Running the show

Another feature that the competition is sorely lacking is the ability to build up your own stadium and support buildings. Though generally not particularly cheap, you can add all kinds of structures to your grounds that will bring a host of improvements. A medical office will let you hire a team doctor who in turn speeds up the healing of your team members who get hurt during practice or matches. A parking lot will make your stadium more accessible and will increase the number of people in the audience. The number of improvements is staggering but none of them come cheap. You'll have to make many choices you'll always be balancing the check book but that makes it all the more fun.

Not sluggish

Almost all of the football management games on the market have had considerable problems with regards to speed. Setting up a game could take as much as 5 minutes while waiting for the PC to process all the games that had to be played that day. Not so with FIFA Manager 06. The game is fast and responsive. Part of the reason for this is that the player database is quite small.

Football Manager holds 275.000 players this year, FIFA Manager players will have to make do with as little as 20.000. The additionally required players will be randomly generated, which isn't pretty. When I started Hooked, I ended up with three guys whose last name was Promes in my team. Two of which had the same first name; Lars. Almost none of my players had Dutch names, even if my club was founded in a mid-sized city in Holland. This could use some improvement.

So, what's the verdict?

I'm at a loss here. FIFA Manager has definitely got some good things going for it. The ability to found and really control your own club and the 3D matches are definite selling points in my eyes. On the other hand, there are so many little irritations that you've got to wonder if Electronic Arts actually takes its customers seriously.

Apart from the integrated 3D match engine, the game offers nothing new whatsoever. In fact, I missed some stuff out of TCM 2005 that I actually loved but didn't make an appearance this time. Special abilities of players for instance, have been dumbed down and you won't find any Super-Sub's anymore.

What really I don't understand is that compared to shooters like Half Life 2, intricate strategy games like Age of Empires III and just about every other genre, creating a soccer management game isn't all that hard. The 3D engine is already there (it's an older version of the FIFA engine), much of last years technology can be re-used and the biggest challenge is to get the database filled up with accurate data. With a modest database of 20.000 real life players, that shouldn't be too hard either. So why is it that EA fails to deliver year after year? And why is it that suckers like me continue to throw their money at it year after year? I seriously do not have the answer.

If you want realism and don't care about managing finances and stadiums, Football Manager is still your best bet. However, Sports Interactive's inability to innovate will eventually cause it to lag behind the competition. EA is just milking the FIFA license a bit more but simply doesn't care enough about FIFA Manager to make it a real effort. They would have last year if they felt it was worth it. Championship Manager will take years to reach maturity so that leaves LMA Manager. Mark my words: Codemasters will be the first to crack the code and deliver a relatively stable, well polished game with everything in it a club manager could dream off. They're the only ones who care enough and are willing to innovate.

So, I've had my rant. All that's left for me to do now is to grade the game. FIFA Manager scores some brownie points for its integrated 3D match engine but even with those, I can't award the game a high score. Buy it only if you owned TCM 2005 and managed to forgive it for its flaws. Chances are you'll be able to do the same for FIFA Manager 06.