PC - Eidos Interactive
The game does not have any introduction sequence at all; it launches straight onto the menu screen which is simple enough to understand. You then have to set about setting up the game, the basics are quite straight forward but there seems to be a large array of other options available with little help or mention in the manual.
When the game starts you have to set up your squad, again there is no introduction sequence but given this is a football management game there is not really a story to introduce, although even a short movie sequence would have livened it up a bit. The learning curve is very steep, it is fair to say if you do not know a lot about the sport you will struggle a lot getting going. You can just about make your way through the basic options to your first game provided you do not spend too much time trying to figure out what everything else does. There is a great lack of help for new players; even the tooltips are not very informative, which seriously reduces the fun.
The concept of this game sounds quite fun: manage your favourite football team to victory. However it seems mostly to consist of clicking the 'continue' button and sitting through the program calculating the results of other matches. During the matches your team is playing in the amount of control is limited, the attempt at the 2D visualization helps raise some excitement but the whole experience needs to be more interactive. The out of game management is quite interesting for a while but in the long term just becomes repetitive.
The visuals are very simple and really detract from the game; there are times when it feels like nothing more than a glorified spreadsheet. The in match visualisation would be effective if it ran for the whole match rather than just a few minutes at a time and then cutting out at the interesting bits for no apparent reason.
The game is not easy but it is hard to say the game has any intelligence as it mostly feels like you are simply putting information into equations and it gives you back the results.
Immersion is pretty poor, with no attempts to get the player in the mood. The only time you can feel involved is during a match and even then you still feel disconnected from the action as you do not directly control it.
The game is a series of 2D menu screens so there is not really much that can said, although it would be useful if they made use of showing more information when mouseover-ing an item to save you having to click through to a different page.
The controls are simple clicking on options but occasionally it is hard to navigate your way around and find what you need, a simpler and more intuitive interface is required.
The game has a great amount of detail about the sport and allows you to control many aspects of your team, which is impressive, but in terms of game play it misses out on a lot of opportunities to make the experience more enjoyable.
I left the game feeling mostly bored and did not really want to play again, there was the slight desire to try and make my team win but the process was too painful to make it worth it.
Overall this game is for people obsessed with football and know all the details of the sport thoroughly, anyone else playing it will tend to find it boring and confusing.