Football Manager 2012: My first Season in

Well I have not written a review, or article for that mater, for a while. As I am a self funded reviewer, I play new games only when I can afford them. I would love to have the time as well, to look at all the latest releases but alas like most normal gamers out there I write about what I love, and what the bank manager will fund.

So to start my review let me say that places like Play and Amazon have Football Manger 2012 for £14.99. That is a good price (and a testament to the overpriced nature of console games.)

The first thing to notice is the need to register the game through Steam. I am sure the many hackers and coders of the world will devise a work around for the pesky need to pay for it, but as I said, at £14.99 I could afford to treat myself and help keep the developers fed.

I like the fact it registers through Steam. It means I only need the disk the once, hell, I don't even need that but it is cheaper than buying it through Steam itself. I can then install the Steam client on another machine and play the game there. I know I can do this with the disk, but if I am half way around the world and fancy the fix that only FM2012 can provide, then I am good to go.

The next (and I realise I am not even into the game play yet) thing I am impressed with is an idea a friend of mine had. I can't take credit for this so you can all thank this guy for the idea, (I also appreciate this has nothing to do with the actual game!) If you have a dropbox account, then you can make your dropbox folder the location for your saved games. That way you can be around the world and play the game you were playing at home, without the need of a memory stick or the disk to install the game. The web is a wonderful place! (Back off pesky piracy laws....) If you don't know about dropbox, well click here sign up and we both get a little more space to store our web based documents.

However I digress completely from the topic and nature of the review, so without any more distractions, Football Manager 2012.

I downloaded the demo from Steam, which allows you to play up till  January of the first season. I chose to start unemployed and made my self an ex-international star with prospects. I turn down a few low level jobs in Germany before landing Aston Villa (and if you think this is unrealistic just wait...) I take charge of the club and am ready to look at the new features of the game. Well as always there are so many it is going to be hard to tell you about them. The good thing about FM is that you can spend as much or as little time in each menu as you want. There is the detail of setting each player on specific training regimes, conditioning and tactics. You can scout staff who will help make this easier, they will suggest the best training for each player depending on how they perform.

Scouting players and staff has become a much nicer interface with easy to use filters and getting reports on how well a player will fit into your team making it easier.

The media section has been developed (although still not perfect) allowing you to add a tone to your voice in the press encounters. You can cautiously praise an oppositions player or passionately praise your own. This also carries over to team talks, allowing you to praise or damn your team. Sometimes either way will lift their spirits and others times they look demotivated.  There is a fine line you tread in the backroom with your team. It helps to have  good assistant manager who can guide you to what you should say at points.

There is now also a team meeting feature. This allows you to call all your players together and fire them up or let them talk about what is bothering them. This has been quite a useful tool, but after holding a few of these, the team did say we have had a lot of team meetings. I thought that was funny, as you should surely try to bring the team together in football? What do I know?

The tactics are now even easier to use and allow you to chain up a few for the team to learn to play. This helps with consistency as changing your tactics after each match can mean that the team will have no sense of structure. There are plenty of menu items I have missed (or avoided) but I recently found one that analysed your tactics, how many goals you concede and score when playing that formation. You get how many games you have used for that formation and how many minutes that equates to. It is incredibly in-depth and you can lose hours to the pursuit of looking through stats and sheets before you even get to game one of the season.

The actual match plays well on my new (ish) PC. I have yet to try it on an older PC or Mac to see how the animations are coped with. I really like the directors cut of the match that gives you a variety of angles. The players are more realistic in their movement and their roles, it's still got a long way to go before the animations rival the likes of Fifa and Pro Evo, but then this game is not designed with that market in mind, it is a stats-freaks wet dream, it's not reliant on the graphics (although they are more polished throughout the entire game). The game has the normal options of speed, full match, extended, highlights and these are easily customisable to how long you want to spend in a match. I have it set to a reasonable speed and it can still take about 5-10 minutes of play time to get through a match. You have the feature of recording parts of the match allowing you to post them to your favourite social network sites. This is something I have no interest in, however if that is your bag......well it's in their now.

The game now also allows you to add and remove active leagues depending on where you want to actively manage. I did this going from the demo to the full game. I added the main European leagues to my already established UK structure. I started with the demo and enjoyed the changes so I invested in the game, so what happened next?

