Football Manager 2012

No comments about Steam - everythings been said......
From 1986 onwards I have played Football and Footie manager games from Kevin Toms legendary original to the original giant leap forward in management, Championship Manager and Football manager its evolutionary successor.
Sadly these days my fantasy career is no more. For the sake of realism the game is so anal as to be beyond belief.
A season lasts like a real season.
To do pre match and post match I may as well write off an hour per match.
The fundamentals of the game are great (database, scouting etc)
However I dont want or desire to faff about with agents, 'tones' and endless media rubbish.
I want the game to be more modular, allow me to set-up the game with or without these features - NOT letting my virtual assistant manager deal with it and mucking up my season.
I want to get get on with the fantasy in my head of my team marching up the table and onto glory.
PLEASE SI make the next versions scalable and customisable to appeal to all types of players - fantasists - reality freaks and the somewhere in betweens.
THIS is the way forward to bring lost souls back into the Football Manager dreamworld.
Don't make the game as dreary and drudgable as the jobs most of us have to do!
Better effort next season lads.

Although the game is ok, it really doesn't warrant £30 'IF' you already have Football Manager 2011. The Steam activation is ridiculous, having to be on-line, one code, no resale value, extra memory wasted on Steam running in the background etc etc...with very little benefit to the consumer. We don't mind annoyances if they benefit us, after all its us paying the money. However this only benefits Sports Interactive.

I have played Football Manager 2011 to the point where my saved game shows that I have played it for 14 days straight, and now playing this, I really don't see any new benefits that warrant £30 of my money? It's slower, and wow! I can now talk in a tone? It's just a gimmick. You now spend far too much time farting around with how you think you sound rather than working on the things that matter, your tactics, training, and scouting & buying players. Media may get repetitive, but I get passed that by inputting and adding to the answers with my own quotes in the comment section.

So apart from a database and date update (which if you scour the internet you'll find a new database for the 2011 release), tone, more stuff on the screen (more of exactly the same stuff as last year I may add),and oh a new camera angle, there really is nothing to warrant spending £30 'IF' you already have 2011. Unless your just keeping up with the Jones's and need the newest of everything. Even the layout, skin and fonts are the same.

Please save your money. I played the demo, and played the full version at a mates, and I wanted to love it, I really did, but at best its just a patch. A patch which they charge you a lot of money for. They can't even be bothered to print a manual, instead they have just updated last years and stuck it on the internet. When you spend £30 on a game, its about the presentation, the packaging, the extra touches, like a nice manual. I know it sounds silly but its a lot of money, and its all part of what you buy into.

It annoys me that they market it as a brand new game in it's own right, when it just isn't. I mean really how much can be done in 7 months? (You need the other 4 or 5 months at least for testing) They would be better off releasing a new one every 2 years, one with substantial updates, and a full game in its own right. But they won't, because the don't care about the product or the consumer, but the money. Me? I'm sticking with last years, and will take a look again next year. I suggest others with 2011 do the same. However if you don't have 2011, its worth a look.

Don't know what it is, but I just can't get into this, apart from taking so long (that's probably Steam I know but , maybe that's it. Steam, why? Sad that both this and the last Champ Man have been well....boring! That maybe a tad harsh but it's certainly not an up all night kind of game anymore.