FM14 Review

Football Manager is back
Dust off your suits, iron your shirts, and prepare your title-winning speeches, as a new new thrilling, nerve-wrecking adventure has arrived at your doorstep. Yes, that is right, Sports Interactive has released its latest game in its award winning series; Football Manager 2014. There have been a lot of changes made to the game this year in the interface, tactical system, how the AI opperates, and even in your own manager profile! In this review for FM14, I will cover every aspect of the game, and what has changed since last year’s game.


Your Manager
Sports Interactive have worked hard to include some new features for you, the manager, in this year’s game. A lot of them are minor, which you may or may not notice as you play through the game, so I will only discuss some of the more major new features.
In previous years when you were adding a new manager, you weren’t given many variables to fill in apart from the basics, such as your name, age, nationality, etc. This year, two things have been added; Place of Birth and Favourite Formation. While these are not overly important in the long haul, seeing new features added to the game so early on makes you even more eager to see what other new features have been included in this year’s game.

Another one of the more prominent new features in this year’s game is the addition of Headlines to the News tab. While not absolutely game-changing feature, the Headlines section is a quick and efficient way of scanning through all the news around the footballing world in your save.

The most striking new feature regarding your manager is when your board offers you a new contract. In preperation of sending you a new contract offer, they will want to discuss the current Club Vision with you. The Club Vision includes season expectations, transfer and wage budgets, club philosophies and board promises (facility upgrads, etc.). This is a much more exciting and organised way of discussing your vision for the club with your board, and certainly a brilliant new feature.


Interface
The work done by Sports Interactive on the interface of this year’s game is exemplary. A lot of the menus and pages look a lot fresher, and feel a lot nicer to use.There is certainly a great visual and functional element to the interface of this year’s game, and FMers will find it much more enjoyable than those of years gone by. In this section, I will highlight three key areas of the interface in this year’s game.

The home page has stayed exactly the same this year, which is a relief to me. I personally find the home page to be a very ogranised, player-friendly menu where you can easily see what you need to see, or access what you need to access with the click of a mouse. The layout is superb, and it looks good too.

Something which I really enjoy the look of is the new-look Club Background which you will receive in your inbox when you first sign for a club. It is very informative, very easy to understand, and it is presented very well. It is very easy on the eye, and something which Sports Interactive have really done well with this year.

The third, and final, interface feature which I would like to highlight is the new Stat Pack feature, which is available to you during the build-up to a match. This new feature will present to you valuable information on the statistics of your team, and your opponent’s team. These statistics include game records of the season, some basic player stats, results of the season, and a quick overview of the clubs’ league positions over the last ten seasons. This is a well delivered feature which football managers will find very useful when building up to a game.



The Board
Not much has changed in terms of your club’s board this year, apart from some basic AI changes. Boards are now less likely to sack managers after a brief drop in form, and they will now set more realistic season expectations. The overall interaction system with the board is still relatively the same, and they will still offer you the same request features as in previous years.



Players
There have been several new features regarding players in terms of their profiles, and interacting with them. The smaller features would be on the interaction side of things, as you can now ask your captain to welcome a new signing to the club, which will help your new signing settle in and possibly build a good inter-squad relationship. Another new, small interaction feature is the ability to be able to tell a player why he is being sold while you are in the midst of sorting out a deal to take him away from the club. These two features are very nice, small additions which will help to make this game more enjoyable, as you can now communicate with your players even more than before.

The first big, new feature introduced for players is the Development tab in their profile, which was once occupied by the Training tab in older versions of the game. The Development tab contains two items; an Advice section, and the Training section, which is the same as last year’s. The Advice section is a new feature brought in by Sports Interactive, and this is where you can see your coaches’ opinions on a particular player’s training, how he fits in to your tactic, man managing him, the player’s status, and the player’s development. This is a very useful section if you are looking to maximise the potential of a young player, or even see how an older player is performing, according to your coaches.

The second big, new feature introduced for players is the Analysis section in the Reports tab of a player’s profile. This is where you can see how a player performed in certain areas of a match, such as his shooting, passing, headers, average positions, etc. This is a very useful feature when looking to see how a particular player is performing on the pitch, and you now don’t have to sift through whole match reports for this information.