Well, I was at Aston Villa for about 4 months when Chelsea sacked their manager. I put out a press release stating my interest in the job, and immediately had to issue a public apology or face getting fired. Not that it mattered, I was offered the job at Chelsea, 4 months after starting in football (so 33 years old and just retired from playing) I am hired as the manager for one of the biggest names in football. Reality aside, check me out. (Talking about reality, if you did not see this story from about 6 years ago about a Football Manager fan applying to be the real manager of Middlesbrough, then you should have a look)

I have completed my first season and brought the team to 6th in the Premiership and in that time I have tried not to just splash cash on anyone, I have tried to scout young talent as well as experience. The trouble is with the name "Chelsea" comes the counter offer in the transfer market. A player worth £4.5 million is negotiated to £20million. Generally taking half my usable budget on one player! So far I have bought 2 players and signed about 4 or 5 who were nearing contract end dates or were young enough to tempt to Chelsea and only face a small fee for doing it. Will this work? I have no idea.

I have signed Michael Owen  from Man Utd and Owen Hargreeves (both in their late 30's) for backup players, that's right 2 injury prone old players. How can this go wrong?

FM2012 is a great game. I am not a football fan, in fact I can't stand the real game. This is the irony of my gaming life. I love sports games.

I think for FM(any one in the series) I enjoy having 2 PC monitors, one playing a film or TV Series while I wade around the statistics of football. It is enjoyable to be able to take control of every aspect of the game and see the workings of one the worlds richest clubs (and then get fired as you drive the team into debt and the bottom half of the league table).

A few things I miss are the little holes they plugged a few versions ago. Like the fact you could add another human manager and loan a bad reserve to a low league team for £100million and neither board block the process! That was fun.

However they have got so much right in the franchise. More control over every aspect, from how you react to the media and the team talks, better animations in game and easier navigations between menus.

If you love the FM series, then you already own this game. If you are new to management sims and are looking for something to last you, well look no further. The learning curve may be a little steep if this is your first attempt, however you do have the step by step tutorial (which unlocks an achievement, that's the other thing that has been added!!) which guides you nicely through the basics and sure enough when you are hooked, you will keep learning as you play. I am still learning about every thing that you can do in the game, it is a VAST database of information and statistics that you can drop and pick up easily. It is great that it is now through Steam and has provided achievements for those who were starting to miss that Xbox Live feel.

In conclusion, I have to say it is the best FM yet and I am sure they will continue to improve on the forums feedback. This is the only football management game you ever need buy, I haven't tried EA's version, but I don't have time, I am too busy playing on Football Manager 2012.

If we did ratings this would get 4.5 stars. But we don't, so it doesn't.

 

Interview with William Donegan - taken from SweetFFA.com

Video games are evolving as are the technologies used in the controller, Look at what the Wii has done for social gaming. Xbox and Playstation have moved from the in depth gamer market to cover the social aspect of gaming. However we can take all this for granted and forget that not everyone who loves video games can easily take part. From accidents at work or playing sports, to disability from birth some people find that the world of games and gaming is not accessible to them.

This, however, is changing. SpecialEffect are a charity that help a range of people access gaming from PC to Console. William Donegan is from the charity and has taken the time to join us here at SweetFFA amidst the hectic run up to the EuroGamer Expo. Thanks for taking the time to join me today.  I had not heard of SpecialEffect until we had Tom Champion from EuroGamer join us. We got all the information relating to this year’s event and that included SpecialEffect.

William can you please let me know how you first got involved with Special Effect.

Initially, like most SpecialEffect’s staff, I started by volunteering for SpecialEffect on the Roadshow projects when the charity very first started about three years ago. In this project we took equipment to clubs and groups where disabled and abled people met and set up games and hardware for people to try out. For many people they didn’t know that there were ways in which they could play video games. When the charity moved into our offices, my dad (SpecialEffect’s Founder and Director Mick Donegan) asked me to come work for the charity.

Can you please let me know a little bit more about Special Effect?

We are a fairly young charity based in Charlbury, Oxfordshire, but who work throughout the UK directly with individuals and groups. Our focus is on giving access to computer games not just for ‘gamers’ but for anyone who wants to be able to ‘play’. We have three main projects at the moment which all involve the support and lending of equipment. Everyone we work with is different, so the expertise we have as a team combines well to help find solutions for each of them, whether it is simply recommending the right game or creating or adapting a new controller.

 

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How easy is it for people outside the Oxfordshire area to get involved? I live down on the South Coast but may want to get involved, what can I do?

Many of our volunteers work remotely. Due to the seemingly infinite numbers of games being produced, from boxed copies to small flash games, we need as many eyes and ears looking out for potentially useful games as possible. Simple things such as information on whether an FPS game has re-mappable controls or a racing game has assisted braking is all useful information, which we can add to our review site www.gamebase.info  and pass on to others. If you have a tip off about a game, please do contact us through the site.

How many different disabilities do you work with?

