By John Walker on December 8th, 2008 at 3:52 pm.
Update: As mentioned below, IGN have since removed the review, and replaced it with an apology.
I’m not a fan of watching football. It’s true to say I’d rather spend the afternoon glueing broken glass, rusting shards of pipe, twisted scraps of rebar and smallpox-laced barbed wire all over my front garden, then bellyflop onto the impromptu sculpture from the roof of my house. So Football Manager is not the game for me. However, I’m still reasonably clear what to expect from the consistently loved series. Which brings us to this rather spectacular review from IGN US.
There was a time when British foot-to-ball-o-soccer was a mystery to the Americans, our uncommon language refusing to agree over the correct understanding of “football”. While they believed it to be rugby without the fighting and a lot more standing around, we were convinced it was that game where you spend 90 minutes kicking a ball back to your own goalie, and then having a punch up in the stands. But soccer is an increasingly played sport across the States, and of course the term “soccer mom” is a regular part of vocabulary. It’s no longer oblique. It seems the confusion here is over what a management game is meant to be.
The resulting review from someone who has apparently not heard of a sports management game before is quite fascinating. It creates an alien perspective of the series, its intricacies prodded at, and then hit with the stick.
“As far as traditional gameplay goes, there really isn’t any in Worldwide Soccer Manager 2009. Apart from managing your roster and coaching your team, there really isn’t anything to do at all.”
He’s technically correct, I suppose. So long as the tradition of gameplay you’re looking to is that of another genre. But apart from managing and coaching the team, there’s not much else to do!
There’s also much confusion over the in-game footage – something that, of course, is dramatically different in the latest incarnation. Insomuch as it’s more than some dots on a green background. Shockingly poor renderings and animations are lamented, and the lack of audio commentary during a match is highlighted. It becomes clear, sort of painfully, that something to file alongside Fifa 09 was expected. In fact, this is left in no doubt by the closing line.
“I couldn’t imagine why anybody would prefer Worldwide Soccer Manager to FIFA 09 or Pro Evolution Soccer 2009.”
Which results in a score of 2.0. And due to the deeply peculiar way IGN lays its scores out, this mark also dominates the UK review of the game, despite receiving a 9.1 from its UK reviewer.
Of course, management games aren’t obscure in the States. In fact, Sports Interactive, they behind the consistently superb FM games, also published the respected Out Of The Park Baseball for a while, which was obviously predominantly successful in the US.
The point here isn’t really to mock the US reviewer. It’s more productive to observe quite how much your preconceptions of a game can affect the experience you have when you play it. (And that you should probably do at least some cursory research when reviewing a game you’ve not heard of.) Football Manager certainly is going to be disappointing to someone who was hoping for PES 09. Much as Mirror’s Edge would have been a let down to those looking for a shaving simulator, and Eve’s space exploration would have enormously upset fundamentalist Christians hoping for a first-person apple eating game.
08/12/2008 at 15:56 AndrewC says:
Are you completely sure it isn’t to make fun of Americans?
08/12/2008 at 16:02 Bobsy says:
“This is a game solely intended for hardcore soccer fans”
You’ve got a point John. A normal foot-to-ball fan in Europe is considered fanatical in America? Not surprising I guess. Is your love of baseball considered “hardcore” here in Britain?
08/12/2008 at 16:09 John Walker says:
Interesting point, Bobsy. It kind of is. Although people would say, “weird” rather than “hardcore”, and then probably insult my mum.
But of course my understanding of baseball is slight compared to a dedicated fan in the US. I still knew enough to understand OOTP Baseball, however : )
08/12/2008 at 16:14 Ian says:
I was expecting a 5 or 6 or something, and while that would have been harsh given the game (even to a seasoned CM/FM-a-holic[-a-Tron]) like me is disappointing thus far it’s not THAT bad.
2/10 based on the points made in the review is, frankly, ridiculous.
08/12/2008 at 16:17 manintheshack says:
‘Much as Mirror’s Edge would have been a let down to those looking for a shaving simulator’
Speaking of which: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=CbNVVA6Zc8U
08/12/2008 at 16:24 Andrew says:
Man, amazing…wow. What a crazy review. The screenshots are all from the in-game stuff (surely which isn’t the major focus of the game?)
