Bryan Estrella of Operation Sports.com reviews the latest footie management sim, Football Manager 2009.
Excerpt: "This is the version to play if you are hoping to get into this genre or series. Beyond that, any football/soccer fans, fans of other sports or non-sports gamers interested in a great gaming experience, please at least try the demo. As for the FM series/text-sim genre vets, I believe that there have been more than enough positive improvements made to the game this year, and I heartily recommend FM 09 to you all as well.
So in the end, while Football Manager 09 may not be perfect, the quality of this game will ensure that the FM/WSM series will remain the undisputed king of the text-sim genre -- at least until next year when it is once again time to crown a new champion."
Eurogamer: "It's a shame when relationships end but it's often for the best. Football Manager and me had it all – long intimate evenings, weekends away, the occasional holiday. I'd thought we never split up. But eventually cracks began to appear, the physical side deteriorated, and we became strangers.
As an early adopter of pretending to manage a football team on a computer (i.e. a semi-autistic weirdo), a chronic addiction to Football Manager seemed my inevitable destiny. My first taste was the original Football Manager on the ZX Spectrum, whose bearded creator, Kevin Toms, appeared beaming on the cassette case cover."
The UK's loss of talented developers in the sports genre has been 'utterly huge' according to Miles Jacobson, the studio head of London-based Football Manager developer Sports Interactive.
In an exclusive interview with Develop, Jacobson explained that Canada's exemplary tax break rates – which peak at 40% of dev costs – was the reason why a number of British-born developers now work in cities such as Vancouver and Toronto.
In this somewhat-regular column, Diehard GameFAN's
Mohamed Al-Saadoon will be advising Football Manager 2009 players managing the lowest league clubs on where to find excellent footballers on the cheap. He gathered these from his own experiences playing the game as lowly Hyde United as well hanging around the Football Manager fandom.
Since you've already filled your team with top quality players (by lower league standards anyway) here's some tips to get the most out of your lower league players.