Training
The training system has remained the same from last year, no real changes to it. However, there have been a couple of minor changes to the accessibility of certain training information, such as the monthly training report and a new menu called Training Overview. The monthly report is no longer a large piece of text, it is now a lot more graphically presented and looks nicer than before. The Training Overview is a brilliant menu which provides information on training focus, notable training performences, squad fitness, and squad training happiness. These two features make getting information on your squad’s training levels much easier, and makes the game flow a lot nicer.



The Tacical System
This has changed dramatically since last year’s game. The whole idea of sliders have been removed, and have instead been replaced with, what were Touchline Instructions in last year’s game, Team Instructions and Player Instructions which tells your team and players what to do, without it seeming like you can dictate every single move a player makes. The whole new system gives your players more freedom to express themselves, which can be a pain if you are managing a weak team, but a good thing if you are managing a very strong team. Matches are no longer decided by sliders, they come down to tactical balance, player quality, and other important factors. This year’s tactical system is certainly a jump from an unrealistic, predictable one to an exciting, unpredictable and vibrant one where your players dictate your team’s performance.



The Match Engine
A large amount of FMers were unhappy with last year’s Match Engine, and this year’s Match Engine got a massive overhaul. Everything about it has improved, from the way the players act on the pitch, to how tactics work on the pitch, to how conditions effect the play, and so on. This year’s Match Engine allows players to be more expressive than ever and gives them the freedom to leave their mark on a game. This will mean you will see some unbelievable skill runs from the likes of Ronaldo, Neymar, etc., and you will some daftly executed long-range passes from the likes of Xavi, Schweinsteiger, etc. This year’s Match Engine is a vast improvement from last year’s one, and it will certainly bring some memorable gameplay.



Transfers
This year’s transfer system is the most advanced and realistic one yet. Say goodbye to ridiculous fees for lower quality players, it will rarely ever happen anymore. Several new features have been added to the transfer side of FM this year, such as the ability to loan a new signing back to the club you bought him from for a season, different clauses such as player loan exchange, fee after getting promotion, and so on. The ability to suggest a bid to your transfer target’s club in search of a quick response is indeed a useful addition to this game, and will make managers’ lives easier.

The biggest improvement to the transfer system this year, in my opinion, isn’t to what we, the FMers can do, but what the AI do. I have noticed that for once, the AI buy players for a certain position which they really need to strengthen, and they sign players who are either good enough to start, or will be in the future. For example, in one of my saves, Arsenal signed Micah Richards, Hector Moreno and Chris Smalling to improve their scarce defence. Wise moves, in my opinion, and they certainly looked stronger as a result.



Scouting
Scouting’s functions hasn’t changed at all since last year, but the interface of scout reports have changed dramatically. Instead of being large amounts of texts with linked player profiles for you to click through, a lot of the information which you may need is now available for you to look at directly for you to look at. It is certainly more user friendly, and will make your life a lot easier.



Contract Negotiations
The whole system for contract negotiations remains the same; a live, interactive settlement between you and a player/staff member. Sports Interactive have added some extra clauses for both players and staff members, but there are no drastic changes, not that any drastic changes were needed with an already almost perfect part of the game.



Other Features
I have now covered all the main features of FM14, but there are still a few new features which I haven’t told you about. For example, the ability to attend a press-conference while remaining in your inbox, which is undoubtedly a much-needed feature which will make you sigh with relief. Other new features include the contreversial Financial Fair Play, manager hiring odds, and a new, revamped Match Preview screen. These are all great, new features which really add to this fantastic game.



Review
Is this game an improvement from FM13? There is only one answer for this. The leap made from FM13 to FM14 is an enormous, and impressive, one. Sports Interactive have really stepped up their game this year and have produced a fantastic game, yet again. They took a huge risk with the completely new tactical system, which will take time for FMers to get used to, but I do think that the risk taken has paid off and has helped make this game the best of its kind. For any FM newbies, it would be a good idea to play some of the tutorials in the game as they will certainly help you to understand the game and how it works. For all you FM veterans, good luck on your next adventure and hopefully you will have some great memories from playing FM14. Good luck to all of you FMers this year, and thank you Sports Interactive for producing a masterclass in video gaming!