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Football Manager 2012 |OT| Of why the heck is this so popular?

C

Card Boy

Banned
football-manager-2012-cover.jpg



Developer: Sports Interactive
Publisher: SEGA
Platform: PC / Mac (Steamplay) and PSP
Price: $39.99 USD
Genre: Sports
Where: Retail and online at

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Also at:

d2d_digi.png

impulse_digi.png

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gm_digi.png



About the Game

Counting over 800 new features, not including changes to the rules of the games 50+ leagues, Football Manager 2012 promises to be the most realistic, immersive and playable football management simulation ever for any fan who has ever dreamed of making the big decisions, both on and off the field.

Key New & Improved Features

  • Transfers & Contracts – significant changes to the transfer and contract systems, including loyalty bonuses, better implementation of amateur and youth contracts, an improved transfer centre and the ability to lock areas of the contract negotiation when you aren't prepared to budge. This helps you to manage your budgets and gives you flexibility in what you offer money hungry players, or agents, as incentives.

  • Scouting improvements – using several real life scouting reports, a new in-game report has been devised which includes squad analysis, tactics information and information about goals scored and conceded alongside lots of other scouting improvements, giving you all the information you need to prepare before kick-off and throughout the season.

  • 3D Match Improvements – new animations, a whole new crowd system, improved weather system, more stadiums, plus two brand new cameras - "Behind Goal" and "Director Cam" as well as all other camera angles being reversible – meaning you can watch and analyse every aspect of every game.

  • Manage Anywhere, Anytime – the ability to add or take away playable nations in your saved game as often as you want. Manage in that country at the start of the next season- meaning you don’t have to stay in the nations which are chosen by you to be playable at the start of your career.

  • Tone – a whole new level has been added to team talks and conversations, with the new tone system, which allows you to specify the way you want to say things – be as cool as a cucumber by saying things calmly or throw tea cups around by saying things with passion. There are 6 different tones to choose from with specific comments per tone.

  • Intelligent Interface – a new adaptive layout system, which means the higher your screen resolution, the more info is easily at your fingertips. The new interface also contains new filters, customisable columns, a new tactics screen, and lots of new overview screens.

  • Brand New Tutorial – standing separate from the main game, a mode to help new players find their way around the game easily, whilst also offering tips to experienced managers on how to get the most out of the game, as well as a new in-game “how to” system.

Screenshots

adaptive_layout___club_screen_high_engwip_lrg.jpg

adaptive_layout___club_screen_medium_engwip_lrg.jpg

team_report___goal_analysis_engwip_lrg.jpg
 
R

Raide

Member
I jokingly called this type of game "E-mail dice" when a few of my friends got into it many moons ago. Even to this day I still have no idea why people like it. :D
 
J

Jackano

Member
Yeap. Jumped in again this year.

At first, I would like to complain about Steam (yeah, I know, but still! :) ):
I got the retail game earlier last week, and I had to wait 4 other days to play it because Steam won't let you install before the official release. This is bullshit.
I have a game, legally payed at full price (50€/maybe 65US$), and can't play it.
So here are two side effects of this:
- Very fortunately, LFP manager demo was out the same day. So, I checked out the ennemy in this 3-4 days wait;
- If by buying the game I have to wait, I think next year, I will wait for the free, cracked version instead.


For the game itself now:
New interface, very complete; More complete indeed, but I don't find it particularly more ergonomic.
I look forward to the new dynamic reputation leagues, and shifting actives leagues between seasons.
No much to say, I only played a full season so far, same old good FM!
 
L

Larsen B

Member
Still playing the demo since launch and waiting for a price drop but, man, this is so good.

I haven't played FM seriously since 08 so it's been nice/bad to get completely drawn back in.

Gez said:
I'm new to the series how do i play online?
Click to expand...

Pretty sure you can only play online as a networked game. I know people had online games last year with VPN servers but in terms of there being online leagues, you'd want Football Manager Online for that.
 
F

fanboi

Banned
Jackano said:
Yeap. Jumped in again this year.

At first, I would like to complain about Steam (yeah, I know, but still! :) ):
I got the retail game earlier last week, and I had to wait 4 other days to play it because Steam won't let you install before the official release. This is bullshit.
I have a game, legally payed at full price (50€/maybe 65US$), and can't play it.
So here are two side effects of this:
- Very fortunately, LFP manager demo was out the same day. So, I checked out the ennemy in this 3-4 days wait;
- If by buying the game I have to wait, I think next year, I will wait for the free, cracked version instead.

