I can’t say the same thing about the match day. I don’t know why, but I get the feeling that the AI is somewhat “cheating”. Except for the fact that it keeps changing the formations during the game like a mixer with no bad effect on the players, it always seems to be one step ahead of me: when I change my marking system, for example, while waiting for the change to happen, the AI quickly changes his formation, too and makes my upcoming change pointless.

Also, the AI seems to gain new strengths after the 75th minute – with or without substitutes, and starts attacking like a war machine, no matter if it is Bayern Munchen or Reginna. But maybe I’m just being paranoid or extremely unlucky.

Except for that, I must say that I love all the bits of extra things that Sports Interactive prepared for this year’s Football Manager: we can now see how much the players run during a match, we can ask our players to learn new special moves (although I never managed to make that work for any of my players), we have press conferences which will eventually become boring, but they still offer an extra bit of spice.

Sports Interactive also said that the transfer system was completely changed but, honestly, I did not see a complete revamp. Indeed, the scouts no longer say you’ll have to spend huge amounts of money to get a certain player (however, they seem to have gone the opposite way now, suggesting slightly lower prices) and transfer rumors are not completely pointless, but I didn’t notice any other change. You still have the same team bidding over and over again for the same player the same low offer you will never accept, but we were already used with that, right?

Conclusion
Football Manager 2009 is indeed an improvement over last year’s game. Arguably the biggest change in years is the introduction of the 3D match engine, which I still consider a bit rushed, but it clearly is a step that had to be done. Except for that, we don’t have huge changes, just slight improvements here and there. But it’s pointless to ask for tons of innovation on an already perfect title, so we have no reasons not to be happy with this year’s Football Manager 2009. All in all, I must admit that Sports Interactive did a pretty good job end Football Manager 2009 is an evolved product, compared to last year’s game. And one thing is clear: Football Manager 2009 is the football management game of the year!

Final rating:

Confused? Learn more about our rating system!

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here