Picked out a random game from my 360-collection looking for something new to play and landed on "LMA Manager 2007". I wasn't overly excited about it as, with the exception of the PSP "Football Manager" series, I've never found that the mouse free interfaces lend themselves particularly well to Football Management games, but after a while I settled into this one, and thought it worked quite well.
Take charge of an existing football team and guide them to glory or establish a new team and guide them up from the bottom. As well as influencing tactics, player recruitment and training mechanisms, the game allows you to get involved in the commercial side, with advertising and ground development choices to be made.
Immediately I struggled with getting around in the game, but I did eventually work it out. There is a top menu, that you navigate with the Left and Right triggers and then another menu level within each top option that is navigated with the left and right bumpers. The Y button then switches you into the contents of that menu. Initially I struggled with other selection choices too, like swapping players in and out of my team, but I settled into that too.
I never watched the actual games I managed being played in the engine, preferring instead to race through to the end of the game and fight out the result. That was unusual, because I wasn't in charge of substitutions or changing tactics, though it looked like that was a possibility, so maybe that was something I chose. After you've played a match, there is optional analysis available from Alan Hansen and Gary Lineker. The game only has one licensed song, "Arms Open" by Snow Patrol, which it played on a loop as I was setting the game up. I like the song but it began to grate pretty quickly on the third play through. Once you start the game though, it stops playing that song.
It doesn't feel like it has the depth that Championship Manager had at the same time, let alone comparable to the game now but I've played other games that did this same thing worse, and I do think it's a little sad that nobody offers a challenge to "Football Manager" anymore.
Take charge of an existing football team and guide them to glory or establish a new team and guide them up from the bottom. As well as influencing tactics, player recruitment and training mechanisms, the game allows you to get involved in the commercial side, with advertising and ground development choices to be made.
Immediately I struggled with getting around in the game, but I did eventually work it out. There is a top menu, that you navigate with the Left and Right triggers and then another menu level within each top option that is navigated with the left and right bumpers. The Y button then switches you into the contents of that menu. Initially I struggled with other selection choices too, like swapping players in and out of my team, but I settled into that too.
I never watched the actual games I managed being played in the engine, preferring instead to race through to the end of the game and fight out the result. That was unusual, because I wasn't in charge of substitutions or changing tactics, though it looked like that was a possibility, so maybe that was something I chose. After you've played a match, there is optional analysis available from Alan Hansen and Gary Lineker. The game only has one licensed song, "Arms Open" by Snow Patrol, which it played on a loop as I was setting the game up. I like the song but it began to grate pretty quickly on the third play through. Once you start the game though, it stops playing that song.
It doesn't feel like it has the depth that Championship Manager had at the same time, let alone comparable to the game now but I've played other games that did this same thing worse, and I do think it's a little sad that nobody offers a challenge to "Football Manager" anymore.
