Football Manager 2009 (abbreviated to Football Manager 09 or FM09) is a football manager simulation video game. It was released on PC, Mac and Playstation Portable on 14 November 2008.
| Football Manager 2009 | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | Sports Interactive |
| Publisher(s) | Sega |
| Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, PlayStation Portable |
| Release | PC, Mac |
| Genre(s) | Sports, Simulation |
| Mode(s) | Single-player, Multiplayer |
The demo of the game was released at midnight on 2 November via the News of the World, BitTorrent and Steam.
New features
Some of the new features and box art for the game were announced via a series of videos on 3 September 2008, other new features have been released via a series of podcasts and online blogs. [2] It is the first game in the series to be released on DVD-ROM rather than CD-ROM.
The main new feature to the game is the 3D match engine. This can now be watched fullscreen, with a widescreen option available. Other features include being able to play as a female or male manager, improvements to the interaction between the manager and his assistant manager, improved mid-match team talks and tactics, training players to have preferred moves and transfer rumours. The player rating will have a decimal point, eg. 6.8 or 8.3 instead of 7 or 8. There will also be press conferences, where you can build up a rapport with the journalists, and the finance and transfer systems have been completely reworked. The game is set to feature more players than ever before, with over 350,000 in the database at the time of the game's announcement. Many of the new features were tested using a Football Manager Live beta. The PC version has a skin similar to the one used in Football Manager 2008.
The handheld version will include a 2D match engine for the first time, and the game will be shipped with two skins; a light and a dark alternative.[3]
The game suffered setbacks on and before launch day, most notably many players found themselves unable to activate the game due to servers providing activation for the DRM system failing to cope with the number of users.
Playable leagues and club cups
|
Africa
Asia and Oceania
UK & Ireland
Scandinavia
Rest of Europe
|
North America
South America
|
1 - Germany's national team is not allowed to be included in the game due to licensing rights being owned by EA Sports' "FIFA" series, whilst the Japanese J-League and the Japanese national team are not allowed in the game at all due to Konami's purchase of the exclusive rights for their Pro Evolution Soccer series.
Steam Powered
Sports Interactive have announced that the game will be downloadable using the Steam content delivery system. This will allow gamers to have their games automatically patched to the latest version of the game. Miles Jacobson, the studio director at Sports Interactive, said "It gives us the opportunity for all of our games players to get any patches or updates that we make available quickly and easily, as well as a place for us to host any other downloads, such as demos and promotional videos, with super fast broadband speeds for download, and no issues with bandwidth, which we are hit with each time we release a demo".[4]. The Steam version of the game retains the Uniloc copy protection with its 5 activation limit.
Issues and Problems
Activation problems
This section needs additional citations for verification. (November 2008) |
Upon release, many buyers had problems caused by the new Uniloc copy protection. A printing error on the manuals caused characters to be difficult to read as well as attacks on the the online activation servers through which the telephone activation lines were also run. In response, SEGA issued a press release apologising for the problems faced by purchasers. [5][6]
Bugs
A patch was also released on 14th November 2008, for the PC version, fixing a number of compatibility issues and bugs. A Mac patch is still be worked on. [7]
External links
References
- ^ "Football Manager 2009".
- ^ Miles Jacobson, Sports Interactive studio director. "Football Manager HMV Blogs".
- ^ Miles Jacobson, Sports Interactive studio director. "FM2009 & FMH2009 - Part 2 on YouTube".
- ^ "Football Manager teams up with Steam". Sports Interactive. 2008-10-09. Retrieved 2008-10-16.
- ^ "Sega apologetic for Football Manager problems". TDC. 2008-14-09. Retrieved 2008-14-09.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=and|date=(help) - ^ http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=309044
- ^ "FM09 PATCH OUT NOW!". Sports Interactive. 2008-14-09. Retrieved 2008-14-09.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=and|date=(help)