Like previous entries into the franchise, Football Manager 2014 charges you with becoming the head coach of any one (or more, should you so desire) of the world’s football clubs, and leading them to glory. As the head coach, you’re responsible for training your team, acquiring new talent, telling your scouts what, where, and who to focus on, working with the team’s board, assigning duties to your assistant coaches, dealing with the press, and any and all of the responsibilities that come with coaching a professional football (or soccer, depending on your location) team.

"Sports Interactive has also made everything easier to navigate, and you’ll no longer need to go through a series of menus to take actions that are offered or recommended by your inbox. Need to see a report from your scouts? One click from the email in questions sends you straight it."

As you might imagine, this can become extremely complex. Fortunately, Football Manager makes the process as easy as it can. The game features a robust tutorial which will walk you through most of the game’s menus, as well as an in-game manual that can be accessed from the main menu. No amount of tutorials or instructions can teach you everything however, especially in a game as deep as Football Manager, and new players will have to spend a significant amount of time with the game’s systems before everything clicks. As with any game, the best way to learn is to play.

Thankfully, the series has never been easier to get into. As usual, the inbox is where you’ll spend most of your time. From here, you’ll field emails from your assistant coaches, answer questions from the press, keep track of your upcoming games and scouting reports, manage your subscriptions, and much more. Things are more or less the same as they’ve been in previous years, though there have been some minor enhancements. Categories are now color coded, and emails with similar information are grouped together when possible.

Sports Interactive has also made everything easier to navigate, and you’ll no longer need to go through a series of menus to take actions that are offered or recommended by your inbox. Need to see a report from your scouts? One click from the email in questions sends you straight it. Need to make a change to the team’s training regime to take advantage of the other team’s weak defense? One click and your guys are focusing on their attacking. You can’t handle everything this way, but nearly everything, from the stats of an individual player to your schedule are a click away from your inbox. The menu layout here is extremely clean and easy to follow, even in the other areas, and finding things is a snap once you get used to the game’s layout.

"You’ll have to understand your players, the board, the press, and your coaches to make the most of these interactions and while it’s nice to be able to address these things, the options are limited, and you’ll often find yourself answering the same questions the same way, over and over and over again."

When you’re not navigating your inbox, or telling your team what to focus on as they train, you’ll often find yourself in meetings with board members, players, your assistant coaches, and even the press. The game will provide you with various options to choose from, depending on how things are going in the game.

You’ll have to understand your players, the board, the press, and your coaches to make the most of these interactions and while it’s nice to be able to address these things, the options are limited, and you’ll often find yourself answering the same questions the same way, over and over and over again. Thankfully, this interaction is fairly limited, and like everything else, you can assign it to one of your other coaches if you don’t want to deal with it.

In fact, the only time you’ll really have to deal with the personalities of others is when you’re trying to acquire another player. While it largely comes down to the contract on offer, each player and agent have their own personalities. Some want trades to be done as quickly as possible, and as big of a cut as they can get. Others are aren’t trustworthy, and will talk up their players for far more than they’re worth. While you can delegate this to your other coaches, you’re more likely to close a deal yourself, so paying attention to these differences is crucial.

"Your assistant coach will feed you information throughout the match, ranging from how well a specific strategy is working to how well specific players are playing, and what the other team is doing well or poorly."

Of course, you’ll have to decide what to do with your players once you acquire them, and Football Manager is no slouch in that department, either. If they’re not good enough for your team, but have potential, you can loan them out to other clubs so they can continue to grow as players, or put them in as back up so they can gain experience with your team. Every decision you make in Football Manager has consequences, and you’ll have to take everything into account if you want to build the best team you can.

For example, it might be a great idea to sign a foreign player to shore up a weakness in your defense, but if he doesn’t speak the team’s native language, he may have a hard time acclimating to his new home. If, however, you have another player who speaks the same language he does, things are significantly easier. And of course you’ll also want to make sure a new acquisition gets along well with your team. A football team divided against itself cannot stand.

