Dear Readers,

My name is Steve, I am a retired laywer at age 52 and have been playing Football Manager since 2012. Of the 300 games I have from steam this game has had the greatest staying power.

On average for the 30 to 60 dollars CAN that I spend annnually on Football Manager I can honestly say that I am really getting my moneys worth. On avarage I play FM for 400 to 600 hours annually. If you consider that there are about 2000 work hours per year I am spending one quarter to one third of my work time on this mostly strategy game.

(incidently I only play strategy, a little rpg)

At 60 dollars and 600 hours the game is charging you 10 cents per hour.

Minimum Wage in Ontario, Canada is $14 per hour now and is going to be $15 an hour in one year from now. Everyone can afford this game and the new FM Touch is $30 CAN, a maximum two hours work for anyone in Ontario.

I always play the new Touch. It has all the managerial aspects that I love and you can also take direct management during a game and also watch it. I find the full version a little too cumbersome and too much micromanagement though I have spent time with it and enjoyed the online comraderie that it allows.

The bottom line is if you love the game as much as I do and have the free time it is a great and very cheap, almost free game. If you also invest in free games as the market has now, you worry about pay to win, and waste your time.

The new FM18 Touch is a vast improvement on FM17 Touch and 17 was an improvement on the prior years. It is a lot of fun learning all the new or adjusted features each year. FM18 is a great improvement on graphics on watching, the scouting process has been streamlined and financials are well organized. The basics take little time to learn and the help function and question feature help tremendously. If you want micromanagement the full version is recommended.

To watch the game I recommend a video card that is at most 2 years out of date. For 150 bucks you can upgrade to a card, one year out of date if you are so inclined. My computer is still good after five years and FM runs well on Windows 7. I can only imagine if you have a new comuter there will be no glitches.

Touch is a highly polished product. I have no knowledge of the new full version.

The way I play is to always start in the lowest league as a young manager of 30 years with little experience, unemployed. There are usually 2 or three managerless tems that will take you as a manager. Then I play in the league and try for Promotion. The top 2 to 4 teams in a division in the English leagues get promoted.

At some point usually 2 or 3 seasons I get promoted and my and the teams reputation increases, which allows me to get jobs with more presigious teams. I usually stay with a team for 4 to 5 seasons. Then I get a better job with a higher profile team. I do this continously until I get promoted to the top division, 6 divisions where I play my England teams.

The key to is the scouting and financial aspects of the game. You have to strike a balance. You always want the best players in a position but they can get expensive and also may not want to join if you are a low profile club.

There are plenty of stats and funtions available for people who like numbers and compare and contrast. The game functions of themselves are much too many to write about in detail. They have to be explored and played for full effect.

I give FM my higest recommendation of the 300 games I own.

If you have free time, like stategy and sports as I do, I recommend this game for you.

For those of you in school or have full time jobs, consider that you may not really have the time to play.

Enjoy.

Best game for casual managers :) I find Football Manager too slow and boring and Football Manager Mobile too quick and not in depth but finally i found the best game for me :)

Disappointing.

I always buy FM touch as it is pritty much what FM or CM was when is was in its prime. Not too complex but complex enough. I find the full game to have too much micro management and to be frustrating.

My biggest complaint is where has text commentary gone? The text commentary with the flashing GOAL! indicator has been part of CM and FM since day one and after nearly 30 years they take it out of the game without any explanation. Not only that it's been replaced with nothing that tells you whats going on in the moment. So bascally you are forced to play 2D or 3D and if you don't want to watch the entire game in either of these modes and want highlgihts then instead of text commentary you are given a stats screen.

S.I want you to use their crappy 3D engine and watch each game from start to finish and if you don't like it though!

I always play in 2D classic with highlights and text commentary, this way a season doesn't take a year to complete. You cant do this anymore. Gone.....

I don't like the overhauled scouting system, seems inferior to last years which didn't need changing in all honesty and the match day scream has been messed up all together.

All in all the U.I is very badly designed, nothing flows or seems to be implemented with any logical thinking.

Also where did the crappy theme tune come from? FM and gay bar music don't mix.

Like alot of game franchsies today the developer seems to love changing things that didn't need fixing.

FM was perfect ten years ago, why it had to be messed around with is beyond me. This is coming from someone who has played every CM and FM since 97/98.

Very disappointed with the changes and have requested a refund.

Yet another classic game messed up when it was fine to start with.

If only I could play FM 2005-08 with a up to date data base.

3/10

I literally can't find any new features in this years FM Touch version from last year. Last year this got a positive review from me because I found it superior to the full version but this season they released the exact same game with a new database and nothing more.

have been playing since the 90s i buy every year and the game is always good statisics wise but surely the time has come for audio commentary and i am sure others agree that the last 5 years we are paying full price for a data update and a few game engine tweaks like most players i am loyal but need more than just updates please move forward in the games world fed up with just crowd chants hope others agree

If you have Football Manager touch 2017, you know exactly what is coming your way with this one. Aside from minor changes, it is pretty much an update on the playerbase.

