Football Manager 2017 Review: Pen and Notebook Champion. Thanks to chances and unpredictable moments, football has become the most popular sport.
Football Manager 2017 Review: Pen and Notebook Champion
The developers of the Football Manager 2017 series are often accused of slyness, stating that in their realistic football game, you can achieve the championship title even for the weakest team. Indeed, the creation of Sports Interactive is one of the most multifaceted and complex projects in its genre, but despite this, any outsider from the list of teams can reach the League final in two or three seasons. Naturally, there can be no such progress in life.
However, miracles and accidents are also likely, which confirmed the latest results of Rostov and Leicester, who managed to snatch the main award in the national leagues.
The teams proved by their own example that teams without the most expensive and well-known players can also show class if they have an intelligent coach, roster synergy and determination. After this, the accusations against the developers no longer look relevant.
That is why Football Manager 2017 has remained the same, without any major changes that would affect the core mechanics of the game. After all, it is thanks to accidents and unpredictable moments football became the most popular sports, as well as themed games, which include the Football Manager 2017 we are reviewing today.
But malice to the old man and fun to the young man
Over the past few years, various developers of hardcore and narrowly focused games have increasingly made concessions to the casual nature of the mass audience, which for the most part consists of just such (casual) players. Of course, this is done with the sole purpose of attracting as many new customers as possible in order to get more money.
So, Football Manager 2017 in the same way itself opens the gates to new gamers who previously had to overcome on their own, at the risk of falling down and retreating with nothing.
Beginning of the game
From the very beginning, beginners are given tips regarding leagues and the database. This will not affect the regulars of the series in any way, as they can simply turn off such interventions if they wish.
On the other hand, fresh elements are constantly appearing in the game, with which even a veteran is not so easy to deal with with a swoop. That is why in the settings it is also possible to determine the frequency of prompts, revealing the necessary minimum for yourself.
In the main part of Football Manager 2017, nothing has changed. To start your ascent to the titles, you will, as always, have to choose a league and create a virtual profile.
For aesthetes, customization of the appearance of the trainer is available, but the number of functions is too small. It compensates for the scarcity of settings, except perhaps the ability to scan your own face through a webcam, in order to further imbue the football atmosphere.
Football league selection
From the new – a single mode appeared in the Fantasy Draft, despite the fact that he himself has always been a multiplayer, which was his trick. Now, to enjoy this mode, you no longer have to look for real players – just turn on the artificial intelligence, and the game will start.
In fact, this is the same Career, but only with fictional clubs and their lineups. Without any problems and difficulties, you can create a dream team that will include Ronaldo, Messi, Pogba and other big football stars.
Create a dream club
This mode once again goes against the concept of Realism, which is unlikely to be appreciated by the players who advocate it so much. But at first glance, the solution is not bad – for Football Manager 2017 it looks like a breath of fresh air with a bit of confusion and variety.
T rener's creed
In no case should the old people be afraid of change and think that the developers have “rolled down” or “cambered under the weight”. Before us is the same football simulator, management, which has absorbed tons of tables, graphs, sliders and many pages of text in which it is easy to get lost.
Even a radical update of the interface, designed to streamline the labyrinths of information, did not save the situation. Wandering through the menu has become a little easier, but that's all.
Technical, psychological and technical data of the player
However, some sections remained unchanged. For example, in Tactics and Training nothing has been revised at all. In general, the following trend is observed – developers replace numbers with graphics, text with images to make it easier for players.
So, before the team's tactics were corrected through special multilayer menus, but now they have been replaced with a separate window with diagrams and active buttons.
Innovations also affected the messaging system. Since the essence of the game is based on the actions and powers of the manager, who has to dig through a pile of text, incoming messages have been changed, becoming more informative and more practical to use.
As an example, information about the future opposing team began to contain only the necessary information, such as preferred tactics, average ball possession, number of passes, types of passes, and so on.
Message System Optimization
Parallel to this, the headquarters of advisors now and then gives valuable tips regarding tactics, training, buying and selling players, and more. And so that you do not lose information in an endless stream of letters, separate sections were created for them, and the frequency was also set. The advice of the headquarters, by the way, is not based on a great chance, but on the state of the team and upcoming matches.
Listing fixes and additions of this kind may seem boring to someone, and rightly so. However, veterans of the series will immediately understand the significance of such changes, which will speed up the work and simplify the micromanagement, which is incredibly abundant in Football Manager 2017.Sometimes you have to spend hours reading statistics and setting status. Now all the information is in plain sight, and important decisions no longer require several clicks to continue.
Team report
One of the most interesting innovations is the new section – News feed. This is a kind of local Facebook where fans and opponents of your club express their opinions. It also contains information about new transfers, major matches and their results, the condition of the players, and so on.
Tellingly, at first, this feature only adds to the atmosphere, but subsequently, user reviews begin to repeat themselves, and, ultimately, nothing new ceases to appear at all.
Many players were and are worried about the system of interaction with the media. Never in Football Manager did it make sense to talk to representatives of news channels or magazines, especially since they have been asking the same questions for five years. Literally, since the 2012 game, the text has not changed one iota.
So the automatic scrolling of this “element” of the game in Football Manager 2017 has not gone away. You can run away from conferences, answer anything and in whatever tone you like – this will not affect anything and will not offend anyone.
Interaction with football players
Similar remains with the function of interaction with the players. The only advantage of this feature is that an experienced player of the same position is assigned to a beginner so that the first one learns faster. As for the rest, advice before and after the matches, talking with the players about their condition and everything like that will lead to nothing.
Club staff
Speaking of the team, I would like to mention the expansion of staff. Two new positions have been added to the previous list – a chief analyst who helps juniors, and a researcher whose job is to lead the medical department. These positions, which is strange, make almost no changes to the gameplay and have little effect on it, which leads to thoughts about their hasty introduction.
We lead the marafet
The menu changes in Football Manager 2017 are subtle and subtle, but the gameplay has been redesigned in a much more noticeable way. So, the developers improved the engine by adding more than 1500 modifications and improvements to it (this is exactly the figure that was named, but we cannot vouch for its actual accuracy).
Outwardly, the changes are noticeable: the players run much cleaner and move more realistically – jumps, feints and interceptions of the sword have changed for the better. And although the corner objects in the environment are still in place, the stands, spectators and the stadium as a whole have added in detail. There are also new sound effects, camera angles and similar technical details.
Improved match engine
Remember how in Football Manager 2016 could you give the player a hint right during the match? Then it did not work at all, despite the wide advertising of the new function. It's only now that this feature has really taken off – players really listen to your promptings and often change tactics if you ask for it.
Football Manager does not have a single worthy competitor in the genre.It would seem, why should developers even try and innovate every year? Nevertheless, the developers continue to work actively and from year to year offer players a better and better product.
In just the last four years, Football Manager has changed so much that some other sports series should take a cue from it.
The game of 2017 discarded many of the mistakes of the previous part, while not forgetting to bring in a portion of new ones. In general, Football Manager has become even deeper and more exciting, so fans will definitely be pleased.
- Reducing the barrier to entry by improving the interface
- Significant 3D engine upgrade
- Lots of fixes and new features
- Getting rid of old bugs, the game gave birth to new ones
- Some of the innovations do not work correctly yet
- Some additions don't seem to be really needed.
VERDICT
Football Manager 2017 is a copy of the 2016 game, but with more features, fewer bugs, and better controls. Young series of such edits would be guaranteed to be ruined, but the creation of Sports Interactive is already almost perfect, which does not require revolutionary changes.