Best Sports Sim Available Today
 

Here are the choices

Huh? where did the other poll go?

ok what kind of crap is this. The poll is gone now!


Ughhhhhhhh!

The third time is the charm ;)

No championship manager 2006?:D

No this is just another example of American Democracy in action ;)

No contest for me. FM all the way.

FM2006 all the way. and i lost mad posts!

FOF 2004. You soccer guys will not come to the house that Gindin built and get away with this.

Hey, I love FOF 2004. It's a strong 3rd on my list just barely behind FBCB.

Are you SURE that they're guys? ;)

I voted for BBCF, since, at this time, it's the game that I play the most. It's deep, but not tedious.

FOF 2004

FM 2006 is a really great game, but I chose FOF 2004. It just has the perfect balance, in everything, for me. And it's a 2 years and 1/2 old product. I've started a new career just a couple of days ago, and I'm having a LOT of fun, again. It's THE masterpiece.

Interestingly enough, I was thinking about the design decisions that go into a game. Where do the developers draw the line between realism and fun? I mean, would it actually be fun to negotiate a contract with so many riders, counteroffers, etc. for each player that it took five hours to negotiate your rookie contracts?

Too bad FOF2 wasn't mentionned in the list...thus I had to vote for FOF2004 as my 2nd choice ;)

FM 2006

This was one of the issues that killed TPF for me. Yeah, I know the way it works in TPF is more realistic than FOF, but the bottom line was that going through all of that when 90% of my RFA's are just 2nd-year guys getting minisal deals again became nothing more than a big annoyance every season.

Well talking about the best one there is no doubt that FM06 is the best, no contest. Now the ones i have enjoyed the more past year are OOTP6.5 and FBCB. I have big hopes on BBCF and TCB for this year as i'm playing them more and more.

If FM didn't win, it'd be because of homerism.

-Anxiety

Or because some people can't get into a soccer sim.

FOF was my firt love, but its not even close between FOF and FM and I don't even really like soccer all that much. FM is just an amazing game and you can really tell that it has a huge advantage in man power and time put into its development.

Which would likely be due to homerism. Glad you agree with me!


-Anxiety

No, not homerism. I really, really tried to get into it. Bought it, played it, went back to it, but I couldn't get past that the results were meaningless to me.

There are two forms of homerism I refer to here:

Football vs Soccer. Since most of the posters here love football and are American, soccer fans are dimished. So we get people who just never got into soccer that much and its not their thing as a result, because they weren't raised on it like soccer.

And then, this is FOFC no FMC, so a lot of people have that automatic bias.

In fact, I'd guess that a lot of posters have never played FM, yet almost everybody here has played FOF or TCY at one point in time or another.


I'd bet that if you were raised on soccer, you'd love FM.

-Anxiety

Ah. I thought you were referring to the latter. The former is obvious. Ability to understand the game and/or attach significance to the results is a prerequisite for enjoyment of a sim of it.

I like soccer. I don't like FM a ton, mostly because I despise the interface, and the game is too microscopic to me.

It has nothing to do with homerism: It has everything to do with personal preference game-wise.

I'm curious about why you despise the interface. I've found it extremely intuitive, but I have been playing it in one version or another for five years. On the other hand, while I love FOF, the small font and all the double clicking drive me crazy after awhile.

FOF is great...but FM 2006 is better than every other game on the list put together.

FM 06. I bought my first fm game this year and the depth is simply amazing. The learning curve has been steep for this American (I am just really starting to scratch the surface) but worth the effort.

OOTP though is still the game that over the course of a year gets the most play time. I would expect that to continue with the new SI version this year.

FWIW, I can't stand FOF's interface either (though I love the game). FM seems to be the type of game where you get used to the interface, and then find it intuitive. I just can't get past the first part. To me, the interface is......like a 1985 Volvo: Boxy and lacking any personality. It also feels like way too many different screens that you have to click through to me. I love other games (like BBCF) that move the season along with an easily accessable, or always present, menu.

It's funny how upset and defensive FM fans get if anyone doesn't like, or criticizes the game in any way. It's like eating a giant steak in front of a PETA nutjob. :)

That still doesn't make FOF a better sim/game then football manager. The best simmulation ever made is FM 2006. There really can't be a debate on the subject can there?

I've even seen some Fast Break College Basketball votes also. A fun game, but it can't come close to FM 2006.

The best sports sim on the market is hands down FM2006.

If the question was the most fun sports sim on the market, I could see the arguments for the other titles.

But it would be an extremely rare person to vote for a game as the "best" that they do not enjoy. I don't play text sims so that others can have a good time. The best text sim to me is the one that I enjoy the most.

And I can't get into kickball.

See, that's the attitude that I'm talking about. Just because a lot of people agree with you, doesn't make your statement a universal truth. By saying that, you insult the intelligence of the people that don't agree with you.

Although I am not fond of FM because of the things I mentioned in a prior post, I'm almost to the point that I wouldn't play it even if I did like it, since I can't stand a lot of the conceited fans of the game.

Bingo.

Tournament of Dreams?

LOL

I voted for FBCB obviously because it is the one game that changed my views radically on what a text sim should be (i.e., one-more-turn addiction and showing only the information that is critical to decision making without being overloaded visually and without throwing up every bit of information that can humanly fit). And it's funny, I am not a fan of college basketball, even though I had been in the past.

The only one I would have voted for would be OOTP5 with Lahman. That fits SkyDog as the game that I enjoyed most playing, not so much that it's the best one out there.

