Soccer Game

[mike b]

Does anyone know of any good soccer(as we call it in the states) simmulator games out there.Iknow there are a few but which ones are good to play and which ones should i not even bother with. I have college football,pro wrestling and college basketball and now i want to add soccer to my list of text games(plus i love the sport)so if any of you know of any good ones could ya list em in this thread including maybe what its good and bad points are. Thanks a million:D

[Wallbanger]

I suspect many will steer you towards Football Manager (which is called Worldwide Soccer Manager in the States). I enjoyed it for a while, but if you're looking to do an MLS career, be warned that their data is wrong and cannot accurately recreate the MLS model. From what little I know about the other leagues they should be good, so if you're looking to do a Premiership or Bundesliga dynasty you should be fine.

[chris caulfield]

Football Manager is the way to go if you are looking for a good soccer sim game. I bought Football Manager 2007 when it came out last year and I'm still playing my original game.

[SuperOwens]

[QUOTE=Wallbanger;502908]I suspect many will steer you towards Football Manager (which is called Worldwide Soccer Manager in the States). I enjoyed it for a while, but if you're looking to do an MLS career, be warned that their data is wrong and cannot accurately recreate the MLS model. From what little I know about the other leagues they should be good, so if you're looking to do a Premiership or Bundesliga dynasty you should be fine.[/QUOTE] I'm so confused with the MLS rules. Did a season with LA Galaxy once, won all my games apart from one draw and i still didnt make the 'post' season games.... Crazy yanks ;)

[mike b]

Thanks Naw im not MLS im Manchester United all the way(some times Leeds)

[Blasphemywebleed]

Check out Newstar soccer. It's a indie game with pretty poor graphics but great gameplay. You start off as a youth player for pretty much any team in the world and build yourself up to a international superstar. New game which is in 3d is due out this month. [url]http://www.newstarsoccer.com/[/url]

[sebsy]

[QUOTE=mike b;502932]Naw im not MLS im Manchester United all the way(some times Leeds)[/QUOTE] You can't be United all the way but sometimes Leeds, if only you knew the stick you would get for that over here :(

[mike b]

Lol i just new if i put that last remark in what of you Brits would just have to respond:D Actually i have always been just Manchester United .... i just could not resist:p

[sebsy]

:D Funny thing is I'm a United fan but I actually don't get or buy in to all the hating Leeds, Man City, Liverpool etc business. As far as I'm concerned the only reason I don't like a team and want them to lose is if they're playing us or are our closest rival in the league. Which is why when it comes to Champions League I always want all the other English teams to get through along with Utd. Also I don't have any hate towards Scotland or Germany and always want Scotland to do well and qualify for the big comps.

[Blasphemywebleed]

[QUOTE=sebsy;503115] Also I don't have any hate towards Scotland or Germany and always want Scotland to do well and qualify for the big comps.[/QUOTE] Good lad. Bigotry amongst the home nations is few and far between these days....... thankfully.

[The Bus]

Football Manager / World Wide Soccer Manager 09 is coming out soon and I strongly advice you to pick it up when it hits the stores. This game is the "The best there is, the best there was, the best there ever will be" of sports management simulators, IMO.

[mike b]

Dood i just went to the web site for Football Manager that game looks freaking awesome.Any idea as to when it's it coming out the new one and how many leagues to you get to choose from.I think this is the soccer game I'm looking for.Oh and before i forget do you only play in league matches or is it like in real life were your club could compete against teams from other countries in tournaments.

[James Casey]

It hits stores in November. The demo for last year's game should be around somewhere, if you want to give it a whirl. You'll play through entire seasons in-game. There were something like fifty playable countries in 06, I believe, and all the relevant domestic cups and leagues, and continental and national competitions are included. That's only going to have gone up. You might also want to look into Football Manager Live, which is launching at the end of the month - that's online, normal FM is basically single-player. * As much as I love football, and own every copy of Football/Championship Manager going back to the 95/96 season, I will warn you that the game is [I]incredibly[/I] hard. It's not just difficult, it's not just tricky, it is the hardest game to master I have ever come across. Every year, the developers add more and more depth to the game, making it harder and harder to come up with a consistent team. Effectively, you have to throw yourself into this game and, for any hope of success, you'll have to be prepared to analyse every match in detail and work out how, why, and where your team went wrong (or right). This isn't a game where you can just send out the best 11 players in the world and win. This is a game that represents to the nth degree the complexity of football. While I say I've got every copy going back umpteen years, I've scarcely touched the last two versions, partly because I was stupidly good at 06 (which meant I didn't get 07 until late on) and partly because just in the space of two versions the game had evolved beyond the super tactic I developed for 06. * I may pick up 09. I [I]may[/I]. But only if I get a much faster computer - FM is a huge resource hog. Mainly in terms of the RAM and processor required, although I note that 09 has a 3D match engine, so that should bump up the need for a good graphics card. Whatever - you'll need a decent set-up to think about running more than a couple of leagues, although in theory you may even be able to play all leagues. Some counties offer more depth than others. For obvious reasons, England offers the greatest depth in terms of playable leagues - down to about the sixth or seventh tier, I believe. Others may only offer the top division, but you can choose how much you want avaialble, and to what depth you want it simulated. It's very user friendly in that regard.

