Product Description

Football Manager 2009's match engine has seen more testing than ever before having been extensively beta tested in Football Manager Live for the past year.

The famous Football Manager match engine can now be viewed in full 3D with motion captured animations for the players. Sports Interactive has been working on the 3D match engine for nearly 3 years with the support of SEGA Japan's Virtua Striker team who provided the motion capture data and some of the animations. You can now watch your matches in 3D from multiple camera angles and re-watch any part of the match by fast forwarding and rewinding the action using a new match time bar that flags the key moments in the game. The old 2D view of the match engine is still there, especially for those people whose computers aren't powerful enough to take advantage of the 3D views.

As a result of usability testing on Football Manager 2008, this year sees widescreen support for the game for the first time, as well as lots of tweaks to the user interface for easier navigation.

Football Manager 2009 is fully updated for the new 2008/09 football season with all the latest league, club and player data, featuring over 5,000 playable clubs from over 50 countries, and around 350,000 players and staff from around the world, drawn fresh from the famous Sports Interactive database.

Sports Interactive have worked hard to reflect the greater impact the media has been having in recent years on the world of football, in the in-game dealings with the press. The game now features more news stories, more detail and greater media interaction than ever before, creating an even more realistic simulation of the football world.

• TV View. Watch your matches in new full screen TV view and customise your match day screen with widgets to view the information you need as a football manager, be it player performance, match action zones, pitch rada

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #432 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Sega
• Released on: 2008-11-14
• Platforms: Windows Vista, Windows XP
• Format: Unknown format
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English

Manufacturer's Description

Highlight new features for the PC / MAC include:

3D Match Engine - This year's match engine has seen more testing than ever before having been extensively beta tested in Football Manager Live for the past year.

The famous Football Manager match engine can now be viewed in full 3D with motion captured animations for the players. Sports Interactive has been working on the 3D match engine for nearly 3 years with the support of SEGA Japan's Virtue Striker team who provided the motion capture data and some of the animations.

You can now watch your matches in 3D from multiple camera angles and re-watch any part of the match by fast forwarding and rewinding the action using a new match time bar that flags the key moments in the game.

The old 2D view of the match engine is still there, especially for those people whose computers aren't powerful enough to take advantage of the 3D views.

TV View - Watch your matches in new full screen TV view and customise your match day screen with widgets to view the information you need as a football manager, be it player performance, match action zones, pitch radar, latest scores and many more.

Assistant Manager Feedback - Pre-match and in-match feedback from your Assistant Manager on how the team is performing and your player's motivation levels, as well as hints on how your tactics are working and how you could outwit the opposition's tactics.

Improved Media - SI have worked hard to reflect the greater impact the media has been having in recent years on the world of football, in the in-game dealings with the press. The game now features more news stories, more detail and greater media interaction than ever before, creating an even more realistic simulation of the football world.

Press Conferences - Attend pre-match and post-match press conferences with local and national journalists and build up relationships with them over time, but choose your answers carefully because they could come back to haunt you in the media at a later date.

Transfer System - Completely new and re-written transfer system code, providing an even more realistic simulation of real-life football transfers.

Transfer Rumours - View the latest news on what players are being speculated on, and who's said to be interested in securing their services.

Board Confidence - Following on from its addition in Football Manager 2008, board confidence has been expanded and improved. In addition, the board will now also offer feedback on your squad harmony and your club's stature in the football world.

Preferred Moves - Train your players to learn 'preferred moves' to add to their game. For example, train central defenders to not dive into tackles, or wingers to do step-over's before crossing the ball.

Female Manager - For the very first time you can now play as a female manager. All of the text in the game now also has a female gender so the game represents female managers and staff in the game in the correct gender.

Realistic Finances - SI have listened to feedback from all of their researchers to try and model every single financial area of the game correctly for each country, including transfers, staff wages, budgets, ticket prices, season tickets, competition bonuses and club sponsorships.

Updated Competitions - Fully updated for the new 2008/09 football season with all the latest league, club and player data, featuring over 5,000 playable clubs from over 50 countries, and around 350,000 players and staff from around the world, drawn fresh from the famous Sports Interactive database.

Widescreen Support - As a result of usability testing on Football Manager 2008, this year sees widescreen support for the game for the first time, as well as lots of tweaks to the user interface for easier navigation.

Customer Reviews

Better than I expected
Based on the reviews that I have read on the internet about this game, I was more than a little nervous about purchasing FM'09. I'm far from an expert when it comes to using my PC and all of the terrible reviews about the bugs and downloading patches came close to putting me off buying it. HOWEVER, being that I'm a massive fan of Football Manager and the entire Championship Manager series that came before it, I decided to buy it regardless and make my own judgement.