For the game itself now:
New interface, very complete; More complete indeed, but I don't find it particularly more ergonomic.
I look forward to the new dynamic reputation leagues, and shifting actives leagues between seasons.
No much to say, I only played a full season so far, same old good FM!
Click to expand...

Thin ice my friend... thin ice.
 
C

Card Boy

Banned
Any advice for a newbie?

Omi posted this in AusGaf, can anyone expand?

Omi said:
My first few pieces of advice for any FM game start:
1) Sign new/improved coaches. This will help endlessly. Get the best your side can afford.
2) Get into the training area and balance the coaches for the most star ratings for each job. If you can get it down to each coach doing just the one job, awesome.
3) Check out your squad and look for the massive gaping holes in it, unless you are playing a top 3-4 side, you will have some. Even use the 'Team Report' feature to help. Its actual super improved with a full breakdown of squad depth this year. V.nice.
4) Get rid of the dross in your squad and fill it with youth prospects.
5) Loan players from top end clubs (especially in Div 2 or lower) are the way to go. I picked up Yaya Sanogo on loan after Manyoo bought him. Killing it so far and only 18.
Click to expand...
 
W

woodsey1982

Member
Putting of buying it this year. Only put 270 hours into last years version - which is a hell of a drop in my usual play time. Still, with the right price drop I could be interested.....
 
L

Labadal

Member
I won't buy it this year, but I think one of my brothers will. This means I will be playing it sooner or later.
 
F

fanboi

Banned
Also, is it as buggy as it usualy is?

Last version if I remember had this huge problem with 10s of goals each match in the earlier versions.
 
Q

qwerty2k

Member
Finding that Fm is becoming too much effort/complicated for my liking, still bought it and put 10+ hours in already (got for like £23 which is sooo cheap imo for the hours i will put into it), anyone else find the back button annoying now though? i swear previously it used to work better, if i click on a plsyer and click on different screens for that player back button now takes me back all through the screens i clicked on for that player instead of just back to the player search screen etc, annoying.
 
L

Larsen B

Member
qwerty2k said:
Finding that Fm is becoming too much effort/complicated for my liking, still bought it and put 10+ hours in already (got for like £23 which is sooo cheap imo for the hours i will put into it), anyone else find the back button annoying now though? i swear previously it used to work better, if i click on a plsyer and click on different screens for that player back button now takes me back all through the screens i clicked on for that player instead of just back to the player search screen etc, annoying.
Click to expand...

Whilst this is somewhat true, you can also let your assistant manager take care of everything like press conferences/team talks/training so you can focus on tactics and team selection like Championship Manager was all about.
 
M

Manager

Member
Jackano said:
Yeap. Jumped in again this year.

At first, I would like to complain about Steam (yeah, I know, but still! :) ):
I got the retail game earlier last week, and I had to wait 4 other days to play it because Steam won't let you install before the official release. This is bullshit.
I have a game, legally payed at full price (50€/maybe 65US$), and can't play it.
So here are two side effects of this:
- Very fortunately, LFP manager demo was out the same day. So, I checked out the ennemy in this 3-4 days wait;
- If by buying the game I have to wait, I think next year, I will wait for the free, cracked version instead.
Click to expand...

You haven't thought of that maybe that's one of the reasons publishers use Steam?

It will stop retailers from taking advantage of early releases. Someone made a mistake selling you it that early. Official release dates are official release dates. Working part-time in retailing, I know how fucking pissed publishers can be about broken street dates. And your last sentence is just flat out idiotic.

Rikkun said:
US paying it 40$ made me reconsider buying it.
Steam wants 50€ :\
Click to expand...

Buy it from any other site and activate it on Steam. GreenManGaming, Gamersgate et all have it for €25.
 
S

sohois

Member
Gez said:
Any advice for a newbie?

Omi posted this in AusGaf, can anyone expand?
Click to expand...

What team are you starting with?

Generally omi's advice is pretty good, a couple of general things to add to it. In addition to coaches, good scouts are also very important and as their wages tend to be low you can usually hire a lot of them. Set a couple of them to regions like Central Europe and South America, a few to individual leagues and the others you should send maybe to individual nations.

Another thing is you'll want to spend a good period of time setting up a formation and tactics for your team. This'll be more difficult if you don't know much about football and you may wish to stick the presets but really you can improve upon them if you put in a bit of effort. Generally you should choose a formation that is suited to your team and its strengths i.e. if you have a number of good centre midfielders you may want to choose a 4-3-3, whereas if you are strong in central defence then 5-3-2 may be the better formation.
 