We work with a wide range of people. The charity’s strap line is ‘Game On for EVERYONE!’ No matter how severely disabled someone is we’ll try and find a way for them to play. Some people we work with have acquired an injury which has left them unable to play games, whilst for others the condition they were born with has meant that they never thought that they could play computer games. A lot of what we are about is letting people know that they can play games and showing them how.

Do you work with many schools in educational development or alongside charities that do?  I can see a lot of the technologies you mention would be great for that sort of thing

We are currently doing a project with Great Ormond Street Hospital School, but we are focusing on giving access to leisure and fun to the students rather than to education. Like you say lots of the technology we use can be used for general computer access for things like work and education. We try and use that technology for fun as well.

Do you find any games that are just not adaptable?

Sometimes if you find the right hardware for someone it can open up every type of game. For example, if we setup someone with a one handed controller for their PS3, it is likely that after some practice they will have no problem playing any game they like. 

For some, very simple in-game features could help enormously, for example being able to switch a button around which you have trouble reaching can be the difference between a game being playable, or not, by someone.  

With something like using eye-control for instance it is more limited in the games you can access on your PC, as essentially you only have control over the cursor and mouse buttons. We can create software which lets people play more games, but playing Call of Duty for instance using eye-control alone is just not possible at the moment. We will keep working on these sorts of problems however.

 SpecialEffect offer free advice to developers who want to make their games playable by a wider audience. We also have a wish list of general features which can be added to games to make them more accessible: http://www.gamebase.info/magazine/read/wish-list-for-accessible-game-design_531.html

How many developers are working with you to produce more content for kids with disabilities?

We give advice to a lot of independent game developers on small tweaks they can make to let more people play their games. We have also given advice to some larger developers. As people are hearing about us, more and more people are interested in what they can do to improve the accessibility of their games.

 We also work directly with developers to create games for those who there is nothing mainstream or existing which they can play, for instance simple eye-control games for those who can’t control an on-screen cursor.

We also work with people to create bits of software to allow existing games to be played using new control methods. For example, we have recently worked with a volunteer developer to create a piece of software which changes mouse cursor movement into cursor key presses, which allows racing games to be played using cursor movement alone. Therefore, people who use a way of controlling a mouse cursor as their input method (using eye-control, head control etc) and can’t access a keyboard or gamepad can potentially play any racing game they like using this free bit of software.

What more can be done in helping bring games to more people?

Part of it is the realisation that there are ways for people games no matter what their disability, by more people hearing about SpecialEffect for instance and contacting us.

Another is what developers can do by making some, sometimes small, changes to their games.

What sort of technologies are you implementing to help gamers with a disability?

Sometimes we match cutting edge technologies with the right games, such as eye-control, whilst at other times we need to create or adapt a piece of hardware. We do a lot of adaptations in house but also work with others such as a company called Evil Controllers who have been really great at working with us to adapt Xbox controllers for example by adding buttons, moving control sticks, creating in built re-mapping and toggle etc

 Something we are keeping a close eye on is the potential of brain control. Our Director Mick Donegan, is an adviser on user requirements for a European project on brain control. It’s all looking very interesting!

You have mentioned eye control and from the videos I have seen it looks very impressive. How easy is it to learn to use? And do you find people prefer it to a standard controller?

It all depends on the individual. Some of the people we work with have had an injury or illness which has affected their eyes and the use of eye-control can take a lot of work to get it working correctly. We are fortunate to be in the position that we can dedicate as much time and effort that is necessary to get it working if it is the right solution though. If not we will try something else. For others, however, it can be picked up instantly. We demoed it at Eurogamer Expo last year and were amazed at how quickly everyone picked it up. Many also said they liked how relaxing and immersive it could be.

Do you think that with mainstream controller like the Wii and PS3 Move, then the full body interaction with the Kinect, that there is the potential for new technologies to become more accessible for a disabled gamer  and for one piece of kit to the future for every gamer?

 Many of the people we work with don’t have the movement to play motion controlled games. The removal of the controller doesn’t necessarily mean the removal of a barrier to gaming, as it is creating a new one for some. The ideal situation would be if motion controlled games had dual controls and could be played either with a standard controller or with body movement.

Are you still surprised by what some people can achieve? I saw a video on your site of a chap playing Fifa with his mouth and beating the interviewer, it highlighted to me that perception is a big issue compared to the reality of the human spirit.

A lot of the people we work with amaze us with how they instantly take to new technology and new ways of playing. Once you find them a way to access games, they just get on with it. It’s just a different way of playing, but once they are in, it is a level playing field.

You are going to the Eurogamer Expo, what can we expect to see from you on the day?

