Have You Played... Football Manager 2015?

Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every weekday of the year, perhaps for all time.

As Football Manager 2016 edges nearer, Football Manager 2015 [official site] begins to fade into the rearview. How did we feel about the last yearly iteration of the longrunning management game?

Our review was a little lukewarm. Football Manager never seems to have a year that's a total disaster, but this one more than most felt like an interim step on the way towards more ambitious goals. It added little touches of the kind of roleplaying experience it seems Sports Interactive wants FM to be, but not enough to make it feel like it transcended the surface and penetrated into the rich simulation below.

Personally, I've settled over the past few years into a groove of playing the game's Classic mode, which means many of its new additions passed me by and my own experience changed only a little from Football Manager 2014. Those changes mostly manifested on the pitch, where the match engine had been tweaked to resolve some bugbears with permanently misfiring strikers and goalkeepers.

Still, that lack of change was a disappointment. I hope that FM2016 goes further with its adoption of roleplaying as a core tenet of the experience, but also that more changes and additions are brought to the Classic mode. It's the only way I have the time to play the game.