Interactive matches
If you choose to be involved in Team training you’ll also see a new training section. I’ve never been one for training and prefer to dive head first into first team matches, but for reviewing purposes I gave it a go. You can choose individual training routines or group routines chosen from a range of different exercises, it’s a daunting task, but you do see improvements in players which ultimately help you on the pitch. By highlighting an individual player and pressing the ‘a’ button you’ll receive a detailed report and recommended training. The best aspect about team training is the ability to play and watch the matches. Your players will risk fatigue in the longer games, but shorter games provide an ideal opportunity to test out those tactics for first team matches.
Matches, just like previous LMA games, can be viewed or skipped, you do not play the matches yourself. The repetitiveness of the player movement and goal scoring will soon ensure that you’ll only be interested in watching the important games. Now I’m not exactly sure how many different types of goals were created for the game, but I saw the same goal three times in my first ten matches. However, LMA Manager 2006 is a football-sim, and this is where it’s strengths lie.
The LMA Manager 2006 match engine has both its good point and bad points. In LMA 2005 you’d often see ridiculously high-scoring matches, and players darting around the field at high speeds, whilst it’s certainly fun scoring a double hat-trick, it wasn’t realistic. In LMA 2005 the speed and the accuracy of the engine has altered to a slower pace, creating a more convincing game experience. Whilst the speed of the game is more accurate, the players don’t have the mentality nor the movement of top class footballers. You’ll scream with disbelief as your player shoots at goal from a ridiculous angle on the wing. Of course this happens in real life, but not this often. The shooting, crossing, tackles and free-kick animations just aren’t varied enough. You’ll see plenty of high shots in relation to low shots, and to football fanatics this will be an annoyance.
The trademark moves of some of the better known players and the manager reactions are a nice idea, but they’ll soon be forgotten after your umpteenth match.
It isn’t just a case of watching matches, you’ll have the option to set up Dug-out tactics and shout out new strategies to your team. You can view players match stats during the game, make substitutions. Whilst it appears that CodeMasters have thought of almost everything that you could possibly want from a football management sim, the match engine needs a make-over.
These negative points are only a small part in the whole scheme of things, if it’s football management you want, that’s exactly what you will get with LMA 2006.
