FOOTBALL MANAGER 2018 - Review

What has been an obsession, has become over the last few years in a forgotten love affair, have gone about 5 since the last time I made more than one season in the simulator of football coaches. And no, none of this was related to the fact that Sports Interactive's title hacking has plummeted in recent editions, it's more a matter of how much media consumption these days. I have always been a supporter that FM was one of the best video games ever to be played on a second screen, but honestly, I start to put that hypothesis into question, today the game includes so many variables, so much that deserves our attention , it becomes difficult to split FM with anything else, much less with a series or movie, as so many times had done.

But let's break it down, by creating our coach profile in the new FM 2018, we are easily in doubt if this is one more RPG (but very bad ones), because we are offered the possibility of putting an avatar to our "image" , the 'Special One' version that we will use throughout our career. We can even add a photo of ourselves and the system does the rest, but for some reason, I must be too ugly because it did not recognize enough landmarks in my face. I chose to choose between the various possibilities that went there for face and structure, forming a miserable Reed Richards version of suit and tie.


As an adept of Futebol Clube do Porto (do not close the page, calm down), this is the club I took on, and let me tell you, the beginning is a real challenge. 1 - Because being intervened, the club does not have any means investments. E 2 - Because it is not easy to do better than Sérgio Conceição has done. Still, the current coach's method is the right one, even for FM, betting on players who were on loan, and ensuring that we get a good spa environment. That the team is personally committed to us.

 
The management of the emotional side is a whole other dimension, which runs in parallel with the tactical part (fortunately the two are common sense for a football fan, we think), quickly the players ask for private conversations to justify why not to be a first choice, if they win a League Cup (Believe that?), they want a contract improvement, even if it ends in 2020, and I do not even like to remind waiting for us to present a first declaration of intent, just to start negotiations. If they do not like what they have heard, nor with the player can we speak, this to have employees are things of other times. Fortunately we can demand that the player dismiss the agent, I have never gone that far sincerely.
Fiddling with the sensibilities of all this is the results of the team clear, but not only, all the interaction, or absence of it, has consequences, so going back to the starting point, is not properly immersion, but FM requires more attention than that which I remembered. Behind this human management is one of the novelties of this year's edition, what they call "Dynamics", which involves the balance between the bathing atmosphere, which has its own hierarchy, individual and social group; the cohesion between athletes, certain pairs of players match better than others, and even our own relationships with other coaches and players. Chateiem someone like Luisão and you will see the consequence in the disposition of the rest of the athletes, refuse the requests of the Bruno Varela, and probably nobody will want to know.

The Sports Interactive database has a Guinness dimension, historically and especially in the way it moves through the passage of time. In relation to the first, do you discuss with your friends which player scored the most goals in a football season in Portugal? Easy, ask FM, it was Héctor Yazalde in 73/74 with 46 goals in the service of Sporting Clube de Portugal. Want to know the exact difference between the number of national champion titles? Even easier, ask Bruno de Carva ... FM, I want to say.
Throughout the game are thousands of data points that converge and influence each other, in a game of odds and mathematical decisions disguised as football. Here are some of the new features of FM 2018, Scouting or Sports Scientist to give some examples, although I think that the changes made have a more invisible character, and even better, being more related to the way information is treated by behind the interface, and how it is shown to us in its most relevant form, in this case, through expert analysis, before, during and between games.
The change in scouting comes in the sense of trying to approach the demand of new players with what happens in reality. In the case of Portuguese football, the changes are of relative importance, serving more to accompany the detail, and in the simplest way possible, as the club's youth are evolving. Curious to record the investment results that clubs have made for some time in the training, because by looking at the top clubs of our league, it is amazing the amount of wonderkids about to appear to occupy a prominent place in world football. If you do not believe me, check it out in the FMScouts of this life (or in the gallery of images below where there are also some).

In the field of transfers, Sports Interactive ensured that this year's edition would reflect today's market volatility, evident with PSG's million-dollar signings in the last week. I wish I could confirm it, but the craziest thing I can document is the sale of Ricardo Pereira to Arsenal for € 30 million, and the bargain that costs Vincent Aboubakar's missing pass on FM compared to real life.
 
Turning to the more technical-tactical side of the game, I'm lone of being a master of tactics, but Sports Interactive makes a continuing effort to make it possible for the more "casual" FM players not to feel overwhelmed by the choices both at the cleaning of the interface, choice of training and access to the plans of the assistants, who are kind enough to inform us in general about the strengths and weaknesses of our team and adversary, as well as to present ideas about the type of attitude , tactics and intensity to apply. If you want to do it, it's up to you.
On the field of play, my experience with the new visual engine and the changes made to artificial intelligence was extreme. While on the one hand it is a pleasure to perceive with more and more exact movements of our players and as these are in line with the instructions and positional orientation given in advance, the game did not get rid of breaks, including a definite crash that fortunately happened in a game who lost a goal with Benfica in the Stadium of Light. Here the colleagues say that I cheated, as if it were possible in FM (You are sure you wish to quit without saving?).

The animations are richer than ever thanks to the effort made by Sports Interactive with the motion capture sessions, however, I registered in my "notebook" a reference to the old Italia90, from Mega-Drive, probably due to any session of ping pong that happened during one of the Highlights, and that apparently marked me. I must have missed this game.
After so many years, I continue to wish that one day FM introduces something more in the field of gratification, at the time of winning the trophy, the animation of the team celebrating in the middle of the lawn is weak and, on top of that, the textures of the platform disappeared in the my case. The best part of finishing the champion season is the fact that we have better conditions to approach the market in the following period, that yes, the most stimulating moment of the season (who never went on holiday until May, so that we can live the wonders of pre- time?). The symbols and names of the clubs still require the installation of one of those sly packs, nothing that tweaks the quality of the game, or its database, that yes, all official.


VERDICT

It is difficult for Sports Interactive to show what it takes to justify the investment of a new entry each year, especially since much of what is new is hidden behind the interface. FM 2018 is still an exception, with a new visual engine and the commitment to the emotional and human component, which adds to the already richest tactical side, this year's edition is one of the most significant of recent times.

VERY GOOD
       8/10

+ Interactions with players
+ Continuous bet on simplifying the interface
+ Database
-Some breaks in the new graphics engine
-Gratification