For those of you who own LMA Manager 2006, the only changes you can expect to see this year are updated information lists and a few minor tactical and scouting options. Other than that, it's pretty much the same game. That being said though, this only applies to the PlayStation 2 version. The Xbox 360 and PC versions offer more features and options for you to enjoy such as teams from Australia, Africa, Asia, America and entire manager and player histories for up to 20 seasons. Inevitably, when the game is no longer up to date, you can download the latest states for free via PlayStation 2 Net.
When starting the game, it quickly becomes apparent that its main source of entertainment doesn’t come from the soccer matches but rather, all the “behind the scenes” activities many football fans wish they could be a part of. This includes organising tactics, training players and ensuring all staffing needs are met. There are literally dozens of jobs for you to do, all of which will impact your team’s performance. However, you are given the option, when starting a new file, of selecting the depth of your duties. By selecting either “Financial and Training,” “Finance” or “None,” the game automatically assigns staff to your desired areas. For example, let’s say you selected “None” at the menu screen. This means that no staff have been assigned duties for the financial or training side of the club, leaving you the task of overseeing all duties. After creating your character and selecting the club you want to manage, you will be taken to “the laptop”, where all details about the club will be at your disposal. A great thing we found was whenever something happens, such as when new renovations had been approved, the chairman of the club will send you an email to inform you of the decision. You can also expect to receive scouting and training reports.
Do something about that sunlight. It is blinding me!
Finance refers to the incoming and outgoing revenue of the club (obviously) and requires you to negotiate player contracts, hire and fire staff and organise renovation of your club’s stadium and training grounds. When negotiating player contracts, you have to take into account many considerations before finalising. Some players, for instance, may only want to remain in the club for one more season, which would make you go back, look at your previous offer and amend it. You can also entice your players to work harder by offering them bonuses every time they kick a goal, when the club wins a match or if they win the “man of match” title.
Should you hate the performance of a player, you can easily dispose of them using the game’s hiring and firing staff options. When selecting individual staff members, their stats are clearly displayed in tables showing their moral rate, role in matches and skill level. Similar information is displayed for trainers and scouts too. Even the staff’s club preference are listed. Be warned though, if you fire a staff member after they have signed a contract, you will be forced to pay them compensation for terminating their role at the club.
The LMA package also includes the ability to fully renovate both the club’s training grounds and stadium. You can even downsize the stands if you feel the overall look of the stadium isn’t up to scratch with your vision. Renovating, or even building new stadiums, has many advantages. Not only does it provide your players with better facilities, it also increases crowd capacity. Mind you, it isn’t as in-depth as it could be. Basically, all you do is select renovations, get approvement from the Chairman, pay the cost of renovations via the club’s pocket and wait a few months until it’s built. What’s really disappointing is during matches, you can’t actually see what you’ve done unless you’ve increased the field’s size. All that can be seen are the players, the field and the first few rows of the stands. Even when the camera zooms in on match highlights, there are no distinctive differences to the background.
This is what the action looks like.
In the training and squad menus, you are given a decent range of skills and tactics to choose from so you can coordinate your strategy on the field effectively. You can easily set what day you want the team to train, the level of training (light, heavy, etc.) and the focus of training whether it will be team based, or individually based. Feel like positioning your squad in a more offensive position on the field? No worries. All you need to do is move a couple of arrows (where players focus their attack) and circles (representation of players) on diagrams and you will have made your first step in achieving victory. You can then have the team focus on their short passes and defence while you’re at it, just to give them an edge before going for goal.
Because there are dozens of jobs and options, we are unable to go through all of them extensively for this review. However, you can also look at the statistics for individual clubs, send out scouts to report on your next opponent and transfer players to and from other clubs.
After all the hard work you’ve put into training your team, making sure all your staff are happy, and firing all the bad eggs, you would be expecting a satisfying match. Sadly, the match’s overall results are completely unrealistic. Scores such as 5-1, players tripping many times over really hurt the overall appeal and makes it hard to get into the game. Also, when you shout out to players one of four tactics to use such as keeping the play simple, being defensive or kicking long balls it doesn’t transfer well because by the time you’ve said what to do and the players react, your opponent has already snatched the ball away.
How many times have we seen this pose?
LMA Manager 2007 also supports multiplayer, which we didn’t really understand considering your opponent is right next to you and can clearly view your tactics as well as allow you to view theirs. Regardless, it basically automatically selects your teams from your team and manager profile on your memory card and puts you straight into the match.
Visually, we do have a few concerns for those of you with who play games at a distance on a smaller TV. The text can get a little small and be hard to read. Considering most of the game is text based, we would have assumed that this sort of thing would have been taken into account. During the match, when your team scores a goal, like in real life, the camera will replay the goal with the player in full focus and then a quick image of the manager waving his hands in approval. When the camera does this, they look a little bit on the square side don’t move smoothly. On the plus side, with the exception of the text, the different menus are all colour coded and clearly set out making it easier to know what you are viewing.
Don’t expect to be hearing too much music, aside from the main menu and the Football One screen (a basic news screen which analyses how matches were played out) there is no other music. While it isn’t surprising due to the nature of the game, it would have been a little nice to have some light, easy listening music when you’re going through menu screens changing tactics and all other club related detail. Instead, you'll have the clicks of switching through menus to enjoy. During matches, the crowd will make their feelings towards the game clear. Shocked “awws,” angry “boos” and happy cheering really make the game feel realistic.
Overall, LMA Manager 2007 is one of those games that only die-hard football fanatics would enjoy. Complete with the latest club and player statistics, tactical menus and stadium renovation options, you may very well play your dream of being a football manager. If you’re a more humble fan and not heavily into the statistics and managing side of football, then you will probably prefer something else.
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