#Football manager 2016 reviews upgrade

I wasn't a fan of last year's changes to Football Manager's interface, and though it has been honed aesthetically - particularly the in-game setup, which is more functional and streamlined than ever - it still seems that too often the information you'd expect to be on a certain screen isn't there, or that rows and columns reorder themselves as if they have a mind of their own.

#Football manager 2016 reviews upgrade

It's a noteworthy improvement to an area that's barely changed this century and - alongside a more realistic transfer market - represents one of the few ways in which Football Manager 16 represents an unequivocal upgrade on its predecessor. Players will now communicate with you during the game, asking to come off if they're struggling and letting you know that they've, say, strained their thigh. While some old problems remain with animations - a player standing and watching as a pass trickles past him, for example - they're hardly game-breaking, and the long-awaited new injury system doesn't seem to have thrown anything out of balance. All but gone are the crazy scorelines, and you'll encounter much more variety in the AI's tactics. Thankfully the match engine itself is in pretty robust shape, and you can tell that a year's worth of work has gone in to finessing Football Manager 15's somewhat flawed release code. This is no panacea for those, like me, who crave some FM feedback. Would Prozone analysis have helped me tame those pesky Shrews? Not without a hireable in-game performance analyst. Or because your defensive line was too high, or too low. It won't tell you whether you've lost because you were closing down too much, or too little. ProZone analytics - great if you think the one thing football is lacking is bar chartsР”Р„nything beyond that, though, and, once again, I'm stumped. If one player keeps giving the ball away, maybe he's not got enough teammates around him to pass to - or perhaps he needs to be dropped. If you're consistently giving away chances in one area of the pitch, perhaps there's a gap in your formation. But, on a basic level, I have found it helpful. The sheer amount of data available at the end of every match is simply vast, to the point where it's almost overwhelming. The use of branding is slick and - superficially - impressive, though the menus themselves aren't at all easy to use. Sadly, the result is something of a mixed bag. Sports Interactive has a partnership with the analytics firm and the chance to use the same tools as Messrs Wenger and, er, McClaren, or even a rough facsimile of them, sounded hugely appealing. I was intrigued, then, to hear that one of FM16's key new features was the incorporation of Prozone analysis - allowing, one would hope, the chance to gain a deeper understanding of where your team might be going wrong (or right). No man should have nightmares about an 8mm Scott Vernon. Turned over again and again, it was the closest I came all year to giving up the game. I even sought advice from a community forum, which suggested I mirrored their formation. In one match I tried to slow things down and flood the midfield, in another I tried to sit back and counter. If ever there was an unbalanced tactic that a seasoned FM manager (ahem) such as myself should be able to exploit, this was it.Р”В«ut I lost. Two wingers, two strikers, two attacking midfielders. Shrewsbury played with an absurdly lopsided 4-0-6 formation. Curzon Ashton: Britain's favourite non-league-club-slash-upmarket-cinema-chain. Of the 232 hours (gulp) I spent attempting to guide Weston-Super-Mare to the Premier League, the most painful by far were those spent across six encounters with Shrewsbury (two in the playoffs) over two seasons in League Two. One of the biggest problems with Football Manager in recent years is that, when fortunes turn against you, there's no chance to learn, to develop as a manager, and to prevent the same things happening again.Р”Р„n example from Football Manager 15. The difference, of course, is that more often than not these real-life oddities can be explained and understood. The inference is clear: Football Manager's match engine might be capricious, infuriating, cruel and, at times, maddeningly unfair.