What Next For FM?

This article has been written before and I probably won't be able to match the quality of similar pieces. But so, its Saturday morning(I think) and I feel a bit sick and am rather bored. Therefore this article is going to written by moi. As it says on the tin, What next for FM? Few games can say that they define a Genre, there has been classic games released recently- in the past couple of years- such as; Halo, GTA series, Colin McRae series. These games will continue to be loved for many years. Yet they cannot compare to the status of which football manager has. Almost all of my mates if not all of them have a copy of FM. When you think of manager games you think FM. No question. The only 3 games i can think of that nearly acquire this 'status' is The Sims, GTA and maybe FIFA football. However these games have serious competition. FM sadly does not.

With FM being so widely popular SI have the difficult task of keeping the customers happy. To get the customers from year to year to purchase the game. Arguably they have been doing this. However there would be no point in this article if I agreed with that statement now would there?

If you read the first entry 'A Random Dribbling' you will have gathered that I am not the greatest fan of this simulation bollocks. I suppose its nice so that everything is accurate and you don't get John Stead top scorer of the Championship or be able to get Rooney for £10M. But I feel the game is just to deep. Anyway I am straying away from the point. Something needs to be done in FM to give it a new lease of life. And I don't mean something like a new scouting system. 3D match engines have been discussed on and off for a few years now. And at first I was a fan of the the idea. Getting away from little dots running after 5 pixels would be great wouldn't it. Well yes it would. Although it is a bit optimistic for SI to virtually create 290,0000 people for in-game-use. It would take about 10 years for every player to be created.

Not only does the 3D idea fall on its arse because of the complexity. The size of the game if everything were virtually enhanced would be extraordinary and simply too big for your average computer. It would be nice to have a better match engine, but it unfortunatly will not be happening any time soon.

So 3D could be an idea for further games, I know I would certainly be asking Santa for FM08 if that was the case, but what other ideas are there? Obviously years down the line if the series is still going then you, the manager, will be able to look out at your team in training/ matches and be able to pass coments to the players. But until those days where we can go to Mars for a pint of milk a new system will have to do. I like this year how you can talk to other managers more and there are alot more questions from the media like in real life. But I feel its lacking something. You often have to settle for something you dont want to say because the questions only have 4 options. I would like to see you be able to type in what you think. Difficuilt, but Im sure with a bit of thinking SI could pull it off. With the comments you make affecting your team so much in this episode it is vital that something is done to improve the system.

I also feel that the manager, and players for that matter, should have more involvement to the game with regard to thier personal lives. I think it would be pretty cool if you were the manager and you had to get your ass out of bed in the morning, go and get your cornflakes and then piss off to work. If he was having problems with the wife then you would become moody the club suffers etc.

I don't know how future versions will pan out, but it would be nice to see a revolutionary new game in place. Still SI cant win, there will always be one bugger complaining about how they have spoilt it. Who knows what the future will hold.