Here we go Boyz, it's the FM09 Demo Impressions (release: 7PM EDT) Impressions thread
 

Rather nice of the FM folks to release their demo on a night we get an extra hour, huh?

From SI Games, this is what will be available when it goes live:

More demo information - Sports Interactive Community

wrong forum ass :p

Whoa, it's Daylight Savings weekend already?

you think we're going to consign a NEW GAME thread to the Soccer Games ghetto? GTFO! :)

hahaha

DEMO IS UP ON STEAM!!!

(search for football manager)

not sure about gameshadow - it appears to have crashed

good DL times on steam ( < 20 mins for me)

FM2009 Demo Live on STEAM

linky?

You can download it through Steam. It looks like the other links have melted down already.

Ok, file downloaded & installed.

Starting a game, with Fulham, for fun to start.

Ok, I get a "Welcome to the Club" message from Mohammed El Fayed, the owner of Fulham, a brief background on the team (a brief history on what the team's done), the standard team report with the breakdown of the key player on the roster (for Fulham its Andy Johnson)

And then, it's time to make a decision. In fulham's case, the goal was "Bravely attempt to avoid relegation". I think we can avoid it, and got 6 Mill in Transfer money, and 975K a week in wages.

This is the new Transfer Rumors screen, the national papers roundup of what my fellow Premier League folks are looking to do

Something nice. I had made offers for a couple players who were rumored to be available via loan.. so I made bids to loan them for a fee.. they rejected them, but instead of a flat reject, they came back saying what they were expecting.

damn, I like that transfer rumor screen. Immersion FTW.

Press Conference time: Let's see who attends:

FourFourTwo, The Sunday Mirror, folks from the football section at The Guardian, The London Paper, and The People. 18 People from 14 media sources. Yikes.

1st question: Is Fulham my dream Job?
Answer politely: I am pleased to have the chance to work here.

2nd Question: What's my tactical approach
Answer: I'll be looking for sensible attacking play.

3rd Question: On my man management style.
Answer:I may occasionally get involved, but by and large there needs to be a degree of trust.

4th Question: How involved in the day to day running?
Answer: As much as my time allows me to be.

5th Q: Asking how much upheaval I'll bring coming in.
A: Players and Staff will all have an opportunity to prove they're worthy of staying on.

6th Q: What can we expect on the transfer market?
A: I take the neutral: I don't expect any one tendency to dominate here.

7th Q: Is there an uphill struggle to keep Jimmy Bullard at the club (Sunderland are interested in him)

A: Not going to comment on outgoing transfer rumors.

8th Q:Recent reports have linked you with a move to Boca striker Martin Palermo, are you prepared to go on record with your thoughts on this story?
A: It could be true, yes.

End of Press Conference.

Response to press conference:

Alex Donovan was not giving much away as he met journalists for his new press conference as manager of Fulham. A journalist from FourFourTwo chose the main focus point for the conference, asking "You sit here as the new manager of Fulham. Is this your dream job?"

Donovan's response was "I am pleased to have the chance to work here."

It is thought that the Fulham squad would react well to Donovan's handling of the question.

I haven't playe a new FM since 2006, so this is a big jump. I love the team report, where your AM gives you suggestions of who you can pick up to improve the team.

Right! Who leaked my transfer bid to the press!!!


The day after, four Premier League teams place a bid on him. OI! GEROFF! I had him first!

I like the "set your expectations" thing as well. Don't know if that was an earlier add, but pretty cool.

From a match in progress. Check out your assistant manager's feedback (one of the game day info tags you can turn on)

Well, first crash. Hit a player link, and now it is locked up.

Download took me only five minutes. Am I missing the spot you put it in windowed mode, or does it not exist?

Ok.. I have to start playing this series.. I mean, I coach soccer and yet I don't fully understand the real soccer leagues..

