Review: FIFA Manager 12

Still little brother

Every year it’s the same. Football Manager and FIFA Manager are released and FM surely gets the most of the voters. It’s not so weird, because FIFA Manager seemed to have stood still since the game saw the broad of daylight. This year’s version is a long ride of soccer boredom. Last i checked, soccer was far from boring so something must have gone wrong in the process.

Real players: FIFA are using their licenses to the maximum.

The game are presented in a not so bad way. In reality, when starting this up, it’s gives you a good feeling. EA have always had great licensed music in their games and FIFA Manager 12 got it to. The menus also looks pretty good, so the first impression of the game is totally good. The problems comes when you start up a new league and understand that everything is at is was before in this series. You’ll have a bunch of leagues to choose from, the most of them fully licensed, so here is the homework lesson done, as in the FIFA Manager games before.

Typical Rooney: Okay goal, but when are the graphics getting an update?

When in-game and trying to search for players, setting up tactics and basically doing anything at all, the old problems comes back. The game has a lot of functions, but the problem is to find everything and it should be easier in a game like this to do such. This is where Football Manager is in a whole other level, so FIFA Manager should really learn from them, if they are hoping to improve their game in the future at all. We already been talking about the sound. The music is great, but the commentary duo seemed to have been removed during matches. Maybe for the best, i always simulated anyways, didn’t used to hear a lot from them. If the game was in the graphic department of FIFA 12 it would have scored a lot higher, but EA seems to use the same graphics for their manager game as they did the first time. Maybe a time for an update now?

A comment please?: You don't have to be a scientist to answer the questions before a game.

Gamescore

FIFA Manager 2012 (2011)

Graphics: Yeah, the graphics. Seems like it’s still the FIFA 2007 graphics. I got no clue why? It shouldn’t be too hard to bring the new FIFA 12 engine in the game? The game would have grown on that. 4/10

Audio: Great music in Electronic Arts games, they should have some credits for that. With the commentary being gone and no match feeling whatsoever, just turn off sounds instead. But keep on the music! 6/10

Gameplay: Can be great now and then, but the whole game build up is just wrong in comparison to the manager king. The licenses are in their place, that’s a good start, but if FIFA Manager is going to be the same game every year, with only updated squads and players, then it will never knock FM of their high throne. Some new menus during the matches this year, but this actually makes the game worse. Something new and fresh is needed badly here! 2/10

Controls: It’s not hard to click on something, but it’s when you’re don’t know what you are clicking on. That is the biggest problem in this “manager adventure”. It’s still fun to set up you’re whole damn family, but this game is not the sims, so what’s the point? Many roads, but no one leads to Rome. 3/10

Overall Score: I now start to understand that EA have enough with one soccer game and with FIFA 12 everything is brilliant done. You cannot say the same thing about FIFA Manager 12, as it’s almost the same game we have seen since it first got out. It’s got some other things that FM don’t have, but it lacks a lot of things that FM have. I don’t see any reason to try this game, except maybe for the licenses. If that is a reason to get a game. 3/10