Still the same old brand new FM. Addictive as ever.
With SI claiming to have made more than 800 improvements in this game, the latest entry in the long running franchise - FM 2012 - is once again hyped up as the most complete and realistic fm ever.
Well, they're right. Or, are they?
I mean, seriously, look at the thing, the changes are everywhere. Even if you're doubtful, get the demo and just browse through all the tabs and see for yourself. And if you can't be bothered to do that, just browse through the screenshots here on gamespot. You can hardly find a single panel that's left untouched. Some are even completely revamped. For example, the entire club section is now split into two parts, namely the club and the squad. When you click on the name of a club, it now directs you to the club overview page, as opposed to the first team squad page like in the past. In the 'club' section there're seven other tabs: staff, boardroom, transfers, scouting, info, affiliated clubs and history. Basically all the club micro and macro-management activities can be done here.
And then of course there's the squad section. This is a game about football teams and matches after all. There are only four tabs here, and they are squad, tactics, fixtures and team report. Fixture now gets its own tab. 'Match preparation' is now integrated into the tactics, which really makes managing your tactics much easier. The team report tab now contains 10x more information, and the 'squad depth' and tactic analysis functions are very nice additions and both of them are extremely useful. The only problem is that in 'tactic analysis' you can only choose to view either all the stats (official games and friendlies) or from individual competitions. So in other words there's no way to make the computer show you how you did in all your official competitions without having the stats from friendlies mess up the whole thing. Navigation in general hasn't really improved, but considering the amount of new functions put in this is still very much acceptable. We just need to get used to the changes.
The 3d match engine seems to have remain largely unchanged, well except for maybe slightly more player animations, more types of celebrations and a new 'director camera' viewing mode which is basically TV with some random cuts here and there, mostly happens when a team is taking set-pieces. In other words, if you thought it was crap, then crap it still is. And I have to say, that on my alienware m17x laptop, the 3d match engine appears to be using much more resources than something this 'basic looking' should be consuming, so if your computer isn't very powerful, you may be better off sticking with the good old little 2D circles.
Then there's the actual gameplay. Well right from the start you'll notice that now for the first time you can add/remove playable leagues after you create a new game. No idea why it took SI so many years to implement this feature but it's finally here. Now there's a proper reason for those 'world travellers' (or even wannabes) to celebrate :)
On the other hand, there's a new team talk system. You can now talk to your team in not one, but FIVE different tones, and even better, you'll receive the feedback of your pep talk immediately. What's more, you can also choose to 'say something' to a specific group of players. For example, if your team have failed to create many chances in the first half of a match, you can now tell your midfielders that you're not pleased with their playmaking and they will (usually) react positively. You can also talk to your subs when you bring them on! And finally, you'll also need to be careful when praising or criticizing players. If, for example, a midfielder of yours scores two goals in a match but doesn't have an assist, and you tell him afterwards that you think his passing has been brilliant, he might react negatively. These new elements enhance the overall gameplay, and keep the FM franchise as addictive as ever. However, none of the new featuers (there really are tons of new things, some of them big, some small, and some tiny, it'll take a loooong time to find them all out) are really THAT groundbreaking. I'd say that now you have more in-depth areas in the game, but the game as a whole hasn't necessarily become more entertaining. It's really complicated. Perhaps too complicated. I can foresee that people new to the FM series will have one heck of a nightmare to deal with as the learning curve in this game can be really steep.
On a positive note though, I have played almost a full season now and hasn't encountered any noticable bugs or glicthes, neither have I encountered any injury crisis. You can tell that the developers really listened to the fans and tried hard to make the game as balanced and enjoyable as they can. So there you go, this is Football Manager 2012. This game probably dosn't offer enough attractions to non-fans of the genre, but it has just about enough new stuff to strike a balance between freshness and nostalgia, and to keep the FM veterans both happy and mad at the same time ;)
Also a few tips:
1: If you want to use the data editor, remember to download it from steam separately.
2: If you want the German/Japanese national teams to use real players - it's still the old trick. If you don't know what the old trick is, then go to whereever your steam folder is and then go to steamappscommonfootball manager 12db1200lnc and delete the .lnc files there.
3: If you're fed up with the 'back' button gets you back to the previous info tab rather than panel, then go to preferences and untick the 'enable full player browser history' option.