He simply doesn’t understand it at all, poor sod. Nice picking up on it though!
08/12/2008 at 16:27 GriddleOctopus says:
Go here and you can review Avi Burk; I’m sure the UK average will be very different from the US.
http://readerreviews.ign.com/rrobj/starsperson/avi_burk/14282014/
08/12/2008 at 16:29 Bowl of Snakes says:
The comments over there are shaping into pretty entertaining pile-on:
08/12/2008 at 16:30 Heliocentric says:
To be honest i don’t disagree with 2/10 i find the games wretched. 9.1 is obscene to me.
08/12/2008 at 16:30 Nero says:
I knew it would show up here sometime. That review is pretty horrible. Ok, so he didn’t like the game so be it, but I thought a review would rather explain the game to the people interested and new features etc. He might not have played a management sim in his life. I give this review 2.0.
08/12/2008 at 16:30 Paul Inc says:
I agree with Ian. The reviewer should have done his homework and researched the football manager franchise, before making embarrasing comparisons with Pro evo and fifa. I do wonder however, what score a UK reviewer, who has no idea about american football or baseball, would give to a american football/Baseball management game?
08/12/2008 at 16:31 Erlam says:
“…but it offers little to nothing that would appeal to a casual fan of the sport or to the average videogame enthusiast. ”
Did they get some guys gran-dad to write this? I’ve been beaten to the punch on the ‘American-who-doesn’t-like-footie,’ ‘oops-I’m-out-of-my-league,’ etc comments, so I figured I’d take this route.
Seriously, video game enthusiast? Has IGN gone from giving every second game a seven to making a robot that just spits out scores?
08/12/2008 at 16:31 Ian says:
What’s worse (having now re-read the full review a couple of times) is that the reviewer actually states that he realises the intended audience are people who are hardcore footy fans and/or fans of the series and yet still continues to “analyse” as something to be compared to a FIFA or PES.
It’s not all his fault though, as has been said. For a start, clearly somebody with a liking (or at least a knowledge) of the series should have been assigned to reviewing it.
08/12/2008 at 16:34 mandrill says:
that magnetic shaving game is genius.
I’d give the foot-to-ball management dohickey 2/10 aswell but thats because I work with spreadsheets every day and don’t need to come home to one.
08/12/2008 at 16:35 The_B says:
Did you see that performance last night?
What was Venger thinking, bringing on Walcott?
You see, the trouble with Arsenal is, they always try and walk it in.
(Am I doing it right?)
08/12/2008 at 16:35 Ian says:
@ Paul Inc.: They might be a bit more forgiving purely because of knowledge of the CM/FM games, plus there’s a bunch of (mostly rubbish) sports management games for cricket and rugby and what-not floating about.
There’d probably still be an element of marking it down because they don’t “get” it though.
08/12/2008 at 16:35 Ian says:
@ The_B: Are you quoting The IT Crowd? :D
Pedantic note: *Wenger
08/12/2008 at 16:36 Pags says:
Bizarre, truly. I know we’re not supposed to be picking on the reviewer, but you’d think that the word ‘manager’ in the title might have clued him in.
As a side note, does anyone know of any decent (American) football manager sims? Because I’d die before I actually play Madden NFL ’08/’09/’any year really, and I want to right the wrongs done unto the Giants last night.
08/12/2008 at 16:41 Pace says:
Man, you’d think having actual editors would prevent these sorts of things from getting through. All RPS has is a bunch of fucking cats but they seem do okay most of the time.
08/12/2008 at 16:42 John O'Kane says:
Frankly if someone gave me an American football manager game as good as FM I’d probably give it a 1/5 too. It’s all about the roleplaying really and I do not know or care much about lots of stats on America football – instafail.
08/12/2008 at 16:43 The_B says:
Ian: Maybe. Maybe not. (Yes.)