Thankfully this was a great decision as it wasn't anywhere near as complicated to set up as I have been led to believe, and it works brilliantly on my laptop (which is about 4 years old so not exactly a brand new model).

Upon inserting the disc and entering the keycode which can be found on the back of the instruction manual, I was then given the option to automatically download updates or do them manually. Because of my lack of confidence and experience in downloading stuff off the internet, I chose automatic downloads. This then opened up something called "Steam" which showed the FM09 logo and next to it a downloading bar. It automatically downloaded the updates (which I will admit took about half an hour) and all I had to do was wait. Once it reached 100% I then clicked on the launch button and away we go!

Now quite possibly my laptop is more impressive than I give it credit for, and the fact that I waited a few weeks before buyng it may have had a bearing, however all of the negativity that I have come across about setting it up has not been warrented IN MY EXPERIENCE. I can't speak for everyone obviously, and I admit that it is frustrating having to spend half an hour or so download updates when previously you haven't had to, but based on the overwhelming negative response that it's been getting I was pleasantly suprised how straight forward it was to set up.

As far as playing the game goes, in my opinion, the game is brilliant! Granted, it is very similar in it's basic structure to the last installment and so the comments about it just being an updated version are warranted to a point. However I would like to know what people expect?! If they wanted to entire game structure to change, then it would be a completely different game and I would argue that the reason people bought this one is because they enjoyed the previous one so much. For me, all great game series' add new elements year on year to improve, they don't completely overhaul the system, and this is exactly what FM'09 does.

For me, the 3D match view is fantastic. Sure, it's basic, however I don't expect to be watching a Pro Evolution or Fifa standard match. I expected to be watching something more impressive than the birds eye view dots of the previous game, and want to see how my formation and tactics play out on the pitch. In my opinion, the 3D view does exactly that!

The Press Conferences are a great addition to the basic pre and post game comments, and although in fairness I can imagine it getting quite repetitive, the fact that you can leave your assistant to answer the questions for you means that if you can't be bothered, you don't have to.

The transfer gossip is a fun addition, creating a sense of realism (sometimes you get linked with a player you haven't looked at and have no idea where the link comes from!), and it's clever in the way that if you sell a goalkeeper you will then automatically be linked with goalkeepers even if you haven't looked at any!

Finally, it's also fun interacting with the players, instructing them to change certain elements of their game, seeing how they react and then how it changes the way they play in games.

These are just a few of the changes that I thought were impressive, and I'm sure that as I play some more I will discover many more.

In summary, I wanted to write a review that shows the game in a positive light as in my opinion and my experience so far it deserves it. I've loved every minute of playing it so far, and after six hours and numerous matches the game hasn't frozen or shut down on me once. This is a great addition to the Champo and Footie Manager collection, and if you've got a decent PC or laptop, internet connection, and aren't expecting MAJOR changes, then I would take no notice of all of the negative comments and reviews and go buy it.

Shocking
I've given this game every chance and after many years of enjoyment of Football Manager and Championship Manager before it, it is time for Sports Interactive to come cleam and admit that this time around they have come up with a shocking product. Getting though the initial minefield was not the problem but after trying several discs on numerous PCs I have become sick to death of the game sticking leaving me no choice but to come out of it having wasting countless hours of my time. This product is clearly so full of bugs that it is completely useless. It was obviously not ready to be released but the greedy desperarion to make more money out of us unsuspecting folks was to much for those involved to resist. I can no longer be bothered with this game because I have absolutely no confidence that I will not be wasting my time ... again. If you haven't aleady bought it, don't even be tempted by the reduced price. Get one of your older versions out and enjoy. Oh, and don't be fooled by the new 3D match view ... it's no better that cheaper footy manager games were achieving a decade ago. Sorry but after many years of great products produced by these people, this one is utter rubbish. Now, where's the bin!!!!

Let's all calm down and review this correctly
Firstly, I can understand the initial frustration of activating this game and actually getting things started. But, from the looks of the reviews on here it appears as though loads of people have logged straight onto the Amazon review page on Friday night and in their anger given the game a 1 star rating. This is crazy.
I too had the same problems on Friday night, but sucked it up, understood that tonnes of people are all trying to activate their game on the same night so just left it alone and did it Saturday morning - when it worked just fine.
I've since spent nearly all of the weekend playing and have been completely addicted right the way through.
It's a fantastic game and I really don't quite know what some of the people who have slagged it off - gameplay wise - were expecting...
Highly recommended, don't be put off by all the daft 1 star reviews on here!!