Football Manager 2011 Review

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(More customer reviews)This download experience is an absolute joke. There is some verification software packaged with the game that is aimed at stopping piracy. This software is riddled with bugs and glitches that they're still trying to fix. Just buy the boxed version of Football Manager. I will never download another game from Amazon.

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All Pro Football 2K8 Review

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(More customer reviews)...or watching Barry Sanders singlehandedly shred a defense for a 40-yard TD run. I've been glued to this game since I brought it home...
THE GOOD: the graphics and sound are amazing. Much better than the Madden line of games. The game is supposed to be rendered in 1080p, but comes on in 720p for some reason on my TV. I went into the PS3's display settings and turned off 720p, and that fixed the issue. Players retain dirt and scuffs on their uniforms, and celebrations after TD's and sacks are excellent. The game really gets the feel for each individual player. Gone are the ratings based on 0-100 scales. When you choose a player, it tells you exactly what this player does well. You have total control of every single player on the field in pre-snap: hot routes, blocking schemes, formation switches and audibles all before you hike the ball; zone coverage, blitzing, shifting, drop off and pinching on defense...all of this can be tailored for each player one at a time, meaning, for instance, you can blitz your weak side LB ("Will") by hitting 3 buttons. You really have to learn the button layout, though.
The gameplay is fluid and fast, but not too fast. The QB can slide in the pocket, duck under and avoid sacks with the ease of the Left control stick. RB's and WR's have a slew of moves. What's different here? Used to be, players moved on a horizontal axis, making them look and act almost like horses on a merry-go-round, with a pole running up through them. Now, player movement is very fluid, very smooth, and players you would expect to just seem to "glide"...OJ Simpson, Walter Payton, Barry Sanders, etc. After years of playing both the Madden games and the 2K games, I'd have to say that this version looks the most realistic--the tackles, the moves, the blocking, players knocked off balance, the ball movement...your QB will even throw a wobbler into the ground (or worse--into the air and up for grabs) when he is hit as he throws.
Also, it's great to be able to build your own team of NFL Legends. Right now, I have 4 teams which I've built, including designing their home and away uniforms, and I compete with each of them. You'll be pleasantly surprised by many of the names included in the game--too many to name here. The CPU teams are made up of legends as well, though, so be prepared to get your butt kicked the first time you play.
Essentially, you pick 11 players from the "legend" database. This field of players is broken down into 3 tiers: Gold, Silver and Bronze. You get to choose 2 gold players, 3 silver players and 6 bronze. The game fills the rest of your roster with random players; suspiciously with familiar names (my back up QB's name is "Archuleta"). True, you don't get to pick anyone beyond the 11 legends, but the random players are pretty darn good, and you do get to choose how the roster is filled: your extra WR's can be balanced, possession or deep threats; your extra RB's can be finesse or power runners; your D-linemen can be run stoppers are pass rushers, etc. I've heard complaints be early reviewers about the uniforms, but as long as no one's in pink, who cares what they are wearing? The uniforms are OK, and you create your own when you make a team from the helmet to the shoes. Also, the stadiums are absolutely over-the-top. One has a huge shark coming through the top of the scoreboard...it's awesome.
THE BAD: there are negatives to this title. You can only play with your created teams. I would love to play with the team called "LEGENDS" as it has 11 gold tier players on it, but it is a CPU only team. The choices for gameplay are very, very thin. You can play a quick game with one of your created teams against a CPU team, or start a season, where you basically play a round-robin against the other CPU teams, then go to a playoff series. If you do win the league championship at the end, it's over. This was a real downer for me. This is also why I created 4 teams, because I really wanted to play with Ditka, Night Train Lane, Eugene Robinson, Reggie White, John Elway, Ronnie Lott, etc. etc. etc., but you can only have 11 legends on your team at a time.
It seems the developers spent way more time on the offense. As fluid as it is, the defensive backfield is still a tad shaky in it's player movement (a la NCAA Football 06 or 07), especially strafing, and potential INT's seem to bounce right off DB's chests and facemasks. Watching a sack unfold is gorgeous, though, and linemen can swim, club, spin and bullrush to gain an advantage over their blocker, which makes rushing the QB the most fun aspect of playing defense.
Kicking is a nightmare. 2K uses the right stick, much like the EA games do, but there's no kick meter. You pull the stick back to start the whole process, and right before the kicker actually makes contact with the ball, you thrust the stick forward. You won't know if you did it right until you see the flight of the ball. A text indicator comes on screen to let you know how well your timing and aiming was, but it's an after thought--if your kick was bad, you'll know as it sails out of bounds.
Online play can't really be reviewed here, as there aren't many players out there yet. I'm sure by next week, it will be jamming. There are quite a few options out there, though, like Tournament play, online seasons, custom play and quick play, and all are separated by difficulty level. I saw one profile player already had a record of 12-1 as of last night (the day the game hit the shelves) but there were only 44 others players online at the time, so wait for later reviews to discuss online play.
ALL IN ALL, I love this game, and it has exceeded my expectations in so many ways, but it falls short in a couple of small but key aspects: the anonymous "extra" players (who have no visible ratings), the thin gameplay options, the frustrating circus that is "kicking," and the dropped INT's. But nowhere else can you find this vast field of NFL Hall of Famers. I can only compare it to last year's games, so it may be unfair, but I will say that this game blows Madden 07 away in nearly every aspect of actual gameplay, but not in it's menu items.

