Should I get: Football Manager 2005 or Winning Eleven 8?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Just picked up Winning Eleven 8! Great fun, though I have to learn the controls!

And I ordered Football Manager (Worldwide Soccer Manager in the States) last night .

[Maquiladora]

Take a run through the training courses first, although some of them are pretty simple, I think you know how a goal is scored

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yeah, I did play some of them... I am getting smoked on normal difficulty early on. Though one star was definetly too easy to learn the game (I won 6-0!!). I have to gradually work my way up.

[Maquiladora]

The AI starts to become a real bastard at getting to the loose balls and rebounds on higher levels, especially from their own shots, and the referee seems to be on their side if its a really important game and you take an early lead.

Playing Liverpool this morning (theyre 2nd 2 points below me loads of games left) I take an early lead with a total fluke from a free-kick - curled a cross in, everyone misses it and it bounces and flies in at the far post. Straight from the kick off they take it down into my area and I brush lightly past one of theirs, he falls like hes been shot and the ref gives a penalty Although the worse team for those dodgy referee decisions is Man U and Arsenal at home, I was smashing the pad on the floor after that.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Damn refs! I hate when you feel a game is decided by the penalty calling! But hey, at least they go for realism against ManU and Arsenal at their home field .

[Urban Ranger]

The Gunners lost to the Losers 4-2 at home. So much for realism.

[Maquiladora]

I guess the ref got confused who to side with in that fixture, or perhaps Alex Ferguson pressured the ref in the tunnel at half-time, as he likes to do.

Theres definitely some bias toward Man U in WE8 though, those crafty Japs

[Imran Siddiqui]

You would think after Beckham left, the Japanese wouldn't favor ManU so much (IIRC, they LOOOOOVE Beckham there), but the reach of the Red Devils is far and wide .

[Maquiladora]

I think Real Madrid would be pretty sick if they didnt see bigger returns in Asia put it that way

Also Imran do you have WE8 International? As I understand it Konami tweaks each version. WE in Japan, PES in Europe (slightly tweaked) then the most upto date and tweaked WE to the US last.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yeah, it's official title is Winning Eleven 8: World Soccer International. Even though it is most up to date, I wish they would have made the rosters more up to date. Wayne Rooney, for example, is still on Everton (or Merseyside Blue as they call it ) rather than on ManU (Man Red). And Gravesen is also still on Everton rather than Real Madrid, though that did happen fairly recently.

[Maquiladora]

I guess they didnt update the transfers because its still the start of the same season... and probably too much effort. Its not like it takes 3hrs to correct the transfers you notice are wrong yourself. Although at some point it doesnt really matter if youre playing the master league because everyone gets transferred everywhere anyway.

[FrustratedPoet]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Yeah, I did play some of them... I am getting smoked on normal difficulty early on. Though one star was definetly too easy to learn the game (I won 6-0!!). I have to gradually work my way up.

I recently beat AC Milan 8-0 on 6-Star difficulty level, but then again I must have clocked up something like 200 hours of playtime on this franchise over the years so I've sort of got the hang of it now.

Even so it doesn't get to the point where I can be sure to win a game easily - even when I play as the better teams it's unusual to go through a whole 30 game season without losing a couple of games and drawing 4 or 5 more. That's my favourite thing about this franchise: the AI is so good that it always stands a chance of beating you no matter how good you get. Best. Games. Ever.

[FrustratedPoet]

I would encourage you to never play on anything less than the 3rd difficulty level (apart from the first couple of games where you're learning the controls). Just like when playing Civ the easier levels get you into lots of bad habits and poor tactics that simply won't work when you move up. It's best to move up the levels very quickly until you find a level where you're only winning maybe 50% of the time.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yeah, I think I'll be playing at 3 star level soon. Don't want to pick up bad habits . When I actually start a league, I'll have it at 3 star.

[Maquiladora]

Originally posted by FrustratedPoet
I recently beat AC Milan 8-0 on 6-Star difficulty level, but then again I must have clocked up something like 200 hours of playtime on this franchise over the years so I've sort of got the hang of it now.

Even so it doesn't get to the point where I can be sure to win a game easily - even when I play as the better teams it's unusual to go through a whole 30 game season without losing a couple of games and drawing 4 or 5 more. That's my favourite thing about this franchise: the AI is so good that it always stands a chance of beating you no matter how good you get. Best. Games. Ever.

Its really frustrating sometimes but I guess thats the price you pay for such a good AI. Like when you see how fast the AI runs sometimes when the ball is loose (could be my imagination) or how quickly they turn and pick up where loose balls or rebounds are about to land, I cant tell you how many goals Man U have scored from a Robinson fumble or clattering the post from 30 yards then battering in the rebound.

Heres some replays i saved a while back, each one is like 1mb.

one
two
three

Notice vs Locomotiv Moscow goal the slight realistic deflection it took, sweet The Bobson one is an AI goal just a few seconds after I scored the Defoe goal, guess I pissed him off