08/12/2008 at 16:45 Ian says:
Pags: My brother-in-law used to play Front Office Football, but I’ve never played it so I dunno what it’s like myself. It’s not licensed of course, but I’d be amazed if there aren’t patches or data files made by fellow players for that sort of thing. They might also have stopped making new versions of that, so you’d need to look into it. Even without new versions of the game itself it could still be good fun with enough of a community to keep things updated.
Of course EA made NFL Head Coach but it’s not available in Europe (and only with Madden) I think and it’s also a bit rubbish based on what I’ve read/heard.
08/12/2008 at 16:47 manintheshack says:
IGN reviews have a often astound me with awful journalism in the majority of their reviews and articles. Considering they are one of the top gaming sites on the inter-mither, you’d think they’d get their shit together. However, one look at the sub-youtube-standard comments that follow does show the nature of their audience. It’s always amusing when I’m satisfied with an IGN review and look up to see who reviewed it. Usually Mr Meer’s name at the top.
08/12/2008 at 16:49 manintheshack says:
RIP edit button…
08/12/2008 at 16:56 Pags says:
Thanks for that Ian, downloading their demo now. You’re right in thinking that there’s no new versions as such, with the last game being FOF ’07 – which they released in October ’06 – but it seems rather than working on a new iteration every year like EA, they’re content with just updating the game – the most recent update being about two months ago. This is something I approve of greatly. It also seems to have a pretty active community, though that isn’t surprising. Hell, even without regular community updates, the NFL website is so good at keeping track of stats (something English football really needs to learn from) that it wouldn’t have been too hard just updating it myself. Time consuming yes, but that’s the whole point I guess.
08/12/2008 at 17:02 Alex says:
“I couldn’t imagine why anybody would prefer Worldwide Soccer Manager to FIFA 09 or Pro Evolution Soccer 2009.”
That sentence sums up the quality of the review really.
08/12/2008 at 17:02 Ian says:
Let me know how you get on with it. I’ve ultimately proven too lazy to check it out myself. :D
08/12/2008 at 17:07 Dinger says:
I always have to explain this one. We Americans do not hate soccer, nor has that ever been the case. We’ve always felt that soccer was a fine game for small children and for women. It’s just men’s soccer that eludes our comprehension.
And give Mr. Burk a break. Think of all the great titles that came out this fall, and then remember his job title is “Sports Editor” (if we are to believe the IGN info; since it doesn’t contain a list of his reviews, I don’t see why we can). Sometimes you take what you can get; and being a hardcore footie fan in the US is like being a hardcore baseball fan in the UK, except your matches start in the early morning, and not at 1 AM.
08/12/2008 at 17:13 IvanHoeHo says:
@ Pegs: Yes, it’s called fantasy football (the American kind, ‘course.).
08/12/2008 at 17:14 Ginger Yellow says:
Not going to happen. The Premier League and Football League consider stats (hell, even fixture lists) proprietary, financially exploitable data and is unlikely to make them so easily available for free.
08/12/2008 at 17:14 Pags says:
@Dinger: Yeah, I always felt we got the shitty end of the stick there. I sometimes I have to stay up til 5am to watch late Sunday night football games.
@IvanHoeHo: I do indulge in a little fantasy football, but I quite like a fully protracted sim that will do the number crunching come game time for me.
@Ginger Yellow: Sad but true.
08/12/2008 at 17:29 SanguineLobster says:
I am pleasantly surprised that this didn’t turn into a “Oy! Yanks don’t understand football, and waste tea by throwing into the Boston harbor! Bollocks!” (This is how people in the UK speak, right?)
Anyway, Hooray for RPS and fans thereof, now as long as no one mentions the quality of Bioshock we’re home free.
08/12/2008 at 17:37 Tom says:
Truly a terrible review. It does no justice to the quality of the game, and quite obviously the person posting it has no idea about either football management simulators, or even the game itself!
08/12/2008 at 17:43 John Walker says:
SanguineLobster: That’s “harbour”. You threw the perfectly good tea into the harbour.
08/12/2008 at 17:45 PleasingFungus says:
@SanguineLobster: what have you done
08/12/2008 at 17:51 John Walker says:
Paul inc: “I do wonder however, what score a UK reviewer, who has no idea about american football or baseball, would give to a american football/Baseball management game?”