R

Rad-

Member
I have bought FM/CM like 13 years in a row now. Not even kidding. Since CM3. I think I'm not buying it this year though. :/

Lulz I will...
 
M

Manager

Member
Gez said:
Any advice for a newbie?

Omi posted this in AusGaf, can anyone expand?
Click to expand...

Many find tactics incredibly booring (and hard) and find joy in transfers etc instead. You could download pre-made tactics from the official forums, but it would of course kill the joy of finding a succesful tactic. Still, as a noob, it may be hard to instantly create an awesome tactic.
 
T

Tijnisch

Neo Member
I remember winning the Champions League with a dutch club in FM 2011 and then thinking: "What now, I've accomplished EVERYTHING. I'm done with this".
I am now 10 years further into the game.
 
M

Mike.83

Member
Rad- said:
I have bought FM/CM like 13 years in a row now. Not even kidding. Since CM3. I think I'm not buying it this year though. :/

Lulz I will...
Click to expand...

CM2 was my first, though it was the CM97/97 edition that really got me hooked.

Since around CM99-00 I've been playing every Friday night with a friend and my brother in a hot seat game, we have a great time. Just started our FM12 save last Friday going with our usual teams :D
 
W

Wes

venison crêpe
Only thing stopping me from buying this is assignments and BF3 taking up the only gamign time I'll have.

The features I saw in the demo were great though. The team/individual talk improvements come to mind.
 
K

Kem0sabe

Member
Yet again SI releases another piece of fucked up buggy software. It´s not worth a day 1 buy, just wait for the subsequent patches to fix the game.
 
olimpia84

olimpia84

Member
I got this over the weekend and it's my return to the series since FM2007. The amount of options and settings has increased so much is not even funny so I guess it will take some time for me to get adjusted. I picked Betis from La Liga to begin so I'll have a tough time I'm sure since they are one of the weaker sides so we'll see how I cope with them.
 
A

Awesome Animals

Member
What team has everyone began playing with? I couldn't play with my beloved Aston Villa, so I went with a French National Division team, Paris FC. I'm not even out of the preseason yet though ><
 
B

Brinbe

Member
Oh god, I sunk thousands of hours into FM 2011... haven't bought 12 yet because I know I'll get sucked right back in. But I'll probably crack soon enough. Damn FM. =(

Also, as with every FM, downloading the real comp names fix/deleting all that crap in the INC folder, should be the very first thing you do before starting a game.
 
N

Nyx

Member
Awesome Animals said:
What team has everyone began playing with? I couldn't play with my beloved Aston Villa, so I went with a French National Division team, Paris FC. I'm not even out of the preseason yet though ><
Click to expand...

With my beloved FC Utrecht, as always. :)
 
C

Card Boy

Banned
sohois said:
What team are you starting with?
Click to expand...

I went local and chose Melbourne Victory in the Hyundai A-League (Australian), since i live in Melbourne.

First match i did was a friendly against the Melbourne Victory Youth Club and 2 of my star players went down with injuries for 2 months lol (Archie Thompson and some other guy). I still won in the end. Half my team got yellow carded aswell.

I think i might make a new save game.
 
D

DaNcaKe

Member
I don't know if it's just me, but I can't really get into this game without a face/kit/logo pack download.

The generated faces/generic badges make me ill.
 
G

gate777

Member
I'm not sure when to get this. Between Dark Souls and GT5 Spec 2.0 I'll have a hard time giving this a go. If I do install it though, say goodbye to social life/significant other time.

Should be called Football Manager 2012: Enjoy your addiction.
 
S

Shalashaska

Member
fanboi said:
Also, is it as buggy as it usualy is?

Last version if I remember had this huge problem with 10s of goals each match in the earlier versions.
Click to expand...
There's a very big bug with goalies not getting set to the proper training regiment on CPU teams (human as well but obviously you can put them on the right on). So all goalies are regressing as time goes on because of it.
 
olimpia84

olimpia84

Member
Awesome Animals said:
What team has everyone began playing with? I couldn't play with my beloved Aston Villa, so I went with a French National Division team, Paris FC. I'm not even out of the preseason yet though ><
Click to expand...

Real Betis. Only two games in the preseason and I just started to realize how hard it's going to win and avoid relegation in La Liga.
 
