Football Manager Live (PC & Mac)

It`s a great idea having a footy manager where you can challenge the rest of the world.. But it`s seriously flawed and needs a re-think. Definately not worth the monthly subscription.
You can spend hours setting up your team and heading for the top of the league.. And when you come up against players that are never online, the ai takes over and you get whooped by the bottom of the league. Also there are players cheating and bending the rules and there`s nothing the moderators can or are willing to do.

This game is brilliant, i am totally addicted to it even more so than football manager 2009, all the gameworlds ive been in have been very friendly and great banter. Its great rushing to try and buy the best players in the wage auctions and wheeling and dealin in the transfer market. Honestly feels like your running a real club.

A enjoyable experience but prepare yourself for lots of cheating. There are ingame Moderators to whom you can report these instances of cheating but it is more often than not the Moderators themselves who are the perpetrators.

Also be prepared to be playing against a fair number of Beta Testers, who have been playing / testing the game for SI for the past 18 months and have the inside knowledge on which players to buy, who the 'Wonderkids" are and which players develop into world-beaters.

Despite all of this FMLive is an interesting experience and offers you the chance to pit your tactical ability against other real people for a change. Unless you enjoy playing as a lower league manager in Football Manager, the novelty of the game can quickly disappear once it becomes evident that the "big" teams are already too big to compete against (much like the Premiership I suppose).

Overall, worth giving a try but prepare yourself for the reality not matching up to your expectations.

Has the potential to be a 5 star game but like all SI titles it's riddled with bugs, some of them game breaking and with SI's record in this department ( months to get a fix and most never fixed) it only gets 2 stars. Give it a miss for 6 months and then check the SI forums to see if it has got any better.

Talk of bugs is complete nonsense its a new game and patches will be released but i have found little or no problems. Its a very addictive and fun game with alot of interaction with fellow football fans, people often share tips to help your team along and it is mostly a good spirited game. I would recommend to any football fan