14 DAY TRIAL // Football Manager 2014 will certainly engulf my life in the coming weeks because I have long been addicted to its simulation mechanics and to the virtual football experiences that the Sports Interactive series delivers.
But this year’s installment offers more than just a simple series of small updates and the developers have changed at least one core system: team and player tactical instructions.
In many ways, this is the heart of the experience and the new implementation is simpler than that of the previous years and makes it easier to test out ideas and react to surprising situations on the pitch.
Where gamers remember seeing sliders and tick boxes, they now have a number of clickable options that are directly inspired by the touchline instructions from Football Manager 2013.
Initially, I thought that the system was too limited and did not offer the flexibility that a solid sim had to deliver.
But Sports Interactive clearly wants gamers to abandon the idea that they can create a tactic that can work regardless of situation or opposition.
The idea in Football Manager 2014 is that tactics need to constantly evolve and change in order to remain useful and deliver results.
I usually play Liverpool, but I also took a look at Bayern, Manchester United, AS Monaco and Juventus in order to get a better understanding of the new system.
The players available to the team and the demands of the board need to be balanced to create a basic tactical setup that can remain unchanged for at least half a season, but at the same time, gamers need to be able to make changes to deal with a good opposition player or a sudden drop in morale.
The entire system is enhanced by the way individual players can be customized for their position, including assigning them new roles, such as the wonderful Enganche.