[mike b]

Thanks for that great advise i might have to wait a little bit then.The lap top i have now is a Sony vaio its not bad2GB but overall its only half as strong as my last lap top which was an HP Pro(don't know how i got talked into getting this one).Though there is a lap top i that i was thinking of getting that you folks have over in the UK,i think it is called alien war(the maker) .They have a lap top made just with the gamers in mind and it is wickedly awesome. 8GB, top of the line video card and graphics card and going for just under 3 thousand i believe which is almost what i paid for my lap top:( Anyways Mr Casey thanks for that very good advise and review of the game.

[SuperOwens]

[QUOTE=James Casey;503336]It hits stores in November. The demo for last year's game should be around somewhere, if you want to give it a whirl. You'll play through entire seasons in-game. There were something like fifty playable countries in 06, I believe, and all the relevant domestic cups and leagues, and continental and national competitions are included. That's only going to have gone up. You might also want to look into Football Manager Live, which is launching at the end of the month - that's online, normal FM is basically single-player. * As much as I love football, and own every copy of Football/Championship Manager going back to the 95/96 season, I will warn you that the game is [I]incredibly[/I] hard. It's not just difficult, it's not just tricky, it is the hardest game to master I have ever come across. Every year, the developers add more and more depth to the game, making it harder and harder to come up with a consistent team. Effectively, you have to throw yourself into this game and, for any hope of success, you'll have to be prepared to analyse every match in detail and work out how, why, and where your team went wrong (or right). This isn't a game where you can just send out the best 11 players in the world and win. This is a game that represents to the nth degree the complexity of football. While I say I've got every copy going back umpteen years, I've scarcely touched the last two versions, partly because I was stupidly good at 06 (which meant I didn't get 07 until late on) and partly because just in the space of two versions the game had evolved beyond the super tactic I developed for 06. * I may pick up 09. I [I]may[/I]. But only if I get a much faster computer - FM is a huge resource hog. Mainly in terms of the RAM and processor required, although I note that 09 has a 3D match engine, so that should bump up the need for a good graphics card. Whatever - you'll need a decent set-up to think about running more than a couple of leagues, although in theory you may even be able to play all leagues. Some counties offer more depth than others. For obvious reasons, England offers the greatest depth in terms of playable leagues - down to about the sixth or seventh tier, I believe. Others may only offer the top division, but you can choose how much you want avaialble, and to what depth you want it simulated. It's very user friendly in that regard.[/QUOTE] I always find it interesting that a lot of FM players now consider the game to be really difficult. Personally, I dont think the game is that hard to master. Sure its challenging, but the hardest game ever? A lot of this stems from the fact that in previous iterations of the game, you could come up with completely unrealistic formations and tactics that would turn you into God mode. Were talking having your team going out with 2 centre backs, 3 defensive midfielder's, 4 attacking midfielder's and a striker and winning 9-3. Formations that a real manager would be shot for using. People complain that its hard now because you cant win the champions league 4 times in a row anymore, thats not the game being hard, its the game being realistic.

[sebsy]

The problem with the Football Manager series these days is that while it is much more difficult to succeed than earlier versions (I never failed to win the league and most cups in 00/01 version, but in later versions found it much harder, which is good because it should be a challenge, even though I always play as Man Utd, I found it impossible to not win on earlier version, anyway I digress) the problem with the lst couple of versions has been the highly unrealistic transfer and finace modules. In the earlier days it was simple and they pretty much got it all spot on, you buy players, pick your team etc, now you've got things like talking to the media and far more things added in the transfer module aswell as other areas that there is far more potential for things to not work as they should and unfortunately that has been the case in recent years. Things over the last few years that have taken 2 patches over 6 months to get fixed have been things like lesser teams who have greyed out players (made up for the purpose of the team playing in a match against you) being so good that if say you were Man Utd and you were drawn against a team from Ukraine who didn't have any real players in the database, they would have grey players who would be given stupidly awesome stats and you would lose to unheard of teams. You would regularly get teams from Ukraine, and other small countries winning the Champions League and teams like Ivory Coast winning the World Cup three times running. Silly bugs in the finance system meaning some unheard of teams from Russia would quickly end up with millions of pounds in the bank and a crazy transfer system where teams would be willing to sell a player to another AI team for 10m but would'nt accept your bid of a better 12m seemingly because you are controlling that team. It's still the best football management game around and is a very good game despite the drawbacks I've mentioned and others I haven't, but all I suggest is waiting until around February which is around the time SI (the makers of FM) release the final patch for the game every year and then have a look at the Football Manager forums and see what people think about the game on there. PCZONE magazine, which I buy every issue of always seem to give it 90% and miss some obvious bugs and over the past few years I thin they've been too generous with their reviews of the game so as I say, get on the FM forums and have a look what people are saying around February and keep an eye out for when the game has had its final patch released. Also as an added bonus by that time the game will be cheaper :D [url]http://www.sigames.com/[/url] That's the link to SI, click on forums and sign up when you're ready/if you want. :)

