Genuinely getting my kicks somewhere else this year. Fair dos, Football Manager is going to remain peerless for years to come in terms of an actual football management game. The Championship Manager series that preceded it was miles ahead of anything else in the genre at the time, and no-one has ever caught up. I don’t think anyone is going to, if we’re talking the sort of raw numbers, cumulative feature accumulation and the army of researchers worldwide.
When Football Manager is eventually unseated, it’ll be a completely different approach that knocks it off its perch, On a personal level, that’s happening already.
After getting to the stage where one feels increasingly guilty about computer game time, I’m not sure I’ve got a football management slot going anymore, especially now that PES and FIFA are kinda sorta providing an alternative. I do have an overall space for football games though. Have done since Sensi. PES Master League is my new star signing though.
I know they’re completely different kinds of game, united only in theme and a shared world they’re both seeking to emulate. I know that PES is never going to model the complexities of Football Manager’s transfer system and that even modified to the absolute hilt, it’s still lacks the scope, scale or authenticity of the world FM conjures. I’m finding it hard to care, because PES does things FM never can.
That paradigm shift in Football Management games? I reckon it comes the moment you can truly assess what’s going on on pitch, seeing your player’s strengths and weaknesses rendered as something you can visually process, rather than a number between 1 or 20 and a dice roll. FIFA and PES have similar numbers driving player performance. It’s the depiction that makes the difference. FM’s match engine doesn’t tell me that Yoshi will make one mistake per game, or that Clyne has a great first touch. With PES especially, you feel it.
I know why I win or lose in PES. It’s usually down to me. Perhaps FM’s biggest problem is that apart from quality of player, I have no fucking idea why that’s happening, or whether that’s down to me or not. I normally end up searching the 'net for recommended players, tactics - the whole shooting match. I effectively end up playing each season on a min-maxed auto-pilot. The sheer amount of time I’ve spent on it means I’ve no compunction about reloading.
I did end up buying the last game in a Steam sale, but the days of buying FM full price are over. I’d rather do something I understand, enjoy, and makes me better at something, even if it does mean international superstars sign for Southampton because they don’t realise just how banging the Derby club scene is.