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All Pro Football 2K8 Review

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(More customer reviews)First off, I am not a 2K fan boy, and DEFINTELY not a Madden fanboy. Know that this is my FIRST 2K football game ever. I never got a chance to play NFL 2K5 as I was still playing Madden/NCAA 03 at the time. After being disappointed with Madden/NCAA for the 2003 release I skipped over the 04 and 05 editions, and because it was so late in the season I decided to skip NFL 2K5 as well, planning on getting NFL 2K6 the following year, but EA changed that and I was stuck with the EA football titles for the foreseeable future. I decided to give EA one last chance, and they failed again with Madden/NCAA 06. At this point I decided I was done with EASports and since they had the monopoly I figured I was done with football games for good.
Then 3 years later 2K decides to get back in the football gaming market and I was very excited, finally a choice in football gaming again and true football fans wouldn't have to be stuck with EA's monopoly.
I picked this game up recently, in fact a couple of days before I got my XBOX back from Microsoft. I was finally able to play one game last night, and I must say I am pretty impressed.
When you first start up the game, you are instantly prompted to build you own team, there are no predefined teams on this game so every team you use, you have to create them from scratch. You are allowed 2 Gold, 3 silver and 6 bronze rated former NFL players to build you team. The rest of the team is filled by generic players. You have over 240 former NFL players most of them being all-stars during their careers. Some notable names include Jerry Rice, Joe Montana, Steve Young, John Elway, Reggie White, Barry Sanders, Walter Payton, and Williams "Refrigerator" Perry. While you might recognize many of the names included in this years release, you will also notice some missing, some right of the top of my head are Howie Long, Michael Irvin and Jim Kelly. That is not to say the list provided is disappointing, 240 players is plenty especially considering 2K had to individually sign these players.
After you select your players and choose the generic players to fill you team, you are taken to a screen to select your city, team nickname, logo, and stadium and after your done, you then go into actually editing your teams uniforms all the way down to how many stripes the players' socks will have and the color of their shoes, helmets and face masks. You can even change the colors of the team's logo. There are tons and tons of different combinations you can choose and this can be very long and drawn out considering how much you care about how your team uniforms (home and away) look on the field, but the game already has predefined color schemes so if you just want to get to the action, you can skip this all together. If you do decide to edit your team, then just know the menu is very cumbersome and admittedly not very intuitive as it should be. In fact it took me a while to figure out how to change my team's helmet colors from white to black.
After your team is created it is saved and you are ready to go. You are then taken to the game's main screen where you can either choose to play a quick exhibition game against one of the computer created teams or go into season mode. I just wanted a quick game so I just choose a quick match in my home stadium.
The first thing you will notice about the game that these are not truly Next Gen graphics. Even in HD at best they look slightly better than HD regular XBOX games. But believe me there is much more to a game than jaw dropping graphics, and I found that out after the ball was kicked off in my very first game. As soon as the ball was kicked off I knew that this was going to be a football game like none other I have experienced before. First off the players move realistically. I hadn't noticed and robotic like movements of them running like they are trying to make it to the bathroom before they have an accident. The tackling animations are also quite more realistic than I have seen in other games. There is real gang tackling here and not anything like the "hey, I'm going to hold you, while my teammate comes and hits you" crap. There are no sled animations or seeing receivers skate to the ball either. Even the sidelines have animated players that react to plays on the field and attempt to get out of the way if they see a player out of control flying towards them. Other times, they'll step in and grab him to stop his momentum.
The game plays like football is supposed to be played. No longer can you back up 30 yards and throw 80 yard bombs all day, because chances are you will be sacked or more often than not your pass will be knocked down if you're lucky. Your linemen block who they are supposed to block and don't miss an obvious block just so they can go block a free safety 15 yards away who is not even in the play to begin with. On the defensive end of the ball players react well to both the run and pass. Don't expect 20+ yard runs on every single possession, if you do manage to get a long gain you better believe the D will adjust incase you try that crap on the very next play. In the running game you have WORK for your yardage, you have to find the hole and hit it hard. If you just dance around in the back field you WILL get your bell rung. Take a hole and go for it. Passing is also quite realistic and very rewarding when you complete a long pass play on 3rd and long. The defense reacts pretty well to the ball and will knock it down if they can't quite get two hands on it. If you throw in double coverage too often you will pay for it, if your throw is too late or too early the D will knock it down. As good as the AI is on both sides of the ball, I never got the feeling that it was "cheating" like other games I have played in the past. I remember in the said game, I would be running for a first down, clearly beating the defender and all of a sudden he makes a dive for me at the wrong angle and then while in MIDAIR, he body changes direction just so he can stop me; this is not the case in APF2K8, if you have a man beat you have him beat, and the only thing he can hope for is that he has enough foot speed to catch you. Another thing I used to hate on the "other" game is that when my defender had the perfect angle on a guy going towards the end zone and I will dive towards him clearly expecting at least some contact between my defender and the ball carrier only the have the game take over and cause my guy to dive in the complete opposite direction of the ball carrier. I can't tell you how frustrating that was! But that is no longer the case in this game, if you have an angle and time your hit right, you will at least make contact with the ball carrier getting him to go down is another story if you are dealing with the bruiser gold/silver/bronze star RB's.
Another thing I like about the game is that the halftime show shows actual video highlights from the game you are playing and the same is true for the post game show. While the commentators start getting repetitive after a while, its still good to go back and see the big plays of the game without having to rely on your saved replays all the time. Other things I like about the game are the stadium mascots that do various things after the home team makes a big play, if you are the Assassins and score a touch down, the giant hooded "assassin" at the end zone will perform a stabbing motion, if you are the Firebirds the bird will squawk and flap its wings, there is even one team that has two battle ships that shoot off its cannons! In addition to this the crowd always seems to be in the game, you make a big play they respond with ecstatic cheering, if you make a stupid play, then you will get booed....loudly. Another final thing I would like to mention is that if your XBOX is online while you are playing a game, you will get up to date sports tickers from the real world of sports. Even though it really does not add to the game you are playing its still a cool feature. It's nice always being in touch with the real sports world while I'm playing video games.
As much as I like the actual game, there are handful of flaws that are disappointing and one that is downright frustrating. First of all if you already didn't know, there is no franchise mode. So the team you create for offline play can only go through one season and that's it. No continuing to a next season, and no tracking career stats etc. The most you can do is take that same team though the same team again with a slightly different scheduled, or just create another team all together. In addition the Season mode itself is pretty limited. There is not even an ability to "watch" other games that your team is not playing in, and even more, you can only bring ONE of your created teams into season mode. This was a disappointment, especially for someone who primarily plays offline 99% of the time. I've tried online play before with other games, and if you have read my last reviews you will see that I am not a big fan of online play, playing people I don't know, most of who are cheesers, whiners and glitchers. The only time I will play someone online, is if I know them in real life. The lack of franchise mode bothered me, but not enough not to get this game. I have always heard 2K made the best football games, and if APF was anything like the NBA 2K series, I knew I wouldn't be disappointed in the game play. The other limitation is a big one, even bigger than the lack of franchise mode in many ways. You are only limited to creating 8 teams in the game, meaning that at any one time you only have 8 teams to choose from as you can't play with any of the CPU's teams. This is not a big problem in itself, because I would have expected some sort of limitation on the amount of teams you could create. However,...Read more›

