Football Manager Handheld (PSP)

Product Information

The shoulder buttons, meanwhile, act as 'back' and 'next', and within minutes the general navigation becomes almost as easy as the full game. When a game as all-consuming as Football Manager enters your life, there's only one problem: knowing when to stop.

I only played the game on a PSP until 2012 when I tried the IOS version, I never thought in a million years the game would be as good on a phone but it blew me away, the difference between the PSP and the IOS versions.For a start, the look and feel is completely different, with a modern touch interface sporting big, bold iPhone-friendly buttons, and an intuitive drag-and-drop system that makes tactical changes and transfer hunting a cinch. There are WAY too few stats for each player (about half as many as on the PC), so you have the ridiculous situation of all players looking pretty much identical to one another. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. But if you're really intent on living out your football management dreams the way that Sports Interactive used to, the best bet is to keep things simple and opt for the iOS version. Final Fantasy has very little processing of code in real time compared to FMH, yes they could change the skin and fix bugs but why bother wasting time on a console they know their sales are going to be less than 2012 plus 99% of time bug fixing = more bugs appearing.

On the plus side, if you have multiple iOS devices, you can play the game on one and continue it on another using the same saved game.The only slow thing in the game is the set up," promises Jacobson, and having run through a few league games, it's easy to see that this is definitely the case.

The newly-issued iOS version, meanwhile - a universal app for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch - is a different beast altogether.

Another trumpeted 'new' addition allows you to play the game 'mirrored' on a big screen via Airplay over Apple TV, providing you have an iPhone 4S or iPad 2. Unfortunately, though this game delivers a swifter, less complicated approach it results in a feling that your actions don't seem to get you anywhere. They thought let's repackage it and make whatever we can, what they did not realise they messed around fans who actually bought it.

Unfortunately - unlike, say, Real Racing 2 - the game doesn't resize itself to take advantage of your 1080p display, but merely replicates what you're already seeing on the device. The same solid handheld principles apply to the iOS version, with the ability to 'manage' squad selection and tactics on a fairly superficial level if you wish and up to four active nations running at once (from a choice of 12). Each season seems to run along the same lines - moulding the team in to something that works by May, only to be back to square one come August. For the purposes of handheld play, these snack-sized portions of managerial meddling work brilliantly, and help negate the tedious faffing that often goes with getting a game up and running. Gamer Network Limited, Gateway House, 28 The Quadrant, Richmond, Surrey, TW9 1DN, United Kingdom, registered under company number 03882481.

This year with advances in board interaction on club affairs and development, including; stadium expansions and training facility improvements. Happily, there's never any sense of impending failure if you don't bother with expanding your stadium or improving your training facilities, and the game never nags you into doing anything you're not bothered about. It's quite likely that you're a bit like me - a former football management addict who had to go cold turkey and leave it far behind - and not just for the predictable reasons of it being 'too compulsive' and being threatened with justifiable violence by your significant other.