This year we are going to try and raise awareness and the profile of the charity to gamers by holding two record attempts over the duration of the Expo and hopefully resulting in entry to the Guinness World Records Gamers Edition 2012. The two attempts are the fastest lap time in a racing game using only eye-movement sensing controllers and by participating, all guests will also become part of SpecialEffect’s second record attempt; the greatest number of people competing in a videogames tournament using only eye control technology. I don’t think anyone has attempted either before! Either way hopefully it will lead to more people hearing about SpecialEffect.

You can read more about SpecialEffect at their own website http://www.specialeffect.org.uk/ 

Interview with Tom Champion - taken from SweetFFA.com

I am writing every so often for www.sweetffa.com. This was my interview with Tom Champion.
We are lucky enough today to have Tom Champion from the team behind this years Eurogamer Expo join us. Tom has somehow found 5 minutes to answer a few questions for us before getting back into setting up this years awesome show.

Tom, thanks for joining us here at SweetFFA as I expect you are busy at the moment with setting up the Eurogamer Expo. Just as a little bit of history how long have you been working over at EuroGamer? And how did you get involved?

 No problem, thanks for having me! Yep, it’s super busy at the moment, we’re just six weeks away from the start of the event and there’s still a tonne to do!

 I started at Eurogamer in May 2009 and while my main role is working on the expo, I’m also Eurogamer’s community manager.

 The story of how I joined EG is long and a bit boring. To keep it brief; I found myself at a loose end in Brighton in 2009, the EG guys happened to be looking for someone to help with the expo and they offered me the gig.

 

The Expo started in 2008 so it is still a fairly new venture but you seem to have grown at such a rate, what do you think led to such a quick growth?

Yep, the growth has been rapid and really encouraging. The reason behind it, without being too arrogant, is that each year we’ve put on a really good show and each year we've managed to improve it from the previous year.

 Publishers are confident that we’re able to put on a great show and that encourages them to support us and show their games every year. In the same way, gamers who come to the expo have a great time and always want to come back for more.

 

Do you think American shows like E3 help with the demand for similar events in the UK?

I think it helps as the profile of events like E3 gives gamers in the UK an idea about what to expect from the expo if they haven’t been before. However, we've never particularly liked comparisons to E3 as our event is a consumer show for gamers; E3 is a trade show aimed primarily at the press and other industry folk.

 We like to compare ourselves a bit more to something like PAX in the US which is a large consumer event a bit like ours.

 

How do you go start planning such an event? And do you find that having organised the expo for a few years now it gets easier each time?

Good question! We start planning very early, normally as soon as the previous year’s expo has finished. There are two of us at Eurogamer who work on the expo full time but we also have a great events company who help us by talking to various suppliers who build our stands, provide the electricity etc. All the boring stuff! There’s so much stuff to think about I’m always worried we might forget something vital. We have some brilliant partners who help us with other parts of the show; Replay organising our retro area, David Hayward with the indie arcade etc.

 I’m not sure it ever gets much easier! We put a lot of pressure on ourselves by upping the size of the show each year and adding more features. In 2008 we had a few thousand visitors over two days. This year we’re at Earls Court with 30,000 visitors over four days with something like 750 consoles and PCs. It’s a huge difference!

 

What’s the hardest part of the set up, day one of planning or the day before it all goes live with gamers?

The period we’re in now is the toughest time for me. We’re six weeks away from the start of the show and all our deadlines are arriving at once! We’ll get everything done that we need to do, it’s just pretty stressful. Actually, I really enjoy the show when it’s on. It’s exciting to see everything come together and it’s a great feeling when the first few people come through the doors.

 

Does being a fan/gamer as well as an organiser give you a positive attitude to the inevitable problems or do you find it sours what you used to love?

Hmm, interesting question. I don’t think anything could put me off games but during the show I kind of stop seeing them as games and just view them as potential problems. I think every year I end up playing about one game because I'm more interested in making sure that our attendees are having a great time.

 

What stand are we most like to see you at this year?

You’ll see me all over the place! I’ll be the guy roaming around the venue with a radio and a stressed look on my face. There are some games I’m really looking forward to seeing though; Battlefield, Arkham City, The Old Republic and Rage in particular.

 

How much time off do you give yourself at the end of all this before you have to say, here we go again?

