Rock, Paper, Shotgun

You can’t make this stuff up. Well, I mean, I suppose it’s technically possible. I could tell you, right now, that the puck from Ricochet will be getting its own talk show on Adult Swim this fall. But is it really that much more preposterous than a Football Manager (no, not player) plying some variety of ball-based voodoo magic  in Sonic And All Stars Racing: Transformed? With Team Fortress 2′s Heavy, Spy, and Pyro, and Shogun: Total War 2′s, er, Shogun in tow, no less? Here, though, is the absolute craziest part of all: The blue-blur-themed kart racer’s apparently kind of amazing.

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It’s been RPS’ best-ever day for pictures of football games on the front-page! Nonetheless, you may have observed subtle clues over the years that this website’s staff are just a little bit shy of football nous. Subtle, subtle clues. This does not mean we sneer at those who do have said nous, or indeed at games based upon it. No! We revere them as much as we do all other games. Just slightly confusedly so.

Take Football Manager, for instance, the two thousand and eleventh installment of which was confirmed today.
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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.

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Sitting in a darkened room in a distant country, in a place which seems to have taken pleasure in ignoring my need for tea, the news that there’s a demo out for the latest version of that most British of games, Football Manager, pleases me. Specifically, Football Manager 2009. It allows you to play a half season of the game to get a handle on the new features – including for the first time actual 3D in-game highlights. Which means we have to retire the old PC Gamer “Revolutionary 2D Match Engine” gag. Man! Anyway – the trailer and some gameplay videos are beneath the cut. Hurrahs and similar.
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Times change. They have to, as otherwise watchmakers go out of business. Sega have moved from beloved purveyor of bright skies, hedgehogs and underperforming consoles to beloved purveyor of bright skies, hedgehogs and heavyweight PC games. And the world’s a better place for it, or at least for us, which is all that counts. Go self-interest!

Anyway, over the last few days they’ve released a couple of PC demos which showcase the dual sides of the publishers. First, we have the Sega Rally Revo demo, weighing in at 553.98Mbs (or 37.332 copies of Peggle), which features Rallying prominently. Secondly, we have two (count ‘em!) demos of the Artist Previously Known as Championship Manager, Football Manager. The Strawberry edition is 523.47MBs in size, whilst the Vanilla edition is a more bandwidth friendly 103.19MB (That’s 36.932 and 7.2793 recurring copies of Peggle respectively). The larger edition includes more footbally stuff to play, though xenophobes will be pleased to hear the Vanilla comes with the English and Scottish leagues. We’ll report further if Sports Interactive decide to release a Chocolate edition, as we’ll be sure to try and assemble some kind of home-brew neapolitan edition from all three.