If this works, Football Manager could possibly be the most dangerous thing to public safety since that madman injected liquid mercury into oranges during the 1980s. Those who know about Football Manager (and Championship Manager before it) will be able to appreciate what I’m getting at. Having played the PC version you’ll know what it does to you emotionally and the actual consequences of starting and ultimately getting bored of a game of Football Manager ‘ you’ll lose girlfriends, jobs, your skin shrivels from lack of sunlight and the power of speech fails you if only for the occasional disapproving grunt. But at least you’re sitting in one place, not much can happen when you’re still. The premise of Football Manager Handheld is that you’re able to move whilst playing this. The lunatics.
Okay so this does sort the skin shrivelling out ‘ but opens up new realms of risk. Of course this depends on whether this PSP incarnation holds any clout.
If you’ve become accustomed to the level of fine-tuning to be found in the PC version of FM and find it to be the most enjoyable part of playing then you should lower your standards ‘ you’ll need to in order to enjoy this. Sports Interactive has stepped back a few years. Gone is the compulsive 2D engine. Gone is the tactics screen that allows you to move players around the pitch. Gone are the halftime team-talks and the manager mind games. In fact, most of what resembles the PC incarnation has been liquidized and what you’re left with is a shell of what can now be described as ‘the full game’.
Football Manager Handheld can closely be compared to some of the turn of the century Championship Manager titles. Instead of the 2D pitch, you now see the re-promotion of the infamous flashing text as the main inclination as to how your team are playing during matches (although you do have quick access player ratings etc.). And while this is a disappointment to begin with, it doesn’t take too long to remember that this flashing text bar system was largely responsible for so much of what we enjoyed about Football Manager (more Championship Manager) ‘ pre-2D engine.
And while Sports Interactive have enforced massive limitations on what you can actually do as a manager; it’s obvious that given the hardware limitations of the PSP, these were necessary. Remarkably, the game runs much faster than the PC version. You can get through a season in about four hours, and loading (processing) times are almost non-existent, or at least seem that way if you’re used to waiting eons for Saturday’s fixtures to be processed when playing the PC version.
And because of the pace it really does work well on the PSP. Regardless of what you’re doing, if you have 10 minutes spare, you can fit three or four games in. So whether you’re on the bog for short while or on the train for an age, you still get the same gratification from playing, regardless of how much time you have to invest. And that’s not something that many games on the PSP can boast about. SI has also scored in making the various screens easily negotiable. In the absence of a mouse you are given a straightforward button system that becomes second nature after an hour or so.
SI has had to juggle between making Football Manager Handheld not only as addictive and compulsive as the PC version, but they also had to work within the capabilities of the hardware. The result is something that resembles what we’re used to, but not quite everything we’d expect. And yet this game is still fiendishly addictive and the ‘just one more game before bedtime’ feeling is far from lost.
