Review - Monday 1st January 2007 - 12:00am
Football Director (FD) is one of those games that will establish a genre in the fledging mobile gaming market. In other words, it is an innovative game that opens up an unexplored territory previously left void by mobile game developers. Still though the question that begs to be answered is: is FD fun? The answer to that question is really quite simple, FD is the best darned mobile game I’ve ever played.
FD is a mobile take on the game genre established by the venerable Championship Manager series on the personal computer. Championship Manager is one of the longest running and best selling pc game series in history. So naturally the fans of the series, will be clamoring for a portable version of the game. Luckily for the fans (including me), RW Software decided to develop a mobile clone of Championship Manager.
The presentation aspect of the game is really first class. Navigation of the various commands and options in the game is a snap. The graphics, since this is a text heavy statistic game is practically non existent, still though if you’re playing a game like this, who needs some fancy 3D graphics to spice up the screen. A lot of the information presented is color coded to help you immediately figure out which players play what position. If there is one knock against the superb game interface it is the lack of a sort option. Sometimes having a team of more than 20 people is practically tedious trying to wade through all the players, trying to find a player of a particular kind in order to fit within your lineup. I would really appreciate an option to be able to sort the players according to their skill rating at a particular position, and etc. The audio aspect of the game is just as good as the visual presentation of the game. The music is loud and really fits the game well. It isn’t some generic composition inserted in the game just so that there is music, rather the designers seem to have thought of the proper music to include in their game. However the music does get tiring after awhile and you’ll probably be turning it off in order to conserve the battery power of your mobile device in order to squeeze a few more minutes of playing time on your phone. To add to the gaming atmosphere when you coach a match, you’ll be hearing the roar of the crowd and the whistle of the referee.
Speaking of playing time, I’ve found myself quite addicted to this game after first picking it up. In fact at last count, I’ve been playing this game straight for around the past 11 to 13 hours. This game has so much strategic depth that I can probably just go on and on writing about the game. To make this review short, so that I can go back to playing the game, I’ll give a quick rundown of the features of the game. FD allows you to buy and sell players, arrange their training, developing promising young players from your youth academy and negotiating contract details with your players. Along the way, aside from keeping an eye on the development of your team, you’ll need to watch out for the financial aspect of your team. Winning translates to better fan support which will bring in more money to your club in order to help finance your bid to really construct a dominating football club. To help you in your task, you’ll need to recruit a good managerial staff. Not only will you be discussing contract details with players, but you’ll also be having similar dialogues with coaches, scouts and medics. Another factor you have to consider is that you have to watch out for the Board of Directors of your football club. Like real live Board of Directors, these faceless and name less folks will try to block your decisions if it doesn’t sit right with them. Sometimes these guys can really give you a hard time especially when they keep thinking that your decision doesn’t make sense at all. Carefully structured plans can go completely awry because of an unexpected Board of Directors veto.
Any football fan will tell you that having good players isn’t enough if you don’t know how to use them. To prove that point the developers have included an option for you to select the tactics that you will use in your club’s matches and there is even an option to assign specific match roles to your players. Tactics are very important, because you really need to take advantage of the proper skills and positions of your players to win your matches against the other clubs. As for club selection, FD allows you to choose from any of the 92 teams found in England’s Premier, Division I, Division II and Division III leagues. Along with the clubs, are hundreds of players and their proper corresponding statistics. The part of the game that I really enjoy is the aspect of buying young players and developing them for a season or two and then selling them to another club for profit. Seeing these young guns develop into competent professional football players and making a tidy profit gives me a nice warm feeling inside. To finance your campaign to be the very best club in England, you might want to make a visit at the bank and grab a loan. Money is quite important in the game, because developing and constructing an efficient and world class football team requires a large amount of money. Ultimately, to win your matches, everything must really start with how you manage your team’s development. This game is about thinking two to three seasons ahead and not merely concentrating on the current season.
You’ll find that leading your club to the top of the league’s table is a very satisfying experience. Aside from league competition, FD also allows your chosen club to participate in cup tournaments in order to gain more prestige for your organization. Like in the real game of football, sometimes upsets do occur and it really is wonderful to see my upstart Boston steal a game from Chelsea. Although the next few games that I played against Chelsea, I’ve found my team getting clobbered every which way. Oh well, at least I was able to steal one from Chelsea, and that is enough to make me proud of my team.
FD is as feature rich as a mobile football manager game could ever be in its first iteration. While it is unfortunate that there are no team and league editors included with the game, the gameplay is quite deep and the sheer amount of options within the game is enough to make you wonder how they were able to cram all of it within a handheld device. Even though the only clubs available are from England, there are still so many things to do that you wouldn’t really be missing the presence of Real Madrid, Barcelona, Juventus, Inter, and Ajax. Although if you’re a rabid fan of those clubs above, you’ll probably be crying already at the thought that you’re club isn’t included in FD.
This is the first game I’ve ever installed in my O2 XDA2, and from the looks of it, this will probably be the last game I’ll uninstall, at least until Football Director II comes out. If ever you’re a serious football fan, or your like to play a deep and serious strategy – management game, Football Director is a no brainer purchase. Playing FD is like being able to play Championship Manager within the palm of your hands. This is definitely a spectacular game worth the time it takes to download.
