Football Manager 2009

I always load the new verisons of this game with an open mind.

Bearing in mind that you have probably been playing the last version for a year now the changes often seem wierd. The screen seems squashed and the new match engine seems pointless.....until you have been playing it for about 5 minutes and then it all seems to make perfect sense.

Yes it is different from the 08 version but most important yes it has improved.

The game has been cleared of alot of clutter, from your management link it has been condensed down into sub divisions to make it easier to navigate.

The pre and post match press conferences will make the game longer but more realistic. You can also send you assistant should you get bored of doing them.

Picking your team is easier with small icons telling you if the player you pick is playing in there natural position or if they are acc, comp, or ineffectual instead of having to click into each individual player to check.

The 3d match engine is good (it does slow the loading time down however - but you would expect this). However been a die hard champ manager/football manager fan i wil continue to use the 2d version. They have introduced a tv full screen version which makes it easier to view the 2d version.
You also get an opinion of your assistant during the game on how he thinks the team are doing.

I could go on for hours and im sure the full game will have plenty more features to write about. One more thing - you can sign marcelo from real madrid for around £5mill. Bargin.

Bring on 14/11/2008 and fm 2009. Looks like my partner will once again become a fm widow for the forceable future.

Firstly I must comment on the new installation.... OK, I am not a fan on the new method, but can see why they did it. It didn't cause me any problems as yet (touch wood). On the comments regarding processing power needed, I have a 2 year old laptop, so not the newest machine and with pretty average graphics capabilities it seems to be OK so far. The new 3D engine looks really nice, but the players do pause a bit and run on the spot which looks a bit strange, but the improvements out way this, I guess it would notice a lot less on a faster machine. The good points are the players look realistic, with dives, goal celebrations and alike, and with excellent in game feedback from your assistant manager I like the new engine a lot. The improvements on the out of match management, the press conferences and similar make the game much more realistic, however all in all these make the game a lot longer to play as the games seem to run longer. Good effort SI.

This is not much of an improvement over fm2008... I too have a high spec laptop and the game runs slow and freezes with monotonous regularity. At first i thought it was just me and my machine but there are too many other reviews here saying the same thing, so it has to be the game, not the gamers after all!
The 3d match view isnt worth a light, and the press conference feature gets monotonous too after a while so i just avoid using it,
And am i the only one who finds the amount of injuries ridiculous?
I am now three quarters of the way through a season, and there hasnt been one match involving my club which has played through without my team suffering at least one injury to a player. In one instance i had four serious injuriesin the second half of the match alone, each one resulting in layoffs lasting over a month per man. My injury list at one point had 12 players on it.........a bit difficult for a league 2 club to cope with.....and at that point too over 120 players were on the league 2 injury table.. It does rather make the efforts of the gamer pointless, every time you sign a new player he is immediately unavailable to you for a month or two! If real football in this country was actually this dangerous health and safety officials would ban the game nationwide! Come on fm2009 makers, bring some realism back into the game and make it playable, for heaven's sake! My overall verdict on this game is that i really do wish i hadnt bothered with it and stuck with fm 2008. Oh yes, and you dont want to know what i think about that activation process.......

Played the demo. Massively disappointed in the 3D-engine. The original 'Football Manager' for the Spectrum 48k by Kevin Thoms (Hail to the creator) was smoother and more realistic. I've been waiting for 25 years since then for someone to get that 'cut to tv highlights'-types realism in again.
But FM09's demo match engine was comically staccato, stuck at ridiculous moments and proved to be overall irritating to watch. I switched off completely lest my love for the game be tarnished. And before anyone squeals 'system' I was running it with a GeForce 8800 Gs card which handles Far Cry 2, Bioshock and Fallout 3, currently, beautifully. Hope to god they sort it out before main release, although noises from forums don't reassure.
Bewrare - make sure you read the quality magazines' reviews before buying.

The new match engine is awfull looks like stick men wlaking about a park the usal bugs etc as allways sure their will be a patch as usual, i'm so glad i found you could put the game back to classic view as its allways been when your playing a match as the new engine looks awfull.

Overall i think the price is to dear if your paying for the new engine etc and as their are allways constant patches and bugs for it i think the price should come down to reflect this.