I’d hope they’d turn down the review if they knew literally nothing about the sport. However, I still believe a decent review could be written without. The problem here isn’t the lack of knowledge about soccer – as established, it’s a sport prevalent in the US – but a lack of knowledge of sports management games.
If I were offered an FM review, I’d politely say no and hide in a cupboard. However, I’d hope that an editor would step in at some point to stop me if I tried.
08/12/2008 at 18:00 SanguineLobster says:
Well color me embarrassed. I feel like an ass. It behooves me to take an aluminum airplane to London and take a taxi to your apartment. I’ll bring cookies, We’ll go to a movie, I’ll write you a check, etc etc etc.
08/12/2008 at 18:02 John Walker says:
I think I just got asked out on a date!
08/12/2008 at 18:28 manintheshack says:
Can’t believe no one’s played the “what a complete Burk” card yet, for extra English insult points…
08/12/2008 at 18:34 SanguineLobster says:
Damn right you did.
08/12/2008 at 18:51 Calabi says:
What a complete burk.
Maybe the reviewer has a point though, who wants to play a game about managing a football team. I might if it was anything like the real thing. Say get your deputies/staff to manage all the paperwork, etc. Whilst you concentrate on shouting at the players and spending the rest of the time getting, fat offs the money.
But the games are nothing like that. Spreadshits, and menus galore. Some things, surely, should not be turned into a game.
08/12/2008 at 19:25 Ginger Yellow says:
And yet it’s the UK’s most successful PC franchise.
08/12/2008 at 20:42 Hi, I blurgh says:
Dinger: It’s not about football vs. soccer vs. baseball. It’s not about knowing the sport. It’s not even about the actual quality of the game and what score it really deserves. It’s about an editor who reviews a strategy game as if it was an action game, and marks it down for not having action.
This quote says it all:
“I couldn’t imagine why anybody would prefer Worldwide Soccer Manager to FIFA 09 or Pro Evolution Soccer 2009.”
It’s like saying:
“I couldn’t imagine why anybody would prefer Hearts of Iron to Call of Duty or Medal of Honor.”
or:
“I couldn’t imagine why anybody would prefer Railroad Tycoon 2 to Microsoft Train Simulator.”
or, indeed:
“I couldn’t imagine why anybody would prefer NHL Eastside Hockey Manager 07 to NHL 07.”
And as you’ll probably agree, that’s just insane.
08/12/2008 at 20:59 Nimic says:
It really is a quite good game. Obviously the 3D view is far from as polished as something you would expect out of FIFA or PES, but then I guess that’s not a point “Avi” understood. It’s a rather shocking review, and I can only imagine how embarrassed American football-lovers are, thinking about how much it set back the view of Americans as football-fans.
08/12/2008 at 21:07 dozer1986 says:
I love spreadsheets. I use them to make vague predictions about how much fuel my car will use.
//definitions
football = game where you kick a ball around;
Soccer = shortened form of ‘Football Association Rules football’;
Rugby = shortened form of “Rugby School rules football”;
American football = American football;
Aussie Rules Football = Aussie Rules Football;
08/12/2008 at 21:24 autopanda says:
Ginger Yellow:
The FA might not publish the stats, but there are an awful lot here: http://www.rsssf.com/archive.html
(Remembered from a Statistics A-Level)
08/12/2008 at 23:02 Mil says:
Somebody has to link to this.
09/12/2008 at 00:51 Mike says:
Aww, it looks like IGN have pulled the review from their site. Good thing RPS has taken a backup of it for us :)
09/12/2008 at 01:19 malkav11 says:
Remember, this is the “squids are not technically animals” site. We shouldn’t really be surprised.
09/12/2008 at 02:43 Saul says:
I felt like some of the reviews of Left4Dead had a similar problem ie. the game didn’t line up with the reviewers expectations, although in that case it was possibly because L4D is a whole new kind of game, so lack of genre knowledge is possibly more excusable.