Never could get into OOTP 6.x for some reason; and of the few others that I had played, FOF was the anti-one-more-turn game and am still waiting for something better with BBCF, even though I do see others enjoying it.

Finally, SD is right about FM. How can one possibly enjoy playing a game where you don't care what your team do or anything about the players and their performance? Afterall, no one truthfully be objective about this; the best = the one you like the most.

Not being defensive at all, I was genuinely curious. Thanks for the explanation.

Where is Football Mogul?

I love Football and am really indifferent about Soccer, but, I have to say FM2006 is far and away the winner.

It says something to me that a sim can take a sport I don't even like and make it exciting for me, wallowing around in the bushes Coaching a lower tier English Team.

After having played CM/FM for so many years, I have a LOT of trouble getting into other text sims. It gets my vote by far. I guess if I was picking a runner-up, it would be OOTP, but that is a very distant second.

See, I disagree with that, and let me give you an example from my recent past:


I just opened and played Civ IV a few days ago. At first I was really excited, because I've always been a huge Civ fan. I love some of the changes that they made. This is a very well put together game, with great graphics, streamlined game mechanics, interesting additions, and such.

After three days I put it down and haven't picked it up since. I beat it a few times, lost a few times, and now I'm done. I realize that I am no longer in a Civ place in my gaming. It's just not for me any longer.

Now, if you had a poll on the best turn based strategy games from the past few years, I'd probably vote for Civ IV - it has tremendous graphics, sound, mechanics, easier to play, neat changes, etc. It's just not for me, but I'd still think of it as the best. You know what I mean?

That's why I don't easily understand someone saying Tournament Dreams or Bowl Bound (or even FOF) is objectively better than FM. FM has more control over tactics, way better immersement, more players, more coaches, more media, more contract options, more ways of building a star franchise, more detail, more skills, more personality by players, more mind games, and the list goes on and on.

I don't easily see how someone can claim "I have more fun with (Insert Your Game Here) so it must be better, despite a laundry list of things thus other game does better" when I can say it about Civ IV versus, say, EU2. I love EU2. I've spent more time playing it in the past few years than anything else, but Civ IV is absolutely a better game.

Why can't others say the same about FM?

-Anxiety

Exactly what he said. Don't forget that FM 2006 FAR AND AWAY has the best simmulation engine for any sport period. It is the only game that accurately models the entire game in a 2d fashion. Their 2d engine PROVES the numbers / statistics. You can watch a game flow and see it looks like real soccer.

The only other game that comes close to the detail and accuracy of FM2006 is EHM and that is still a ways off from matching FM.

Till Arlie or Jim give us a basic X and O engine for football, we won't ever really know what has happened on a play. I can't wait for the day that we eventually get a football game with a 2d engine similiar to FM 2006.

Schmidty is on to something.

Different strokes for different folks.

I voted for TPB 2K5. I adore soccer enough to where I'm going to start playing it again and resume my pursuit of advancing the coaching ladder in it, and I like FM. I also really like OOTP, to where I almost voted for that one.

But in the end, it's TPB 2K5 that gets my vote because I've had more fun with it than any other text sim I've ever played. Whether it was quick simming, simming by watching, or playing out games; whether it was with my Gabriel Arcadia dynasty (that I *will* be resuming once I get my desktop up and running again by the way) or just playing out of dynasty, I got more enjoyment out of that game than any other.

Are there more things I'd like to see done with TPB? Sure, mostly in terms of improving things like the Hall of Fame, which to me seems really bare-bones right now, and the like, but it's still an incredible joy to play.

And it's going to get even better once it's patched to allow imports from TCB. :)

So, by that logic if someone made an in-depth simulation of badmitton, along with a kick-ass 2d engine so you can see the badmitton fly back and forth over the net, and goes into the details of this awesome sport, this would be a better game than FOF? C'mon.

The game and the player's relationship to that game has everything to do with how quality is perceived. As Skydog so aptly put it, if people don't like pro kickball, why should we vote for the game?

I chose FM2006, even though I haven't bought it.....yet. I am afraid to get it at this point, because I will be addicted to it and at this point I have to concentrate more on the move and getting other crap done around here.

I have played previous versions and I knew nothing about soccer, but somehow I became deeply involved with this game because the players seemed to breathe life.

I haven't played any other text sim in which I felt like I was a real decision maker for the team. With the media, the players, the coaches, the fans, and the staff vying for your attention, it feels a lot more real to me. On top of that, the visual match engine is a joy to manage and to watch. I can't say I felt that way for any other text sim.

With that said, I don't understand why people feel a need to get upset when they don't choose this as the best text sim. Each person has their own set of criteria when it comes to choosing the best game. This is very similar to sport. Some will say Michael Jordan is the best while others may say Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Kareem, etc..... It all depends on your own set of criteria.

I would agree with that. If FOF Curling was released and it was better than FOF, then I'd admit it, no matter how much I loathe Curling.

-Anxiety

Knowing how hard Marc and his team work on creating what's really the essence of a text sim, I'm really honored to have my work mentioned alongside his (even if this is FOF Central).

Seeing the direction EA is headed, I'm somewhat glad I didn't take the offer to move to Florida. I'm not naive enough to think I could have changed their direction. I'm much more interested in adding the types of features FM has.

While I can't put together a large art budget or create an entirely custom interface, I like the direction I'm headed, with larger screens and abandoning the use of 7-pt fonts.

If anyone can give me examples of where I'm using double-clicks where I should be using single-clicks, or places where there are too many screens opened back and forth, I'd be interested in hearing about them.