There is one change that pretty much makes this game a worthwhile buy for me:
Personalized strategy settings for players, so that I dont need to update tactics every time I rotate players.

A heads up; I have jumped from FM2016 to FM2018 so some of this may have already been introduced in FM2017.

I like this game, here's a few reasons why:

The standard FM game is just too intensive for me. I actually think they're trying to make it too realistic. It's a computer game! I don't want to deal with a realistic amount of injuries for example. While I've noticed injuries in FM Touch 2018 are higher than in past versions, it seems that they're much more managable than in the main game.

The whole look has changed for the better and that includes the menu layout as well as the graphics. The animation during matches seems to be a lot smoother.

I like the scout rating players out of 100. For example, you can compare players rated as 'good for League One' better based on their 0-100 score. One may have a score of 85 whereas the other may only be 79, which helps you to decide.

You are able to better manage players based on their personalities. In FM2016 I pretty much treated every player the same when they complained about something. In FM2018 you can better interact with and manage them. I rejected a bid for my midfielder and when he said he was unhappy about it I simply told him the fee wasn't high enough. His reaction was 'fair enough'. I tried the same thing with a more volatile player and he wasn't happy about it.

As always, FM Touch allows you to speed through seasons without all the boring stuff like seemingly pointless press conferences.

The game is simply better than previous versions in almost all areas. If you enjoyed FM Touch in the past, this is for you.

both on and off field, I don't enjoyed being swallowed by one wave of statistics after another. I wanted to try managing a club in a more streamlined fashion, handle the transfers, communication, squad tactics and so on, without feeling like being an overworked number cruncher. I also admit, that I'm not very proficient in translating my ideas into match day tactics.

For these reasons and some, FMT was the ideal choice for me. It allowed me to take over a club of my choosing - try my hand at managing, transfers, match simulation, etc. - without eating tons of my time in order to just get through a single season. It was really enjoyable and fun, just my cup of tea.

In my opinion, both FM and FMT are great games, but the latter is more suitable for people who either don't enjoy delving too deep into the tactics (blasphemer!) or simply don't want to invest huge chunks of time to see some competition and club progress (go play a broswer football manager, you casual!). I'm both of these people, while also being a huge football fan (minus the craving and dedication to be the next virtual del Bosque or Alf Ramsey). Because of this I was able to really enjoy Football Manager Touch, which sated my hunger for some fast paced, entertaining, none-too-serious yet not-too-dumbed-down field action.

CUT TO THE CHASE:

- great streamlined (lite) alternative to regular Football Manager, retains the fun aspects, while also allowing fans and gamers of the more casual persuasion to enjoy it

- performance on a system requirements exceeding rig was great

- didn't notice any bugs at all, had a few crashes to desktop, which were mildly annoying

- even though the menu music is not bad at all, I kinda blocked it out after starting the game for the umpteenth time

- you get what you buy: this is football, don't expect ever changing plot dynamics and surreal twists, because this is a sport, with set rules; that's why it might get repetitive depending on your approach to it

If you found yourself in some of the descriptions in this review, give it a try. I recommend it.

Hello all,
I have played and enjoyed Football Manager for as many years as I can rememnber. However, i have never had more difficulties with a version of this wonderful game! While everything else is wonderful here are som eof the many frustrating issues with Football Manger 18 Touch;
1)Winning away from home is almost impossible! Even with really good teams. Before you tell me to get the proper tactics, let me say that I have spent hours researching and trying to get the right tactics with various teams and my record away from homwee in each game I've tried is always horrid. While I appreciate that FM has made it more realistic and more difficult, it has gone too far to the otherside and made it not enjoyable. I know no matter whta, I am going to lose at least 60% of my away matched, draw 20 and win only 20. Sorry but that;s pathetic.
2)When you score a goal it's amazing how many times the opposing team will score one imemdiately following. Sure it happens sometimes but come on.....I'd estimate that almost 20 percent of EVERY goal I score follows an immediate response from teh opposing (sometimes even crappy) team.
3) RBL (Red Bull Leipzig) is a good team in real life but in FM 18 they are unstoppable. Just saying that seems kind of......unrealistic?

There are other issues but I hope in the newest patch you folks fix this because it has made the game more and more frustarting and less enjoyable, even for those who put a lot of time into it. If this is not remedied in some capacity, unfortunately i will not be buying next year's game.

So, unless you're a tactical genuis, or just flat out lucky (like RBL seem to be in this game) do not bother. It will frustrate youi to no end, putting so much effort into tactics, only to have teh AI beat you away from home almost evbery time, even if you are a great team.

Lucas (Canada)

How do Arsenal lose 7 bloody nil to Leatherhead