09/12/2008 at 05:22 Bjorn Bednarek says:
IGN have pulled the review with this note:
“Worldwide Soccer Manager 2009 Review Removed
Analysis of SEGA’s stat-footy pulled from site.
by IGN Staff
US, December 5, 2008 – We missed the mark — that’s the only way to explain why we’ve pulled the U.S. review of Worldwide Soccer Manager 2008 off our site.
After seeing the community feedback and having more editors look at the title, we agree with the readers that our original review didn’t give Worldwide Soccer Manager 2008 a fair shake. Unfortunately, our critical analysis of WWSM ’08 focused more on what the author wanted it to be rather than what the product actually was. We review games at IGN based on their own merits, and agree that it was unreasonable to compare WWSM ’08 with action-oriented sports titles like FIFA or Pro Evolution Soccer. Because of the unfair comparison, we have deemed the review unacceptable and have removed it from the site.
We extend our sincerest apologies to both SEGA and our readers for the mistake and confusion. Look for an updated and more accurate relation of IGN’s view of WWSM ’08 sometime in the near future.
Jeremy Dunham
Games Editorial Manager, IGN.com”
http://au.pc.ign.com/articles/936/936295p1.html
09/12/2008 at 05:28 Bjorn Bednarek says:
Original review from Google cache:
Worldwide Soccer Manager 2009 Review
This game gets a red card, and possibly a lifetime ban.
by Avi Burk
December 5, 2008 – What sports fan doesn’t want to take control of his favorite team and guide it to a championship, or, better yet, a long string of championships? Well, if it means playing Worldwide Soccer Manager, you can count me in that number.
Worldwide Soccer Manager 2009 gives gamers the chance to manage and coach 5,000 soccer teams from 50 countries around the globe, giving them the chance to manage every aspect of their team’s roster, field questions from reporters at their team’s press conferences, and coach their teams in real time as each simulated game unfolds. What it doesn’t do, more importantly, is provide any compelling reason to keep “playing.”
Although the game’s database of more than 350,000 real-life soccer players is certainly impressive, only the most diehard fans of the sport would be able to appreciate having such a massive pool of talent to sift through, and the casual fan would almost certainly find the task overwhelming – I did.
This is a game solely intended for hardcore soccer fans.
The game’s incredibly complex menu system is very difficult to navigate, even with the on-screen help box directing you through the process. In short, this game is extremely difficult to simply pick up and play. If you’re unfamiliar with the franchise expect to spend a significant amount of time simply trying to figure out how to navigate the menus.
Worldwide Soccer Manager’s presentation problems don’t end there though, once you finally make it to your team’s first game you’ll find that the player renderings and animations are awful, and the stadiums you play in lack any kind of personality or detail. Each field is bordered by fences and what appear to be unfinished stands, which don’t have any fans in them. And, when the ball is kicked off of the pitch, it passes smoothly through the surrounding fences, right through the stands, and disappears from view only to return to the field in the same fashion, appearing magically from the stands and passing through the fences (and goals) on its way back into play.
Then there’s the sound, or lack thereof. There is no soundtrack that plays while you work in the game’s menus, which you’ll spend the vast majority of your time in this game doing. There is no audio narration to accompany your participation in press conferences, even though your options for how to respond to each question is incredibly limited. There is no audio commentary to accompany the action in the simulated game’s you watch/coach. In fact, the only sound we found in the entire game was the tones of fans cheering as each simulated game played out – which only detracts from the game’s feel of authenticity seeing as there are no fans rendered in the stands.
Worldwide Soccer Manager 2009 deserves a bicycle kick into the circular file.
As far as traditional gameplay goes, there really isn’t any in Worldwide Soccer Manager 2009. Apart from managing your roster and coaching your team, there really isn’t anything to do at all. So, unless you really enjoy clicking on menu buttons, you’ll find your interaction with this game extremely disappointing.
However, if you’re a big footie fan and big fan of sports simulation, you’ll be extremely impressed with the depth of Worldwide Soccer Manager, which allows you to control just about every facet of your team and draw from a player pool that is simply mindboggling.
