Release Date: January 23, 2009
Developer: Sports Interactive
Publisher: SEGA
Genre: Management, Sports
Take one part football management sim, one part MMO. Whisk together into a smooth consistency and bake on a medium heat. Remove after extensive testing and serve hot. The recipe is a deceptively simple one, but getting the mixture just right is a skilled process. Sports Interactive have, for the most part, done just that. Football Manager Live is on the menu to stay.
You begin by selecting an initial squad of players from the vast database on offer. The initial wage budget of £100,000 means you can put those dreams of lining up Ronaldo alongside Torres on hold for the moment. Your best bet is to go for a team of unknown, but relatively capable players that will work well within your preferred formation. Don’t worry if you don’t know your Terry’s from your Totti’s because the game will select a team for you from the available players if you find yourself overwhelmed.
Where you go from there is up to you. Do you want to concentrate on cultivating a team of youngsters for future glory? Play the market and get those players that’ll bring you instant success? Maybe focus on building your stadium and reaping the financial awards? FM Live gives you a blank canvas from which to build your dynasty. With every team in the game headed by a real-life football fan, a sense of direction is vital if you want to keep up with the pack.
In order to open up the tools needed to keep you on your chosen path you’re going to have to learn ‘skills’. Skills range from improvements in the effects of coaching and scouting to unlocking more tactical options and abilities. For example, upon starting the game you’re extremely limited in putting your own stamp on the default tactics (you can’t even adjust your teams attacking mentality), however spend a few days learning tactical skills and you can counjer up tactical master schemes your opponent can only dream of. Individual skills can take anywhere from half an hour to a week to learn, so choose wisely.
The lack of initial options make the early going somewhat of a grind, always looking ahead to the next skill before you’re able to make drastic changes to your teams mentality. Veterans of the series may find this somewhat tedious, and there’s no doubt that you feel distinctly ‘naked’ compared to the wealth of options available in the standard FM titles. Among other things, it also lacks the detailed media interaction options of recent titles giving it a more streamlined – if we were being nasty, less involving – feel to the pre- and post-match options.
If you’re shrewd enough you can improve your team instantly by playing the transfer market. You’re free to buy and sell players between clubs to your hearts content; through either the transfer list or the eBay-style wage auctions. Free agents up can be offered a contract by any interested parties with the team offering the highest wages at the end of the auction period acquiring the player.
It’s a decent system that offers a fair way of handling unaffiliated players, preventing quality talent being signed for less than their true market value. Selling players for a higher price than you paid for them is the quickest way to improve your finances, but is arguably the most difficult – getting your rival managers to pay the asking price is as difficult as being a lifelong Luton Town fan.
All this effort and planning is for one thing, success. Each of FM Live’s many game worlds contain 1,000 teams, each belonging to a football association. Football associations (FA’s) differ in the amount of matches each team plays, catering for the die-hard fanatic that wants to play all day every day, as well as the casual after work/school players. Each of the FA’s hold a number of leagues and cup competitions for you to participate, with success leading to more prize money, greater reputation and the all important bragging rights.
Seasons last for three weeks, with teams being promoted and relegated at the end of each. While the system is great, you get the feeling that you’re part of a never-ending process, playing the same teams season after season, fighting over the same goals. This does of course mimic the true nature of the sport itself, but that feeling of ‘where is this all going?’ that inherits all MMO’s is present and correct here. Achieve success and much of that feeling is immediately offset though.
The nature of the game has a created a sense of healthy competition throughout the community. Inter-FA rivalries and team feuds pop-up organically as you play matches, to the point where winning or losing to certain teams becomes a matter of pride, both for yourself and for your FA. These rivalries are largely good-natured and it’s a credit to the community that levels of abuse and intolerance aren’t higher than they are.
As we’ve come to expect from Sports Interactive, the presentation and ease of navigation is exceptional. Menus are clear and simple, while staying informative and relevant, and the 2D match view gives you enough of the action to make tactical decisions without resorting to combing through the statistics. Unfortunately the 3D match engine option of FM 2009 doesn’t exist but, given possible lag issues, that’s probably a good thing.
If you’re ready to take your managerial skills to the next level then FM Live is a fantastic option. It really is the kind of game that rewards those who invest the time. On the flip-side though, causal players will struggle to compete against those with a lot of time to spare and you can quickly find yourself adrift at the bottom of the league. If your a Football Manager fan you’ll find a lot to like here and you owe it to yourself to at least test your skills against the rest of the world.
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