[James Casey]

[QUOTE=sebsy;503888]Silly bugs in the finance system meaning some unheard of teams from Russia would quickly end up with millions of pounds in the bank and a crazy transfer system where teams would be willing to sell a player to another AI team for 10m but would'nt accept your bid of a better 12m seemingly because you are controlling that team. It's still the best football management game around and is a very good game despite the drawbacks I've mentioned and others I haven't, but all I suggest is waiting until around February which is around the time SI (the makers of FM) release the final patch for the game every year and then have a look at the Football Manager forums and see what people think about the game on there. [/QUOTE] Amen to most of sebsy's comments - although to defend the finance bug it did seem to me that manager/team relationships affected this, and that Arsenal would be reluctant to sell to ManU or whoever. Mike b, Alienware is the company you're thinking of - I'm pretty sure they were American to begin with as I coveted their gear a few years back when I bought my last desktop. I understand that they have a very good rep - but depending on your needs you might be better off saving $500 and going for a Dell or similar. Their gear seems to tend towards ninja rigs (I remember them selling a three-monitor rig for surround vision gaming. Awesome, but scarcely supported even now, three or four years later) which are all well and good, but you can get 90% of the performance for 70% of the price a lot of the time. Myself, I'll be off to Acer for my next laptop, I think... Although if anyone knows a lot about laptops, I could do with some advice in this area :)

[mike b]

hey james and Sebsy thanks for that advise.Im going to wait on getting FM untill the new one comes out.Down below is some links to some decent gaming lap tops that i found on the net. [url]http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?id=pcmcat157400050013&type=category&DCMP=KNC-TLC&ref=30&loc=KW-1921[/url] [url]http://www.alienware.com/products/area-51-m15x-notebook_d.aspx?SysCode=PC-LT-AREA51M15X-AI1&SubCode=SKU-DELL&from=DELLINT:m15xvert&source=DLL0004&disc=1[/url] [url]http://www.bizwaremagic.com/buy-notebook/top_gaming_laptops.htm[/url] [url]http://www.cnet.com/Top_10_notebooks_laptops/4520-6022_1-102337-3.html[/url]

[SuperOwens]

[QUOTE=mike b;503980]hey james and Sebsy thanks for that advise.Im going to wait on getting FM untill the new one comes out.Down below is some links to some decent gaming lap tops that i found on the net. [url]http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?id=pcmcat157400050013&type=category&DCMP=KNC-TLC&ref=30&loc=KW-1921[/url] [url]http://www.alienware.com/products/area-51-m15x-notebook_d.aspx?SysCode=PC-LT-AREA51M15X-AI1&SubCode=SKU-DELL&from=DELLINT:m15xvert&source=DLL0004&disc=1[/url] [url]http://www.bizwaremagic.com/buy-notebook/top_gaming_laptops.htm[/url] [url]http://www.cnet.com/Top_10_notebooks_laptops/4520-6022_1-102337-3.html[/url][/QUOTE] They usually stick out a demo a bit before the release. The release date tends to get thrown back a bit as well. But yeah echoing what James and Sebsy wrote, it tends to be buggy when it first hits the shelf. Maybe even worse this year as they have the new 3d match engine and the like. I tended not to play the last few releases that much, simply because im not a kid any more and cant get away with 12 hours in front of the pc everyday! Still took Thurruck to the brink of the premiership though :D

[mike b]

I tended not to play the last few releases that much, simply because im not a kid any more and cant get away with 12 hours in front of the pc everyday! Iknow the feeling:( And now with 2 good looking mmo superhero games coming out next year omg what to do what to do

[Wallbanger]

[quote=Blasphemywebleed;502938]Check out Newstar soccer. It's a indie game with pretty poor graphics but great gameplay. You start off as a youth player for pretty much any team in the world and build yourself up to a international superstar. New game which is in 3d is due out this month. [URL]http://www.newstarsoccer.com/[/URL][/quote] This actually looks interesting -- may try it after new release is out.