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Football Manager 2011 Review

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(More customer reviews)As a longtime FIFA player and avid Premier League follower, I felt I knew the game as well as anybody. I had heard about this game, enormously popular in Europe, called Football Manager 11. A friend told me it was the "ultimate football sim", in his words. I didn't believe the hype. "I can't control the players?" I asked, and he nodded his head. He promised I would be more satisfied, with this game than almost every other.
So, after a few nudges, I downloaded the trial from Steam. Then I bought the game. And now, like millions of others across the world, I am hopelessly addicted to a football simulator. So much so that I had to write this review simply to clue in more people about the best way to destroy hours of your life.
Introductory points on Football Manager 11:
* You play the role of a football manager in a day to day, turn based system. Pick your team and hit continue and watch the options unfold.
* "Playing" the game primarily consists of several key actions: Buying / selling players, setting training schedules, setting formations, and interacting with the players and press.
* After you pick your Starting 11 + subs and motivate them to play their little hearts out, a match simulator begins with a 3d engine. Each of your players 40 "traits" or "stats" come into play as the match unfolds. From the sideline you can bark orders and at halftime you can encourage, praise, or insult your players, based on performance.
* This "hands off" nature of the game provides great satisfaction. When your 19 year old defender scores 4 goals, all headers from set pieces, you can sit there praising your own foresight in training his heading skill up to 16.
* Almost every league in the world is available to play. This includes La Liga, MLS, Premier League, Ligue 1, Serie A, Bundesliga, K-League, Mexican Premiera Division, etc. All divisions have their fun and playing in the lower leagues might be more enjoyable than the top ones!
* This game is endlessly replayable. You will love it, your girlfriend will hate it.
Now I don't just believe the hype, I promote it. Pick up this game if you want to see if you can be a better manager than any of the greats or better than that current deadbeat in your favorite team. When the game starts throwing snarky comments about how addicted you are, take them with a grain of salt: They are probably right. So don't forget about that pizza in the oven or your laundry, play this game.


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