Closing Comments
This game obviously aims to provide the deepest soccer simulation experience possible for the sport’s most passionate and informed fans, but it offers little to nothing that would appeal to a casual fan of the sport or to the average videogame enthusiast. The menus are complex and difficult to navigate, graphics are terrible, the sound is non-existent and there is no traditional gameplay to speak of. I couldn’t imagine why anybody would prefer Worldwide Soccer Manager to FIFA 09 or Pro Evolution Soccer 2009.
09/12/2008 at 08:48 Akita47 says:
Heh. Although he obviously missed the point I can identify with his views on the game. I’d rather have my testes repeatedly slammed in a door than spend 5 seconds with a management sim..
09/12/2008 at 08:56 Ian says:
Hopefully they don’t go completely the other way and over-praise it to compensate.
09/12/2008 at 09:11 manintheshack says:
I wouldn’t be English if I didn’t demand heads to roll over this. Pulling the article isn’t enough.
For something that has affected me in absolutely no way, I want retribution for the things that I have heard and read about in the past couple of days. In fact, I don’t even like football or management sims, but still people must be held responsible. And shot. Shot dead.
09/12/2008 at 09:30 mister slim says:
@Pags
Haven’t tried it myself, but Bill Harris has said very nice things about the latest NFL Head Coach. I believe he called it the best game Tiburon has ever made, though that’s admittedly not saying much.
09/12/2008 at 09:35 Adam Hepton says:
Who said that the mainstream games journalism industry wasn’t corrupt? One call from Sega, and they’re rewriting the review. Well done, IGN, well done.
09/12/2008 at 09:44 manintheshack says:
@Adam Hepton: That’s the spirit. In order to be outraged in true British style you must focus on the things that definitely are not solid facts and then work with them.
09/12/2008 at 09:59 Kieron Gillen says:
Yeah, Adam. Mass outrage from readers over a questionable review and it’s because Sega’s angry they must have pulled it.
KG
09/12/2008 at 10:37 Hi, I blurgh says:
The review was a scandal. Removing it was the only right thing to do.
09/12/2008 at 11:38 Dan says:
@Pags
I haven’t played many American Football Management games recently, but used to play a game called Head Coach back in the early nineties. This is the only information I can find on it:
http://www.sportsgameshop.com/amfhdc.html
It was all completely text-based, but about the closest thing to the old Champ Manager games I know of, with lots of stats, training, drafts and so on.
09/12/2008 at 14:08 Adam Hepton says:
Well, at least one person should have sub edited the article before it went on the site. That it ended up on the site means that, moronic as it was, it was the view of IGN and if they pull it then, to me, IGN’s integrity is damaged more by pulling the moronic review than keeping it there.
If the readers are the ones writing the reviews, then why do IGN even bother in the first place? Of course, people are always going to disagree, but if your reason for being is to give a view on games, and the moment that people say they disagree you immediately remove your view, then you have just made yourself redundant in the flow of things.
I personally don’t believe for one second that IGN are more receptive to the views of their readers than those of their advertisers, otherwise they’d have pulled many, many reviews before now.
And, yes, I’m probably paranoid and wrong, but hey, it’s my opinion.
09/12/2008 at 15:36 Paul Moloney says:
Playing devil’s advocate here; there are people who enjoy hunt-the-pixel adventures games in the same way that people enjoy football management games. Both are as enjoyable to me as the proverbial doorjamb-testicle interfacing.
But magazines are quite happy to allow reviewers who don’t enjoy HTP games to review and say they’re rubbish.
As I say, I don’t enjoy HTP adventures, when I read forums such as http://www.adventuregamers.com I shudder (if ag.com was a person, it would be an overweight mumu-ed lady with multiple cats), but there seems to be a wee bit of a double standard here.
P.
09/12/2008 at 18:44 Tei says:
There are two types of people. I call these types A and B.
If you are of type A, giving that game a 2.0 is the correct thing. If you are of type B, giving the 9.0 is the correct thing.
I am of type B, and I don’t like this type of games, so this mean I could be absolutelly bored if some people forced me to play this game… but somewhere could exist some people that will love this game. People of type A think that this is not a excuse, if a game is boring to me (the reviewer, or the reader) it sould receive a bad score.
