Football Manager 2008

Frustrated by Rafa's rotation policy at Liverpool and think the Reds should be better? Angry that Valencia is falling apart as we speak under Ronald Koeman? Think you could lead Manchester United to another treble? Then Football Manager 2008 is the game for you.

I know this game has been out for a while here in the US but I haven't seen any "reviews" for it on soccer blogs or websites around the internet, so I wanted to put something out there for those of you who may be interested.

This isn't your typical soccer video game like EA Sports' FIFA series or Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer. In FM 2008 you don't actually play the game on the field; rather, you take complete control of nearly any club or national team in the world as their manager. You can buy, loan, and sell players, schedule friendlies, set up your team and player tactics in nauseating detail; in short, anything a manager is responsible for in real life you become responsible for as well.

If you want to look at all the nifty features and whatnot, I encourage you to go to the game's official website at http://fm08.footballmanager.net/en/article/100/index.html. I'm not going to go into specifics here other than what I've already covered but suffice it to say that this game is worth the money. You can also download a free demo if you want to get a feel for what FM 2008 is like and then decide whether or not to buy the full game.

I definitely recommend this game to anyone interested in soccer. As I said, it's not the typical video game but that's what drew me to this series in the first place. This "review" doesn't do it justice in the least and so if you're intrigued, check out the website for yourself. In fairness, the game did have a few bugs and kinks to be worked out but several patches have been released that should have addressed and corrected those errors.