It was followed by The FA Premier League Football Manager and the Total Club Manager series. įIFA Soccer Manager (or simply FSM) is a 1997 football managing computer game developed and published by Electronic Arts by their EA Sports label.
The PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions of the game were developed for EA Canada by Budcat Creations.
While the TCM series has been released for Windows, Xbox and PlayStation 2, the FIFAM series is only available for Windows. European Champion with former FC Porto and Chelsea manager José Mourinho was selected for the main cover. Criticized by a confusing interface, EA reworked it for TCM 2005, with a more sleek design. Celtic manager Martin O'Neill appeared on the cover of TCM 2004. Some fans managed to control games in TCM 2003 by hacking the configuration files, but data loss and corruption was frequent.
This feature, only present on other games with limited geographical distribution, the Spanish PC Fútbol, was included for buyers of both TCM 2004 and FIFA 2004, which could use the Football Fusion function.
Although it could be played as a stand-alone game, it only reached the full potential when used with the manager game. One of the key features of Anstoss 3 was the ability to actually play the games after Anstoss Action was released. The game had positive reception, and a year later Total Club Manager 2003 was released, with Bobby Robson on the cover (for the second time, after FIFA Soccer Manager). However, by 2001, several employees of German developer Ascaron moved to EA, and the first game, Fussball Manager 2002, was released in Germany only, as a test for a potential series. It’s still a decent simulator, just don’t go expecting it to blow you away.Before FIFA Manager and Total Club Manager, EA Sports released FIFA Soccer Manager (1997) and The FA Premier League Football Manager 99, 2000, 20, but while the first managed to attract some attention, the latter were released when the managing games market for non- Championship Manager titles was close to non-existent, and after two unsuccessful titles, it was dropped.
They simply haven’t perfected the new features and neglected the offline experience before of it.
But, it never materialises.įIFA Manager 10 tries to do too much and fails because of it. I found myself looking at the game and becoming incredibly frustrated and bored quickly…is that what anyone wants from a game? I know it’s supposed to be a simulator, but I’d expect some excitement. Music is a mixed bag as always, sound effects are decent…but the whole presentation leaves a lot to be desired. The visuals are good, but could have been so much better and with the advances in PC graphics over the years, you’d expect them to do so…but instead, they are still using DX9. I was expecting the single player to be much better, but instead it disappoints from the start. It’s not a bad thing, but it seems that the single player has suffered because of the extra focus on this feature. It’s good to see that the series finally makes the jump online, but it feels like a missed opportunity.
Confining itself to the PC while Football Manager moves onto the PSP makes the series appear dated from the outside. It always confuses me as to why EA Sports never brings the series to consoles or handhelds I think FIFA Manager would work brilliantly on the DS. It’s a shame, I was hoping that this year I may finally start enjoying the genre…but it seems it’s not meant to be. I’ve been looking at feedback for the game so far and the majority of it has been fairly negative. It’s a simple case of “too many cooks spoil the broth” and the game suffers because of it.
Unfortunately, it seems like the team has tried to do too many things instead of getting them to work in unison. FIFA Manager, Championship Manager and Football Manager have been battling it out over the years and while I haven’t played any of the latter two games this year, it’s pretty clear that FIFA Manager 10 needs to do something pretty special to maintain its crown. If you’ve been following my reviews for a while, you’ll know that I’m not a huge fan of football manager games…I just don’t get the appeal, the effort put into them, the dropdown menus and lack of control have always been a serious issue for me…I prefer to play a game of football instead of making decisions like extending contracts and how much I money the club should be making.ĭespite my own personal feelings about the genre, it’s obviously very popular with quite a few games taking it on. Is this a case of too many features and not enough perfection?