Football Manager 2012
Review
Lifting the cup above its head once again
by Ryan Sandrey
reviewed on PC
Lean On Me
In keeping with last year's focus on more 'personal' aspects of management, Football Manager 2012 again places emphasis on personal interactions with players. Well, I say 'personal', when I actually mean 'interactions of a vaguely personal nature with calculated faceless AI', but you get the idea. Whilst interactions with the board are still very much dull and uninteresting, interactions with your players have changed massively, helping you decide exactly how to handle situations with them. One-to-one conversations have returned, enabling you to deal with problems outside of match days. Previously, however, it was hard to judge exactly what effect team-talks would have on your players. In Football Manager 2012, you can now see exactly the effect your choice of words has on the players straight away in the revamped team talk screen.
Your players are all human beings, with various personality traits and attitudes that meant previous years' team talk options were fairly limited. This year, however, you can issue an overall team talk (like in previous years) but immediately see the effect it is having on the players through their body language. You can then choose to issue further team talks to specific sectors of the pitch (the defenders, midfielders and strikers) to further motivate them. If they still aren't giving you the response you want, you can adjust the personal team talks as well. With all these options, and a larger variety of team talk types to choose from, man-management is at an all-time high in this year's iteration.
Match-Day
Now, whilst the day-to-day running of the club is doubtlessly important, all actions lead to one thing; match-day. Match Day has seen the least amount of changes of everything that has been adjusted, so for those of you expecting a massively revamped match engine, you'll be disappointed. Instead, there have been a couple of small refinements that make the match engine easier to observe and your team. Whilst boasting an improved match engine, in reality it still lags behind FIFA Manager, with an engine boasting quite unrealistic animations and wooden football. However, it is an improvement on last years, however minimal.
The minor refinements that have improved match-day, however, include better goalkeeper animations and a new quick-sub feature for injuries. If a player picks up a knock, rather than you having to go into the tactics screen and look away from the game whilst making valuable changes, you can now click on a small pop-up bubble appears in the top left hand corner alerting you to the problem and allowing you to make a quick substitution, telling the player coming on exactly what you want as well as giving them a small talk. It's a more realistic and welcomed improvement so that you don't have to take your eye off the match for too long, allowing greater management of your team and improved results.
Final Whistle
In conclusion, Football Manager 2012 will never win any awards for graphics or sound design; it doesn't need to. What it will win awards for, however, is its addictive gameplay and for being by far the greatest football management sim to date. Sports Interactive have proved once again that they are the masters of the genre. EA may try to compete every year with their FIFA Manager series, but it's a fruitless struggle as Sports Interactive win year after year.
2012 is again the year of Football Manager. To the outsider looking in, you may not be enthused by what you've seen - such changes make no real difference to you, apart from the Tutorial, which enables you to start your Football Manager career with ease. However, to the diehards and casual enthusiasts of the series, Football Manager 2012's various improvements mean it has once again hit the back of net.
9.0
fun score
Pros
Whole host of changes to the interface and game mechanics.
Cons
Changes will confuse or alienate some. Lack of changes in some areas (board meetings etc). No real improvement in the match engine.
