Review: Football Manager 2010 (PC)

Author: Tigervamp | Date: November 26, 2009

I have a ritual when it comes to Football Manager. I install the game, start it up, and choose Celtic as my first team to manage. I wanted to shake things up a little for this review and decided to start in the English Coca-Cola League 2. Since an unfamiliar challenge was my intention I decided to start from the very bottom and manage Burton Albion who had a media prediction of 24^th in the league. This was going to be an uphill struggle but I was looking forward to it.

I was greeted with a message my chairman, Ben Robinson, in which he told me “Staff members from the previous regime have been retained but they will accept the mutual termination of their contracts should you wish to bring in your own backroom team.” In previous versions I had trouble getting rid of some staff when starting a new job and I welcome this minor but helpful change. Not that I can afford to bring in any staff.

Beside each message on the news screen there is a helpful button to save it directly to your notebook. There is an option to hold backroom meetings which allows your staff to make suggestions which you can either follow or ignore. The suggestions include asking a player to have less first-time shots, players to scout, changes to training, and possible additions to coaching staff. The backroom meeting screen is nicely laid out with a helpful section on the right displaying the attributes of the individual behind the suggestion and a second opinion is provided by another staff member.

It feels like such a long time has passed since I was “looking forward” to the challenge. Managing Burton Albion has been nothing short of a nightmare. After a fantastic pre-season, and just prior to the league kicking off, the media changed their tune and tipped me to finish in the dizzy heights of 10^th place. The good form in pre-season seemed to carry into the league as a tight first match away from home ended in a 0-0 draw. We lose the next match, and the next, and the next. Loss after painful loss. It was an absolute disaster. Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, my team gel together and I win a couple of matches. Two straight victories. I couldn’t believe it. Things were finally looking up. It seems fate had other plans for Burton as we returned to our losing ways and those victories became a distant memory. Que sera sera.

IGN Football Manager 2010 review – “In short FM2010 isn’t an evolutionary step in the series. Instead it’s merely an incredibly well produced update.”

The word the reviewer was looking for is “revolutionary” since “evolutionary” perfectly sums up what has happened.

Definition of Evolution:

a. The process of developing.

b. Gradual development.

Football Manager 2010 has shown improvements over 2009 but there hasn’t been a major overhaul. These baby steps were to be expected and the old saying “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” springs to mind. The basic 3D match engine is still far from awe inspiring but it does tweak a few issues which plagued the previous incarnation. I’m sure no fans really expect the 3D engine to rival the visuals of FIFA, at least not yet, but hopefully one day they will make a welcome leap forward. Another area which has been tweaked is the level of interaction with players and staff and this does help make things a little more realistic. I live in hope that one day I am able to throw a particularly unruly player through a window. This remains the greatest Football management series on the market. There really is no competition.

9/10

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