Football Manager 2006 (PC)

I am sure that many of you have heard of football manager which is developed by SI (Sports Interactive) who previously developed Championship Manager Games, which are legendary PC titles. Those of you who have played the any of the previous annual pc versions of this game, you will be happy to find that this games doesn't abandon those true principals which made this game great.

Football Manager is a football management simulation. The game allows you to be in full control of a football team of your choice, you make the decisions - the club, the players, the tactics, the training. These decisions will either bring your club success or failure, glory or humiliation. In short the future of your club is in your hands. You can start off with any team you want, the number of leagues in this game is truly extraordinary and will almost definitely make sure that your favourite club is included whether its the giants of the game. If you don't like English football, then don't despair as there are leagues available from Italy and Spain, to lesser known footballing nations such as Poland and Japan.

Being club and national manager at the same time is possible. The key lies in how you deal with your 'superstar' footballers, although there is a simulated media in the game, it is not highly responsive. So if you were England manager and decided to pick a 17 year old striker who had never played in the Premiership, then you can get away with it without being criticized.

The key to enjoying this game is to understand its purposes and limitations. A lot of people who have played this game have complained that you can not actually play a game of football yourself. This game attempts to bring you the realities of being a manager of a football team, hence naturally you can't actually control the players themselves, rather you must 'manage' them.

The brilliance of this game lies in the that you can make your management style as complex or as simplistic you want, like I said earlier you are in control. Some like to be pedantic and control every aspect of the game down to individual training regimes. Whereas if you want you can take a very laid back approach, allow coaches do the hard work and then sit back and see what results your team produces.

Visually the main screen from which you control each aspect of the game may be a bit daunting if you haven't played the pc game, but you will soon adapt and will regard the depth of information as essential and part of the real game environment. The user interface in general is a step up from the pc version.

Every year improvements are made to the game and this version contains many new features which are designed to make the game even more realistic than it already is. There is increased media interaction, man management of the players is increased and for the first time you can actually have a half time team talk. So if you team is losing at half time you can either do a rousing Winston Churchill speech or give your players the Alex Ferguson style hairdryer treatment! There is just so much detail in the game that it will leave hooked for months. The beauty of the game is that the challenges never seem to end. Even if you have won the title for the last 3 seasons, there is always a challenge to maintain the hunger in your players or control there ego, then there is injuries, players retire or pass their peak, it is a continual evolution.

This game isn't for everyone, at the beginning it used to be a very niche market but slowly as the game has developed millions of have found this game enjoyable. Nevertheless there are gamers who want instant action, thrills and spills or have no interest in football then they may find this game rather boring.

For many this will be an excellent release and a highly addictive one. For a footie fan this is a must, no other management game is this realistic or has the level of detail as Football Manager. For the summer period when there is no football around, this is a perfect alternative.

Football Manager 2006 is the latest game in a long stream of football management games released by Sega every single season. This one promises to be the best so far. It needs to be with Fifa Manager and Championship Manager breathing down it's neck (mostly the latter).

First impressions are good, clear main menu helps you to get used to the game fast, shame there is no one off friendly match management option but apart from that everything that you want is there.

Once you have clicked on the 'start new game' button, you are asked to pick what leagues you would like your career to be in. I would recommend clicking on the 'recommended amount' button since this gets the computer to estimate the amount of leagues that your computer can run without getting slow. While this may seem a shame at first, you only really need the big leagues, not for example, the Polish leagues.

You can then choose the team that you would like to start off with. You may choose any team that you want to start off with, including the international teams. While purists may be a bit put off by the fact that you can start with Barcalona or Chelsea, it is not recommended that you start with a big team since you will struggle. Common sense will tell you to go with a smaller team.

There is an endless amount of features in the management of the game, I am not going to bother listing them all since it would take too long, but only the ones that I think stand out.

Manager - includes news (e-mail simulation section), what the fans of the team think of you, what the directors of the club think of you and your achievements so far in your career.

Your Team (e.g. Liverpool) - includes your team selection, formation, tatics (includes telling which people are your target men, how 'extreme' you want your team to be in time wasting etc), your reserves and under 18 teams.

Stats - referee, team, player and a host of other statistics which may be helpful when considering what tactics you want to use for the game ahead.

Transfers - Transfer market (if open). Transfers are really hard to pull off with the bigger clubs, Chelsea have the most money at the start of the game with 90 million to spend but some of the bigger clubs will not get as much money as you think they would e.g. Liverpool will only get 10 million.

Graphics - Very good, you can either watch the match on a radar style screen, which is better than it sounds, or you can instruct the assistant manager what you want him to do and then go on holiday for the day or week! You can now give half time talks to players as individuals as well as a whole team talk now as well.

Addiction - Hard to get into straight away if you have never had a management game before but once you are on your way, you will find this game hard to stop playing.

Multiplayer - No, unless you count internet play as multiplayer which I suppose you could.

Value for Money - Fantastic, full 10 stars, only £17 on Amazon.co.uk plus free delivery!

Overall - The best football management game around at a moment - until FM07 comes out.

Football Manager 2006 is a truly amazing PC game! All new updated players, stadiums and teams! Even Wembley comes on for the FA Cup final. Best Football Manager Game on the Market. No point even considering Championship Manager, as compared to Football Manager it's rubbish.

Football Manager 2006 is the Daddy of all Football management games and is from the true creators of Championship Manager.

The level of detail in this game is incredible - it proves that a lot of time and effort has gone into the game when Wayne Rooney's stats have the same level of detail as a 15 year old Peruvian player!

Its never been easier to manage your squad including setting training patterns, choosing player positions and making transfers, plus the actual game itself is still very easy to navigate.

If you do buy this game be prepared to mysteriously loose large portions of your life - this game is addictive and you will find yourself still playing at 3 in the morning (I know I have) which is testament to how good the game is.