Once you’ve got your team set up just the way you want it, it’s time to play the game. You can change nearly anything about the way your team is playing at any time, and the interface itself is extremely easy and simple to use, and helpful to boot: the game will inform you if you accidentally make two decisions that conflict with each other, or you simply do something that you shouldn’t, such as playing someone in a position they are not comfortable in. In addition, your assistant coach will feed you information throughout the match, ranging from how well a specific strategy is working to how well specific players are playing, and what the other team is doing well or poorly. Similar to your inbox, all of your assistant coach’s recommendations can be implemented on the fly via a handy dropdown menu, meaning you can change major aspects of the game without leaving the match itself.

"Standard Career mode offers the most options and takes the most time, while Classic mode cuts much of the fluff, significantly reducing the amount of press interaction, meetings, and stat management, meaning you can complete entire seasons in a relatively short amount of time."

Of course, the enemy AI will counter any changes you make, and they’ll often do it in a frighteningly efficient manner, finding holes in your strategies with ease and managing to tie up games you thought were in the bag. The game itself is rendered very well in matches. The graphics are fairly rudimentary, and the players look awkward when they’re not on the field chasing the ball, but the game looks great in motion, and even better in slow motion replays. You can choose how much of the match to watch, and the speed at which its shown, allowing you to have as much or as little control over the match as you please, while maintaining a consistent visual standard. In all, it manages to look like football in a way few games can manage.

Of course, the game offers a variety of modes to play. Standard Career mode offers the most options and takes the most time, while Classic mode cuts much of the fluff, significantly reducing the amount of press interaction, meetings, and stat management, meaning you can complete entire seasons in a relatively short amount of time. There’s even an “Instant Results” option for the matches you don’t feel like managing. Classic mode also features a simpler interface that’s been redesigned to match its less-stat hungry style, and amazingly enough, it’s even better than the original.

Of course, you can take the game online, too, and it operates just as smoothly there as it does offline. The online mode includes both versions of Career mode, and also allows you to play one-off matches. Players can drop in and out as they please, and you can apply timers to ensure that someone doesn’t wander off while in a menu and stall the game indefinitely. There’s also a Challenge mode, should you be brave enough to tackle it, which offers a wide variety of situations for you to overcome. In addition, additional challenges can be created and shared in the Steam Workshop.

Unfortunately, no game is perfect, and Football Manager comes with a few disappointments as well. Crashes are frequent and auto-saves random, and there’s been more than one occasion where I’ve bested a difficult team only to have the game crash on me, and destroy my progress. In addition, the game’s sound design is severely lacking; you’ll only ever hear the crowd and the whistle during a match, and nothing outside of it. There’s not even any menu music. And of course, the learning curve is extremely steep.

Despite those flaws, however, Football Manager does the impossible: it makes navigating a bunch of menus fun. Managing a team is incredibly addictive and wonderfully executed, and the game rarely gets in your way. You have as much or as little control as you want here, and it’s incredibly easy to find yourself saying “Just one more match” well into the early hours of the morning. And all of this from just navigating a series on menus. If that’s not an accomplishment, I’m not sure what is.

This game was reviewed on the PC.

The game is set to be published by Sega and is expected to launch on Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux and iOS.

There is also going to be a version of the game created and released for PlayStation Vita which will be titled Football Manager Classic 2014.

The game is currently slated for a worldwide release window of 31^st of October 2013. According to Sports Interactive, this is set to be “the most feature-packed and technically advanced release in the series’ history.”

• 1. Development
• 2. Known Issues From The Beta
• 3. Gameplay
• 4. Teams

Development

Football Manager 2014 was first officially announced via the Football Managers official website on the 14^th of August 2013, leaving only 2 months between the games announcement its and world wide release. Any players that have pre-ordered the game will be granted exclusive access to a digitally download beta build of the game for a 2 week period prior to the official public release of the title. A new feature of the game will be the brand new implementation of Cloud Saves, giving players the ability to carry their save over to any computer in any location.

The version of the game that will be launching on the PlayStation Vita will be different than the PC versions. It will include the “3D Match Engine”, which although not touted as a visually impressive experience, has seen some improvements including weather effects and new, more dynamic camera angles as well as improved animations. Given the very nature of the PlayStation Vita, Football Manager Classic 2014 will make use of quicker game progression, making it more suitable for a portable experience, this means that the game will not only unfold faster, but any levelling done will also happen at a faster pace.