O

Omikron

Member
sohois said:
What team are you starting with?

Generally omi's advice is pretty good, a couple of general things to add to it. In addition to coaches, good scouts are also very important and as their wages tend to be low you can usually hire a lot of them. Set a couple of them to regions like Central Europe and South America, a few to individual leagues and the others you should send maybe to individual nations.

Another thing is you'll want to spend a good period of time setting up a formation and tactics for your team. This'll be more difficult if you don't know much about football and you may wish to stick the presets but really you can improve upon them if you put in a bit of effort. Generally you should choose a formation that is suited to your team and its strengths i.e. if you have a number of good centre midfielders you may want to choose a 4-3-3, whereas if you are strong in central defence then 5-3-2 may be the better formation.
Click to expand...

This is pretty much right, but hard to suggest a specific formation, as it is SO dependant on your squad. Also, if Gez doesn't know a heap about football, he might not even know what the numbers mean :D ;)

The assistants are getting better at suggesting to the player what they think will be a good starting point however. From there it is a matter of getting into the tactic and tweaking to specifics I find.

Then there is the training schedules... sigh :)

FWIW, I have started the game as West Ham (surprise!) and about 1/3 of the way through the season, up top by 4 pts or so I think, which really isn't that surprising as WHU squad is pretty good for Championship level.
 
S

sohois

Member
Gez said:
I went local and chose Melbourne Victory in the Hyundai A-League (Australian), since i live in Melbourne.

First match i did was a friendly against the Melbourne Victory Youth Club and 2 of my star players went down with injuries for 2 months lol (Archie Thompson and some other guy). I still won in the end. Half my team got yellow carded aswell.

I think i might make a new save game.
Click to expand...

I don't really know much about playing outside of the european leagues so i couldn't tell you much, but:

-For a weaker team, loans are your friend. Check the loan list and simply arrange by value for a decent idea of the strongest players to loan. However, there are many players who will not be on the loan list but will be available for loan, so it's often worth going around the big teams and simply offering to loan their fringe players and youth prospects. You should rarely have to pay more than 50% of someone's wages. Also very useful is getting your assistant manager to compile loan players availability report.

-For transfers, the transfer list is a perfectly fine tool, you can find some real bargains and note that often players will be available for less than their actual value. Your main tool for finding players will be your scouts however, so as i said hire lots of good ones. I'm not sure what kind of work permit restrictions the A-league has, or what scouting restrictions your team has, but in general south america and central europe will produce the most players, plus whatever nations you picked to play with will have more players than non-playable nations. If your scouts find a player that seems good, make sure you get another scout to provide reports, don't just rely on one opinion.
 
I

InertiaXr

Member
Is it ok if we talk about FM2011 in here as well?

I just played the demo/bought that about 2 months ago and now have 250 hours in it according to Steam. I played close to a full season with 3-4 teams before I really got the hang of what it's all about and how to manage my team, etc.

I ended up picking Everton a couple weeks ago and just finished my first year, winning both the FA Cup and the League Cup while finishing 9th in the Premier League due to a late season collapse. (was 6th for half the season....) My board gave me a 200k/week increase in wages and about 35 million transfer budget for my 2nd year, compared to no transfer budget at all at the start of my first season. I'm now in the offseason trying to figure out what striker I should sign for about 25 million or so, they were clearly the weak point of my team last season and I need to probably replace both of my starters from last season, but I can't decide on a good combo. I tried signing Hulk from Porto for 25mil and got my offer accepted, but then he wouldn't even talk to me in negotiations.....any recommendations?
 
B

Broder Salsa

Banned
Finished my first season with Palermo, Juventus cheated me on the second last match when they beat me 3-0 at home, if I had just gotten a draw I would have won the league. But oh well, fantastic start to reaching the semi finals of the europa league too.

oK7d8.jpg

lol Roma
 
K

kharma45

Member
Finding the lower leagues in England a real challenge, was hoping to get Bath promoted straight away via play-offs but it's looking like that may not happen!
 
B

Broder Salsa

Banned
Yeah lower league team can be a bitch. I started up a game controlling Wimbledon but I thought I would rather go with Palermo first.
 
C

Cigol

Member
The player talks can be real hit and miss but when they do hit it's genuinely good stuff;



Knocked my socks off reading that!
 
K

Keyser Soze

Member
I have not really played these games solidly since the days of "Tó Madeira," which is now 10 year ago :O

..I think I tried FM 2008, but could not get into it again.
 
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