Luiz Poppi

I'm a big fan of FM series! I play since CM3, and I'll be playing as long as Sigames continues making this amazing game.

Since I've been playing, the game has had many and great improvements, but for a couple of seasons it seems the FM series have stopped in time, and sometimes have gone back...

This new realease FM 2008 disappointed me in a way that never happened before. The poor 2D match engine and the continuous bugs made me look for other games (I know it's temp)!

For the first time since Eidos and Sigames split up the series I played a CM game, CM 2008. And I use this opportunity to evaluate if FM is really the best and where FM can improve comparing with their competitors.

Sigames, chill out, your game still the best, but there are some points I found very interesting in CM'08 which you could incorporate in FM...

CM'08:

- CM have an option which simulates the world's major leagues even you not choosing to create a game with that league (THAT'S REAL LIFE).

- CM is much, MUCH more lighter.... Okay, the interface is not that beatiful... FM improved a lot in this matter this season!

- CM match engine is much more interesting!!! 3D!! FM match engine seems to have stopped in time! In CM you can choose which are the "key moments" and what else you want to watch (handball, fouls, yellow cards, throw-ins, etc...)

- CM also have the option to run the game in window mode!! Come on Sigames I do other stuff while I play (downloads, listen music, etc...) I'm tired of Atl-esc all the time...

- CM has also an interesting option which I always wanted in FM. You can customize a Squad LIST. Today you can choose the "Selection" "Attacking", "Mental", etc... In CM you can customize which columns will be shown and you create this customized view.

- CM has the option when you search for a player (atributes, position, nationality) you can also put the name of the player (It's not the quick search)...

- CM you can choose the angle of the match engine (It's 3D), and also have an interesting tool to help you analyze the game and the opponents... PROZONE!

These are some of the things I could notice...

Before anyone post asking me to stop playing FM since I'm complaining, this is a research, and it can help to Sigames improve their game!!
FM is way much better than CM, but don't stop in time just because you are the best! You can always IMPROVE!!!!

Good Luck!

- Luiz Poppi
Santos F. C. - The Home of the God Pelé!
Brazil, SP.

sergent21

I agree 100% here, seems to have not gone forward as much as was expected, although more realistic games, in my opinion, has helped.

I do agree with some of the points, particulaly about the key highlights, it would be nice if I could select what I call "key"

RedRob

This has been in FM since I can remember.

Povl

You can also run FM in window-mode. It's been possible as for at least the last three years.

You just choose not to run the game windowed.

/Povl

Luiz Poppi

This has been in FM since I can remember. </BLOCKQUOTE>

Sorry!!! I lost myself!!

ajw

Heres what I had to say about it in another thread

Let me preface this by saying I have been a long time player of CM/FM starting with 91/92 I think and staying with the development team after the split with the publisher. With the disappointment of finding FM08 to have several very serious bugs I decided to take a look at CM08 and down loaded the demo.

In many ways CM seems like an old version of FM with an ugly and inconvenient interface. The first thing that will frustrate you is the inelegant interface that requires you to constantly go back to the home screen to get simple tasks done.
The size of the font and often the choice of colours can make reading text difficult at times.
Several important screens seem badly laid out and in general the whole experience is clunky.

Training see you choose between a number of preset routines from another badly designed interface. You have no control over which coaches take what sessions and very little information about what your choices are going to do for the player’s stats.
The affects of training are indicated only in the numbers another annoyance as you have to remember each player’s entire stat line to know how your training regime is affecting them.

Tactically it also seems like you are stepping back in time no sliders here just a number of choices that amount to small medium or large. Closing down, never, own half or always. Passing, Long, Direct, Mixed or Short. In fact all you tactical choices are more limited then FM although a wysiwyg pitch placement system lets you line your players up exactly as you like want to play narrow move your wide men in want to sit back and defend the edge of your box just pull all your defenders back to that line and set the off side line there. The tactics screen has one hugely annoying omission you can’t decide the order of your captains so before every match you need to check who has been assigned the captaincy.

Players scouting seems straight forward and I was particularly impressed by the short helpful sentences that manage to describe a player’s strength and weaknesses in a few lines. The actual buying of players is very similar to FM with all the clauses and negotiation options you could want.

Media interaction is mercifully absent or maybe just hugely reduced I didn’t get the barrage of repetitive questions again and again.
Player interaction on the other hand had one huge advantage the ability to tell players why they are not in the team be it poor performance a tactical decision or just to rest them.

When all's said and done a management simulation lives and dies by the verisimilitude of the match day experience and in this regard I believe CM is presently beating FM.
The pre-match team talk offers a horribly small choice of three speeches for the team which are frequently all unsuitable. You can also talk to the players individually but this suffers from the same problem. The one great thing about team talks is the inability to accidentally skip you must confirm your choice to exit the screen.

The match itself happens mostly in a scrolling text bar along the bottom of the screen but you have a huge choice of what to watch on the 3d pitch want to see all corners you can, want to see all long range shots you can. CM has a huge edge over FM in the flexibility it offers you in how much and which events you see in the match.
The highlights are shown on a 3d pitch with cylinders representing players the default view gives a great sense of the height of the ball. Play itself is very well represented players making sensible runs and choosing reasonable passes defenders likewise take up good positions and look to stay between their man and the goal. The 3d view gives a better sense of what’s going on you can see when a player has jumped for the ball or when a player has miscontroled a pass. The sense of watching a real match is greater and the immersion you feel in your virtual job is all the more because of it.

In conclusion I’m seriously tempted to switch my loyalties to put up with the interface and slightly dated options for the more realistic simulation of football.
When SI separated from Eidos I didn’t give CM a second though I knew the game I loved belonged to SI and its come as something of a shock to me to find that at long last SI might not be producing the undisputed king of football management simulators.

Rahat

I have played CM and posted in another thread how CM are trying to outdo themselves. Competition is always good but CM 08 for me is rather pathetic. They have made improvements, some of which SI might want to take on board like ProZone, but 3D match engine is a BIG NO! Think of how many bugs this would create etc.

CM is improving but still a childs game compared to FM.

Kriss

Hard to take the rest of your comments seriously when you start with something like that.

The ME has advanced hugely this year, the parameters were tweaked wrongly to give things like the closing down problem but they are being untweaked.

Player movement and intelligence has been enhanced with lots of little behaviour additions that you actually have to watch for sometimes.

The CM engine is superficial repeated animations which bear little resemblance to actual on pitch action, I tried to see positives but it's just awful.

Prozone is a half decent idea poorly implemented.
I still see CM as a game for people wanting a quick football fix and FM as an in depth and very time consuming one.

Both have there place imo but are different enough that comparisons are sometimes invalid.

Giziar

Isn't that the same as selecting leagues as View-Only in FM?

Younger Crayola

None?

Well, that's not entirely true, but there's absolutely no reason why a 3D view would suddenly destroy the entire game. It seems to me that too many people are incapable of separating a graphical view from the underlying processing. Suddenly sticking the game in 3D won't turn your entire team into blithering idiots.