Football Manager: Live Review

Football Manager: Live. Or to put another way: where did my life go, again?

First off, I am a massive fan of the entire range of Football Manager games. Having been playing from the original Championship Manager days, and keeping with the Sports Interactive team through the name change into the current Football Manager series.

Football Manager: Live, or FM:L as I will refer to it from now on, is the latest incarnation of the huge franchise from the collaboration of Sega and Sports Interactive. This time however, rather than being a mainly solo game, this is the MMO of football management. And at first looks it works, remarkably well in fact.

With FM:L you need to obtain your play time (i.e. subscription) in one of several ways. My retail copy of the game came with a generous 4 months of game time, which is more than enough time to find out if it's your cup of tea or not. It is then onto the creation of your team. It's up to you what your team is called, and you can also name your stadium, but more on this section later. You have £500,000 to set up your first team, which can be spent manually by selecting players, or you can get the game to select your team for you. Then it's into the game.

The interface will be familiar and easy to navigate for players of previous Football Manager games. My only concern is the interface may be more than a little daunting for new players to this genre of gameplay. There are many more aspects to this online version of Football Manager than ever before. To give an indication of what you can do here that is a major departure from other FM games, is you can fully design you stadium with new stands; different seating patterns; corporate boxes; different advertising boards, which can be quite daunting - even for an old pro like me.

The game world itself is split into different football associations, mainly based on when you think you will be available to play, anything from a casual level, right up to and including the ‘I have no life and will be online forever' level of devotion that Football Manager can induce. I chose a middle ground for my FA and play games anytime between 7pm and 11pm. However this is not a hard and fast rule and games can be played whenever one of you league opponents is available. A season will play out as each player finishes their games, with those unable to complete all games before a set period having the computer AI play them for them.

In addition to the ‘normal' leagues, players can create their own competitions to be played alongside the ‘official' leagues. These  leagues range in size and prize money, oh yes, prize money, that's another thing. Each league or cup completion created by a player has an entry fee, which when pooled together creates a prize fund to be shared between a set number of the teams on completion of the competition, based on finishing position. This is a good source of club income once your team is established.

Transfers are now handled in a very different way. Previously a player transfer was handled by approaching the players club and making an offer. While this is still in place for signed players, the big difference comes in signing new free agents to your club. If you wish to sign a free agent in, say, Football Manager:2009, you approach the player, offer a wage and see if he accepts. In FM:L however, you offer a wage and enter a ‘Wage Auction' which lasts for the next 24 hours, during which point other clubs may also make offers to the player. At the end of the 24 hour period the free agent will sign for whoever offers the most money, not as before when a club with a higher profile may offer a lower wage but better prospects.

For example, in FM:2009, if Manchester United offer £6000 a week and say, Sheffield Wednesday offer £10,000, the player is more likely to go to Man U as they are a more high profile club with better prospects. In FM:L however, all clubs are of the same stature at the start of the game, so it is just down to how much you are willing to pay.

There is also a new system of ‘skills' in place for your manager. These range from basic man handling skills to business skills. All have a different effect on the game or your team, and in some cases the players available in your searches. Each skill takes a set amount of time to ‘learn' and as levels progress they take more time to learn; a concept familiar to some other MMOs out there. It's not a bad system, but then it's not brilliant either.

The main niggle I had with this initially was tactics, before you learn specific tactical skills, areas of the tactics screen are locked out. This I thought was silly, but then when I thought about it, if anything it's a bit more realistic. Managers are not tactical geniuses right out of the box, so why should a new manager be able to come up with a killer tactic from out of nowhere? Exactly, they shouldn't, it takes time to learn and that's what the game tries to convey with the new system.

Something else new to the FM:L experience I briefly mentioned earlier is your stadium. Other football management games have had a section on building your clubs stadium before, but it has never featured in a Football Manager game before. Here it is set out in a basic, but workable fashion. The options for your stadium are quite varied, from naming the arena itself to changing the names of the individual stands. You can also build different seating areas, have a terrace or put in some fancy corporate boxes to please your potential sponsors. It's nice, but far from an essential part of the game.

The game world itself is so far a very friendly place. Managers are there to help, and the moderators are always on hand to help out or put people on the right track. There is also a manager feedback section, where you can offer feedback, much like Ebay in a way, to a manager you have had a match against, or have had transfer dealings with. So far I don't see how this plays out in relation to the game itself, but it's a nice way to show appreciation for a game well played, or a player who has been helpful in some way.

All in all, this is a fantastic addition to the Football Manager stable. A game which in time and given enough support from SI and Sega, will rival the main series of games dominance in the years to come.