ajeffreys0

I have fifa manager 08, and I noticed a few things about it. First of all the interface looks really good, although it is also very confusing to begin with, especailly in comparison to FM. It has some pretty cool features such as setting up a family, buying a house, furniture etc and it is more indepth with finance, for example you can control merchandise sales. The fact that you can set the difficulty may also appeal to some. However, the 3d match engine is flawed as it does not exactly mirror the tactics you set, and the engine itself has bugs etc, although there are 3d patches released by the community to try and make this situation a little better. The fact thay you can control a player in a match is cool for a while, but soon it gets annoying as it is actually quite hard, adn anyway it is not really what the game is about. Overall I would say give it a try, as it is clear that a lot of effort has been put into it and it has quite a few nice features (even an inbuilt mp3 player for your own songs)

Svenc

My first reaction to FM08 was the same. That is, SI's FM08. Coming from the On The Ball series, I used to play EA's manager until I stumbled upon SI a month ago. It's just a matter of getting used to it - I honestly though the menu structure was a bit of a mess at first. Didn't have any problems with the FIFA demo at all though.

That said, there are some areas where EA's manager (it's not really an EA game in that sense, btw) is vastly superior. This year they went into great details with local specifics: Not only are there twenty somethings leagues in Spain, in Austria they also implemented the "Österreichertopf", which grants clubs money that rely on Austrian players. With SI it appears to be the same model for each country, doesn't matter where, which also breaks the game some times: Ever tried to play in a German lower league for example and had to deal with the fact that without constant unrealistic friendlies of your second team you don't have a chance of coming close to cover the expenditures
of a club?

Which brings me to the financial part, and I don't mean that with EA you're in control of more things, it's just that it's far more solid a simulation than what SI has come up with so far. SI still seems to rely on a board suddenly pumping money into a club once the bank account smells fishy. In EA's game, clubs can face bankruptcy and get relegated for being in debt that tad too much. In country's that do this to clubs, that is. And since the financial simulation is just that more solid, I'd guess you'll hardly face that lower leagues problem I described above.

'tis an area that I'm a little disappointed with SI's FM - particularly because money is what modern football's all about. Still, I bought SI's game, since as with the Football Manager series, FIFA Manager gets an update once a year, and in all honesty the difference between an older version I own and the current one made me hesitate a bit. Well that, and I like SI's match engine, transfer market mechanics and their effort to simulate the whole wide world of football, even though it sometimes indeeed appears all England in a couple of various sometimes a little ill-fitting coatings.

Svenc

Oops, well that and that FM08 is a solid game, really. Stil a cross between the best parts of each game, now that'd be something.

hmw2

Agreed with Svenc summary, the financial aspect is far far superior to FM08. And there are lots of really nice cool features such as managing your personal life along side the football management, an in built mp3 player, far more complex player interaction, and far more control over club facilities.

Only problems with it so far is that the interface is quite messy, and it doesn't feel quite as in depth as FM08 in terms of player/coach stats.

George Graham

Ive been playing Fifa Manager too- I tend to ignore the football parts and just play the chairman role.

Its a nice change of style from FM which although still the best, is starting to feel a bit like a broken record now.

JohMil

As was suggested on this thread I downloaded the demo last night and gave it a go. Fair play to those that enjoy it but I definitely won’t be going back to it.

I’m sure you get used to the interface but it seemed very clunky after FM. Match day experience I didn’t enjoy at all. In fact, when the best thing about Fifa 08 is that I got to give myself a very hot (and much younger!) wife, then it’s fair to say it’s not really what I want from a football management game...

That said, I did like some of the little touches - eg the maps which show you where all the clubs are – be great if FM could incorporate that somehow.