much simpler to understand when selling a player for dollars instead of pounds. Kudos to the developer for the ability of adaptation.
The achievements are split between 50 tasks for 1000 gamerscore points. The points are heavily favored toward single player achievements as the multiplayer only provides about 6% of the total points. The achievements are completely geared at replay-ability as many of the tasks take weeks upon weeks to complete, although half the points can be knocked out within about 10 to 15 hours of play. The developer did an excellent job assigning points for challenging tasks, but failed to provide enough fun for anyone to continue playing.
Graphics:
Bland is perhaps the key aspect of the graphical capabilities for this 360 title. Without any 3D elements, the graphics engine is limited to modeling a massive amount of text and menu structure. On the plus side, the text is completely legible and easy to read. The menus offer very little visual flair with its constant blue/black backgrounds. Actually, the only moving portion of the screen comes into the 2D soccer matches. Due to the lack of 3D definition, the overhead view of the dots playing soccer is hopelessly boring and almost arduous to watch.
Audio:
Wow, I've never experienced a complete absence of music or sound effects in any console game. Football Manager doesn't have a lick of tunes, nor does it offer up any effects beyond menu clicks. The silence only adds to the monotony of the simulation and detracts from spending much time with the title. Thankfully, the custom soundtracks of the 360 pulled me through; otherwise I would have quit an hour into the title.
Conclusion:
Football Manager 06 is really an interesting type of sports game, regardless of its lack of entertainment. I can easily see how enthusiastic soccer fanatics around the world would play this game constantly to see their home team achieve greatness. But I can also see how this title would never catch on in the U.S. due to lack of interest in the sport and the mundane style in which the game is presented. Sadly, other elements such as the loading times, control scheme, and lack of audio bog down an otherwise unique attempt at statistical sports.
I can only recommend this game to soccer fanatics, statisticians looking for a good time, or gamerscore junkies desperate for a leg up on the competition as less than 1% of users listed on MyGamerCard have even played this game. Everyone else should leave this title on the other side of the ocean for now and wait to see if Football Manager 07 yields any changes for the better.