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The wait is all but over for the football fans as the best Football Manager game is back. The game is set to be released on November 7th on various platforms. The game developers are showing no signs of complacency, as this game boasts the best features and developments to date in the entire Football Manager series. The management, scouting, tactics, interactions and user interface have also been revamped.
Match day experience gets the biggest update in this game with massive developments in terms of graphics and player postures, which gives a more realistic approach to the game. Football Manager series has always been more than a mere game, it has become a resource for coaches and scouts who ply their trade in this sport.
Easy navigation design
The user interface has undergone a major change, the game developers have added a sidebar in the main screen which consists of all the main pages to navigate. It may look a bit awkward when starting a new game, but as the game progresses you may notice that it reduces multiple sub-screens that one had to navigate while reaching the main manager screen. The home screen consists of more information than the previous games allowing us to know all thats happening in the game. The tactics screen has also been overhauled, and looks like cluttered. Changing your lineup and overviewing of your selections feels a bit more awkward. It does take some time to get used to it, but looks better as you make progress in the game.
More Interactions with players, board members and journalists
As compared to the previous games in this series, the game developers have added more dialogues between the players and managers, which makes the morale of players increase at a steady rate. The wide variety of dialogues offered in this game helps to make a good rapport with the staffs, players and even journalists. For instance, asking time from the board members to turn things around in this season, guaranteeing a youngster regular first time actions in the game. These type of interactions makes the game more meaningful and interesting and takes it to a new level.
Press interviews questions are updated and now the managers are even asked questions right before the kick off of the game. The press are a lot smarter in this game, offering complicated tactical questions along with conferences which has a wider range of questions than before.
The pre-match and post-match interviews are still in the game, but this new addition makes the game look realistic.
Scouting and Transfers
One of the most improved areas in this game is the Scouting department. It has been remodelled and replaced with a new look, a pro and con section, to give more insight about the player who is being scouted. The scouts can now interact with managers asking to cancel their specific scouting assignments and also recommending replacements for the players who are unhappy at the current club. Huge database of players, staff, and competitions are added in this game.
Transfer section have got some new updates like displaying the players wages in yearly and not as weekly. For example, in the previous games a players wage will be displayed as £90k per week, but in this game instead of this ‘per week’, it is updated as £4m ‘per annum’. The transfer negotiations looks pretty same, but this time around the player swap deals have been given more freedom and these deals are struck quite frequently.
Tactics
The tactics have undergone a major change in this game and new developments have been added to this section. The game developers have given player roles an extra importance with more flexible tactical formations being employed this year. Four new player roles have been added: Roaming midfielders, Inverted wing backs, Creative wide players and wingers, who can play as 'Raumdeuter', which means a space investigator in German. This player makes best use of space in the opposition’s final third and is lethal with their runs off the ball and movements. Even the roles of defensive midfielders and wing-backs have undergone major changes as well.
But the talking point is deciding what type of manager you want to be – Tracksuit or Tactical. In the tactical mode, you will have a commanding role in team talks and boardroom, whereas the tracksuit mode puts you on training ground where you will be able to assign yourself to specific training categories like a coach.
Match Day experience
Compared to the previous Football manager games, the graphics have been improved dramatically not just during the simulation, but while playing the game in 3D as well. The brand new cutting edge motion picture data makes the game looks more realistic. The introduction of player postures and movements are sure a welcome addition, where the users can enjoy the unique movements of players running with the ball rather than the hand crafted players from previous games. For instance, one can clearly pick out a body check or drop of the shoulder from Cristiano Ronaldo during the game. But, the main point is the players will react more naturally to all situations.
The passing moves looks easy on the eye, and also the techniques for shooting and defending are tweaked. Also, a host of new stadium and its features have been introduced that adds more colour to the match day experience.
The players animations, weather, lighting, fans, the stands and the stadiums have all been improved from the previous games by the game developers giving this game a whole new look and taking it to next big level.
Final Verdict: 8.5/10
The new improved player animations, graphics, tactics, scouting and match day experiences makes the game look more realistic than other games we have played in the entire series. However, Football Manager is all about progress and one can safely expect that these features will surely be revamped to the best possible way in the coming years.