I had half a day off after the expo in 2009. Last year I took a week off after and this year I'm going to Greece almost straight after we wrap up. Every year I seem to take a little bit more time off. Almost like each year the show is a little bit more sapping. :D

 

With games like Batman Arkham City and Battlefield 3 on offer which games might surprise us this year? (and why)

Well there are some massive games on show this year as well as a few lesser known titles. I'm a bit of a SEGA fanboy so their line up is interesting to me particularly as it features new IP (Intellectual Property) like Binary Domain, Renegade Ops and Anarchy Reigns. I'm super excited about the new Sonic game too. I'm also looking forward to checking out Dark Souls as it’s the sequel to Demon’s Souls and Saints Row 3. I was a huge fan the first two games, they were amazing fun.

 

Fifa or Pro Evo?

Ah! Well for ages I was all about PES (or ISS as it used to be called) but when this console generation kicked off the Fifa guys really picked up their game. I did, however, play a lot of PES 2011 and from what I’ve seen of PES 2012, it’s going to be a big challenge to Fifa this year.

 

And finally if you can, what are you 5 top games and why?

Well, I've been playing games for 25 years now so this is a pretty tricky question! I used to love (and still do) god games like Settlers and Theme Park so both of those would need to be in there. Football Manager as well; I've spent hours of my life on that game and it keeps getting better.

 Space trading games appear to be a dead genre (apart from EVE) but they were absolutely brilliant. I spent a lot of time exploring in Frontier: Elite II and so that’ll be in my top five, despite the bugs.

 Finally I’ll go for something a bit more recent; Saints Row 2. It was raw fun in a way that GTA IV wasn’t.

 

Thanks very much for your time.

No problem, thanks for the questions!

You can find out more from the Eurogamer Expo on Twitter @Eurogamer_Expo or from their own site http://www.eurogamer.net/expo/

Say What You See: iPhone. SWYS Books to Films

My wife found a great little game called SWYS (Say what You See) and the free one was American TV Series.

We then downloaded the Books Made to Films one and it's pretty tough. However I know I have one right but the spelling tells me I am wrong. That is annoying! OK So I just got it right and it was my spelling!

Still.....

I was thinking about posting up the answers, but not sure I will as I know there are a few online anyway.

Insane Portal Tricks. The man they call Schro.

This weekend I went to Manchester with some of the guys from http://www.sweetffa.com it was a great night out, even though I wimped out early. I am not a big drinker and frankly I finished a bottle of wine in the time it takes to give controversial goals in a London Derby match.

While this was all going on Andy (God and ruler of SFFA, nice guy too) kept updating us on our mate Schro's new video going viral around the web.

Not sure what I am talking about. Check it out.



Portal 2 is a new game from the makers of Half Life. The first one was a small game as part of the Orange box, and was a hit. People loved it. So they made more.

Now there are people out there like Schro (who can be found on a few youtube channels and at Sweet FFA) making videos of crazy and amazing Portal stunts, tricks and walk throughs.

I have a hard time getting my head into the logic of portal. But the videos are amazing.

So kudos to my online friendly, Schro, for making a video people want to see and can be found almost trending around the web.

Part 2 I am told is on the way.

Practice

So we had band practice last night and we had fun. A new song to be worked on, and finding out we have about 3 more in the pipe line. Plenty of work to do.

Today is the Thursday before the long bank holiday and my birthday. Weather is lovely and going for a few beers after work with Rich, Tom, Johnny and Jerry. Should be a good day!

Filming our life away

Some lucky fan wins the Foo Fighters to play in his garage.
Now he will (and his friends) enjoy that moment for ever. With the advent of technology we can make sure we capture this.

Watching the video, a fair few people are recording the event. Which means they are not getting mental to the band. Are we recording moments that we should be enjoying?

Are we capturing the moment on film to prove we were there. Are the stories no longer enough, a photo after?

I have been to a few gigs and found myself watching a song through the screen of a mobile as I try to record the song. Missing the point that I am there. They are playing this song now, not just on the record.

I get the feeling of hundreds of others enjoying the same thing I do.

What should we do? Well I am not sure we should do anything, but maybe we need to enjoy our own lives when they are happening and not try to film them to remember later....

Lack of Reviews.

I know no-one is reading this but I am apologising to myself for not sticking to my reviews.

I have not really seen anything recently that people won't have played or watched long before me.

I have been getting back into Skate 2 which is a nice surprise. That is until in annoys me again with some of the stupid challenges it expects you to be able to do.

I am also into the arcade game Full House Poker. I bought it by accident. I was trying to quit the game and impatiently pushing the buttons. Before I know it I have bought the game and am down 800 MS points. Bollocks.

Well it turns out it's quite a fun little poker game. Well designed. Easy to play. Seems to not want me to win.

It is almost my birthday.

So more films and CD's on the way.

I hope.....

Review 3 - The Mechanic

Thanks for watching. This is my review of the new Jason Statham film, The Mechanic.