Where is a good place to start as a n00b?

seeing A LOT of injuries early. 5 in one match, all 2 weeks +

it's in visual options, in the display resolution drop-down

Yay! Thank you! And it looks like you don't have to add -small_screen to the command line to get it to work, which always annoyed me.

holy shit at the 3d match view screenshot

Depends on what you want to get out of it. Do you want to see life in the lower leagues? go with a mid table league so you can fail or succeed? Take a team where you can buy and sell the best players in the world like it was going out of style?

The reserve team coach asking you which first-team players are available for the reserves before their match is an awesome addition.

damn you all. here i am playing my fm08 game into 2032 and i see this. now i must dl

anecdotally - WAYYYYY too many injuries I got going on here. 4-5 per match, that are keeping guys out for long periods

First impressions of the 3d game....eh. I think I like the dots better. There seems to be a lot of standing over the ball, and the action is not very fluid.

I'd say start as Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal, or Liverpool, to get yourself familiar with competing in the different English competitions, plus Europe at the same time.

I guess I want to start out somewhere where there are no expectations.

:D

fortunately the 2d view is still there for you - but man i love the 3d

Heh. Take a mid to higher level team in the English Premier League.

Everton, Liverpool (natural rivals, there!), Man City (loads of money, they just got taken over by UAE Billionaires), Sunderland, etcetera. Those teams have a good chance of winning games (and keeping you interested!) but not so good thatyou feel like the team's winning DESPITE your managing, not because of it.

may also seem like a lot of standing around because you don't have "show entire match" selected and instead have "key" or "extended"

No, I'm see a little of standing around during the play. I can tell the difference. I watched a good portion of a game "live." It just isn't very smooth.

I actually want to start at some real low team who never wins or never expect to wins.. learn the game and then move my way up!

Who would that be?

The asst manager feedback in the game viewing screen is such an awesome addition! I may buy the game because of that improvement alone. One of the problems I had with the last FM was that I sometimes found it hard to judge how well players were doing with my tactics and what adjustments I should make. (I'm not particularly good at FM and my knowledge of soccer isn't that deep.)

fair enough. i've noticed a little of it, but i just shrug it off as "a 1st-gen problem" i guess

It was a pain in the ass to try and actually open this game from my desktop

I'd recommend this too. You'll get a team that's involved in the European competitions right away, that has a HUGE budget so you can experiment all you want in the transfer market, and then later on if you want a bigger challenge you can go for a lower division team or whatever, but you'll have the basic mechanics down.

Looks good so far. Only problem I have with the 3d is that the match information screens should have a minimize button as they take up a lot of the screen if you have the match stat/player ratings/asst manager feedback screens all open at once. Havent noticed any smoothness problems.

MArc:

I just had it lock up my computer, the Steam version. I attended the trialists game and then at halftime clicked to leave the game and that was that. I received a windows error msg and then couldnt do anything anymore and had to restart the cpu.

and a reload took me all the way back to day 1 so Ill note some other things Ive noticed that are perhaps happening because its a demo. The tactics wont let me save edits to them, I made a 442 away and when I went back to it after saving it was morphed by someone.

I'm not sure about that, really. But I wouldn't worry too much about expectations in the demo. But if you want to play with the intent of "moving up" you can do what I do: hit "randomise" until you get a team in Blue Square North or Blue Square South, the lowest English leagues in the game.

Shrug.

I always thought there was a lot of standing around in soccer.

3D view.......SWEET!!!!

Even if it is choppy, that is a huge addition. I was going to skip this years version, may have to reconsider now.

Maybe. The one that stood out was a 0-0 match just starting the second half. The GK got the ball and just stood there. He held the ball an extremely long time until finally a striker from the other team came up to challenge him, and he kicked it right as he got there. I've seen that in games where a team is ahead and your killing time, but not in a tie game right after half. *shrug*


I'm just not crazy about it. I like some of the additions, but I think I'll wait till next years version so they can fix any bugs and such. The first generation of their new engines are usually not up to snuff. Since I can only find my 2005 version, I think I'll try to hunt down a 2008 version cheap somewhere to tied me over.

I can't believe I may have to upgrade my video card for a text sim...haha.

The demo isn't allowing me to watch in 3D due to limitations with my current card. :)