Written by: Rik
Date posted: March 9, 2010
Okay, so first up: this game has a truly terrible interface. Well, when I say ‘truly terrible’, it actually isn’t all that bad in the grand scheme of things, but compared with a certain other football management game’s intuitive system where you just click the mouse on, say, a player’s name to bring up his profile, or on a result to get a match report, the mass of unintelligible symbols and abbreviations on display here can really start to irritate after a while. Like lots of other things in the game, it’s a bit rubbish, but you can sort of live with it.
Unless, that is, the cruddy interface conspires with the unnecessary stadium development option and the compulsory auto-save feature to create a situation which gets you the sack and effectively erases several months’ play. Then, of course, you’d be tempted to turn the game off in a bloody great sulk and vow never to play it again, and be perfectly justified in doing so.
So, listen up, EA: it should never be possible to accidentally purchase a large section of stand that not only dwarfs the rest of your stadium but also bankrupts the club with a single mouse click, okay? Even if the manager did deal with things like this, which they don’t, the club’s board would surely disagree with or veto your plans, rather than agreeing the purchase, plunging the club into financial ruin, and then sacking you?
That’s pretty harsh punishment for a single, accidental mouse click, wouldn’t you say? Especially when your silly little management game doesn’t even allow sacked managers to continue their career elsewhere. No, once you’re fired, it’s game over, a state of affairs which is confirmed when the game deletes the only save you’re allowed to have without fiddling about in Windows to produce a backup.
Of course, I didn’t have a backup all those years ago when I was a 17 year-old Huddersfield Town manager trying, vainly, to eke some entertainment out of your frankly not-very-good game. But I was convincing myself to give it a go, I’d played through a couple of seasons – it was, you know, not all bad. And then you had to go and ruin it. It’s been eleven years, EA, and I’ll admit, I’m still kind of sore about this one. I’m not going to lose it though. It’s just a game, and it was a long time ago.
Oh yeah, I just remembered: there’s a terrible video clip of you getting fired which you CAN’T FUCKING SKIP. FUCK YOU, EA! For this and all of your shitty cricket games as well.
Posts