New gameplay changes will make transfer contracts seem more lifelike as they will feature contract clauses that will impact the game in new ways. AI tweaks now mean that the opposing teams’ manager is more likely to make a tactical change mid-match to best counter your current game plan. Individual players can now be designated with specific tasks on the pitch, giving the player a much greater sense of control to the on-pitch happenings rather than just hoping that their plan plays out properly. In regards to the Beta build of the game, Sports Interactive has said “As is the nature of a beta version this not yet a finished product and we are still making numerous improvements”, they also addressed a list of known issues (listed below) which they plan to work on and iron out for the game’s final release.

Known Issues From The Beta

According to an official list release by the developers, following are the list of issues that were found in the beta:

• There is still work being done on the way AI managers and other staff pick teams, so in some cases they may not be making the most ideal team selection.
• There may be the occasional incident where the goalkeeper makes a poor attempt at a save.
• There may be the occasional incident where you see wild back passes.
• There is some balancing work on-going to the talking round of unhappy players.
• There is still some balancing work to be done to the MLS Trade system.
• FMC Match Plans left to assistant may sub players earlier than specified.

Gameplay

Much has changed in the latest iteration of the famous Football Manager, so much so that the developers of the game, Sports Interactive have called it the most feature packed and advanced version of the game in the history of the series. The implementation of cloud saves gives players the opportunity to take their career saves with them as the switch from one system to the next, when coupled with the new means of negotiations it gives the game a new life as a much more versatile, accessible and tactical game. A new focus on community integration on the PC format of the game has also given the series new life; this will be the first Football Manager video game to be released on the Linux operating system. Linux was recently adapted as an accessible operating system for the digital games service “Steam.”

Thanks to the games launch on Steam, players will be given access to the Steam Workshop, a community driven modification workshop. This will make it much easier for players to create and share custom content with other players around the globe, this means that photos/ logo packs and custom competitions with player set parameters and tailored challenges can be all centralized in one area and downloaded at the click of a button. Transferring players in game can be done differently now as well, in older games the negotiations would take place in a turn based setting, but there is an option now for a “live” transfer negotiation, this is to better simulate how clubs would actually handle player negotiations.

Interactions with many aspects of the game’s coaching staff have also been updated. Coaching staff will now occasionally alert you so that you’re aware of up and coming stars in youth teams and how well reserve players are performing to help influence your squad building. You can host meetings with your team to make sure they know how you feel about their recent performances, and from this you can even set goals for your team to try and reach. If you feel as though an unhappy player is dragging down the teams overall performance, you can now ask one of your better performing players to have a talk with them to try and improve moral and bring their playing back up to par.

Teams

At the moment there are 51 nations available to play as, this brings the overall league count to 117 playable leagues. However the in game editing suite allows the player to bring any of the lower level leagues into an already existing league. This can be further expanded upon thanks to the ability to create a brand new league of your own for custom games and custom competitions.

The first change we are shown is the new and improved inbox panel. It’s got a newer, more efficient format, with color coding and a much more logical size format. The biggest change, however, comes from the actual content of the emails contained, with content buttons and increased player info displayed. Additionally email content will include media speculation, cross-team analysis, and news regarding staffing changes on opposing teams. One can also accept or reject offers from directly within the inbox.

Another new feature centers around staffing: When advertising for new staff members, if there are no suitable applicants after the advertisements, there will be a new round of applicants the following day for you to choose from. The season summary has also been revamped, with more details and key moments from the campaign.

All this and more are what gamers have to look forward to from Football Manager 14. The release date is yet unsure, but FM 14 is planned to release across Windows, OS X, Ubuntu, Linux, iOS, and PS Vita.

Sports Interactive studio director Miles Jacobson stated that, “Our unchanging goal in the development of the Football Manager series is to deliver the most authentic and immersive simulation of real-world football management wherever you may be in the world. Players can now take charge of their team anywhere they can access a home computer, and with huge improvements to existing features plus the addition of loads of new stuff, can have the best Football Manager experience to date while doing so.”

Football Manager 2014 releases before Christmas this year on PC, Mac and Linux.