Football Manager 2008
Review
Another year, another Football Manager
by Sergio Brinkhuis
reviewed on PC
Finance debacle
The biggest joke however, is the announced 'finance revamp'. The game will let you move funds over from your transfer budget to your wages budget. It is a welcome addition and perhaps things wouldn't have been so bad if the developers had stopped there.
You see, the board of my Dutch First Division club Cambuur kept complaining that I needed to do something about the club's finances. Their whining annoyed me to no end simply because I couldn't. At the start of the season, the club gives you a wage budget and a transfer budget. My playing style was different than the previous manager's so I had sold off several of the more valuable players that no longer had a job after my alterations. To fill the ranks I had attracted players who had their contract expired, effectively filling the club's treasury. In addition, I didn't use up the wage budget but stayed a cool 15% under what I was allowed to spend. It wasn't even enough that I took the club to a higher league and received bonuses. It caused a short burst of income (Television rights) but it did not solve the Club's cash flow problems in the long run.
So how am I supposed to fix the club's finances? I have done everything that the game will let me do and still my club is going bankrupt. Why? Because the lads at Sports Interactive refuse to evolve the game to the next stage and give you full access to the club's finances. Instead they chose to frustrate you with something you can't actually solve. I don't know about you, but if I would be playing Half Life and Valve forgot to fill the level with enough ammo to get through the Combine's forces, I'd be incredibly pissed off. Well Sports Interactive, where's my ammo?
The same can be said of just about every other new feature: nothing new, barely adequate, and borrowed from rival games.
Confused
So what to do with Football Manager 2008? I'm confused. Apart from the disallowed goals problem, it is a fairly solid game. Its main shortcoming is its total lack of progress. The list of new 'features' that are being announced gets longer every year but honing an existing feature can hardly be called new. The result is that playing Football Manager is a more disappointing experience every year and, considering the huge amount of negative feedback on the game in the official forums, I am not the only one. In the end, having the largest football player database in the world just isn't enough to keep this game afloat.
I don't usually defend my scores in my articles but this time I am going to make an exception. If the finance element would have been worked out correctly and the match engine would be as solid as last year's, I would have awarded the game a 7. Unfortunately the total lack of inspiration and half-baked implementation of new 'features' forced me to give the game only a 6. With the current lack of progress, I can also predict next year's score: 5. Unless Sports Interactive get their act together and manage to truly evolve the series, I will be subtracting another full point every year for offering gamers 'The emperors new clothes' every single year.
6.0
fun score
No Pros and Cons at this time