I don’t think theres a wrong or right scrore, nor 2.0 or 9.0 are correct. It depends of type A or B of people.
09/12/2008 at 19:42 manintheshack says:
I think the problem lies with IGN’s rating system. It reads thus:
“2.0 to 2.9 (Terrible)
Games of this caliber aren’t even good enough to recycle. It’s more fun to play catch with the box than it is to play the game. Titles in this category have gameplay and technical problems that are so severe, they border on being completely “broken.” Maybe the cat could find some use for them.”
From the response the review received and the UK review itself, the above was clearly not the case. The problem lay with the reviewer, or IGN’s choice of reviewer and the readers were correct to call bullshit on the review.
If you see the 10/10/10/10/10 GTA reviews and the copy/paste across format reviews, then you will already realise that IGN have very little integrity. I think they were correct in pulling the review and I honestly think it was just a mistake. At the very least, it shows they listen to their readership and can admit when they fuck up.
10/12/2008 at 00:31 BadlyNamed says:
“Paul inc: “I do wonder however, what score a UK reviewer, who has no idea about american football or baseball, would give to a american football/Baseball management game?”
I’d hope they’d turn down the review if they knew literally nothing about the sport. However, I still believe a decent review could be written without. The problem here isn’t the lack of knowledge about soccer – as established, it’s a sport prevalent in the US – but a lack of knowledge of sports management games.
If I were offered an FM review, I’d politely say no and hide in a cupboard. However, I’d hope that an editor would step in at some point to stop me if I tried.”
I’d actually find that very interesting – not so much the review as such, but seeing how someone who typically plays regular strategy games reacts to the differences with it being sport-based and how their approach would differ from someone who approaches it from familiarity with the sport. That sort of thing. But I’m dull like that.
10/12/2008 at 11:18 Fitzmogwai says:
Dear BBC,
Please will someone tell me WHY OH WHY these people are able to get away with THIS KIND OF THING without anyone in any position of authority taking some RESPONSIBILITY and doing the DECENT THING? It’s as if the ideas of honour and integrity have vanished from our once-great nation and a population of FERAL CHILDREN and PAEDOPHILES are now in charge. This is entirely unacceptable and something must be DONE. However, our politicians who are in thrall to the AMERICANS and BANKERS won’t be interested in doing anything and so this kind of thing will keep happening AGAIN and AGAIN until (cont. p94)
10/12/2008 at 12:19 Ian says:
@ BadlyNamed: I’ve thought that about games in general, but ultimately it’s difficult for a person to get past the fact that they’re not keen on the subject or genre of a game and just treat it as a set of mechanics and functions, etc.
I think this would be unique particularly to sports management games. I mean, if you’re playing a FIFA, NFL, MLB or whatever other sport game then at the end of the day you’re sitting watching that sport happen that you don’t normally like.
A guy I used to know years and years ago who wasn’t into football was toying with the idea of borrowing Championship Manager from a friend and treating it as he would any new strategy game but I don’t think he ever did. If you know the sport you’re instantly going to be swayed by what players and teams you don’t like, but it’d be cool for somebody with no interest in the sport but who has played strategy games to go in and see what they did.
10/12/2008 at 13:04 Dante says:
As an Englishman, a Football fan and a player of Football Manager, I’m at least twice as appalled as anyone else here about this.
Honestly, criticising poor graphics? You might as well criticise Peggle for poor graphics, they aren’t good or bad, they’re ‘n/a’.
11/12/2008 at 11:06 aldo_14 says:
It’s due to the collapse of Christian English Middle Class values in the, er, world as a whole, where immigrants have stolen the NHS and all our jobs in order to inflict Islamic terrorist promotion of single motherhood benefit claimaints upon this brave land of people who are also Welsh-Scottish-and-Northern-Irish-but-we’ll-be-buggered-if-we-remember-them-in-properly-naming-the-country-we-purportedly-love. Also, Jewist Zionist Conspiracy. And curvey metric bananas.
EDIT; on a serious note, I always thought the true joy of Champman-as-was and FM now was identifying players either a) from the real world for your team or b) in the real world from the game.