14 DAY TRIAL // My obsession with Football Manager 2012 and virtual Liverpool has been well documented, both in a series of Game Diaries and in at least another Weekend Reading piece. But I must return to it because I came to understand that I was not actually playing a simulation game, but one of the purest role playing games to be launched during 2011.
We have come to associate the role playing game concept with the likes of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, when it comes to recent successes in the field, or with classics like Planescape: Torment but, to some extent, these are role playing games that use a certain space, fantasy, and a number of mechanics, like conversation, leveling up, abilities and monster based battles.
Football Manager has the same basis structure, although the fantasy or science fiction space is replaced by a world populated with real players, coaches, scouts, chairmen, teams and competitions.
FM 2012 has boss battles, like the match I played with Fulham, my up and coming hero, against the impressive power represented by Manchester City, who in my current game are both Champions League holders and British champions.
FM 2012 has leveling up mechanics, with actual player abilities thrown into a formula with club facilities, schedules and actual trainers to determine whether they go up or down and by what percentage.
FM 2012 has conversations, maybe not as in-depth as those in Skyrim, crucial to the performance of individual players and the whole team.
And, more important, Football Manager 2012 allows me to play a role: that of a manager that comes from Romania and the lower leagues and somehow makes it to the top of the game, managing a leading team in England.
I build all my press conference answers, tactical choices, recruitment options and club development ideas around this role, and the result is an experience that is in no way less epic than the narrative that Bethesda created for Skyrim and offers much more actual freedom.