I was just wondering if anybody knew of non-soccer games that are similar in play and feel to the CM/FM/WSM series? I know the same company makes a hockey manager game. Anybody played that? Are there any basketball or maybe American football games out there in the same vein? Not that I have any time to play anything else (I'm addicted completely to FM 2005 for some reason), but I figured I'd ask b/c it is so fun to play. Thanks all...
Too bad, you would think a baseball game might work with the manager-type game format. Anybody ever seen a basketball or American football type game?
Baseball - Out of the Park 9 Football - Front Office Football College Football - Bowl Bound As far as hockey, EHM was developed by the same people who FM, but I don't think it is being sold at the moment. None of these games compare to FM in terms of depth but they are fun.
I've played their final hockey manager game and it is excellent, ones before it not so much, it just might be the best manager game, FM09 though seems pretty great too, I also play Tennis Elbow manager, it's ok, also the only basketball manager game I know of is like for europe, not the NBA, so I'm not really interesed in it.
Actually I think I just found another one that looks like it might have the NBA, it's called World Basketball Manager.
And Out Of The Park Manager is supposed to be a very good baseball manager game, the newest edition isn't quite out yet but you can pre-order it, and I think it's the one you want to play, so wait for it, it will be out in the spring, just don't know when exactly.
EHM was an outstanding game and was killed by illegal copies undermining sales. It's a scary thought that a large title (from SEGA) could be lost to this. What a nightmare to think of it happenign to FM etc.... Really a lesson on the true costs of pirating software.
Out of the Park Baseball, produced by Out of the Park Developments, is the best sports management sim ever. You can play with real or fictional teams. You can get as involved in day-to-day management as you want. It's infinitely customizable, and looks great. If somebody would develop a customizable soccer game I would be in heaven. FM is fun in small doses, but the AI in each version seems to be horribly broken. Tactics either don't work or have no relation to actual football. You can't really customize the game. And forget about additional African and other leagues; SI have no interest in adding them. Fair enough; it's their game.
I like FM because of the wide range of leagues. From China to Souh Africa. Its a lot of fun. I don't have any interest in any other manager games for other sports but I think its catching on. I've seen an MLB game, I think it was called Front Office Manager. I think its directly related to how well FM/WSM is and how big it is around the world. I think other sports games want to tap into that. I think other sports games are now starting to have a career mode/make a player career like Fifa 09 has this year. I wouldn't mind a baskeball one though, that could be fun.
TrophyHockey is made by the same people who created TrophyManager. Good fun! http://trophyhockey.org/manager_creation.php?ref=861
I created my own sport coupled with its own management game. The sport is called Riotball and the game can be found at http://gre.gg/software
I played NHL Eastside Hockey Manager 2005 (I think it was called that) and I absolutely loved it. Don't play it anymore but at the time the game was amazing. Not as good as soccer managing games though. Never played any other non-soccer managing games. I live in England though and I don't think we have any types of games like that anyway. Feel free to prove me wrong though as I would love to play a game similar to Football Manager (Worldwide Soccer Manager) but it was American Football, Baseball or Basketball.
It wasn't a large title, just because it had a big publisher, it was a small team, I think the most people to ever work on it was maybe 5 or 6 people (I worked on the initial version before being pulled onto FM).
QFT. If not for OOTP 5 and OOTP 6 I would have never ended up being introduced to FM/WWSM. Playing an OOTP league online was sheer bliss.
I'm happy you enjoy it, but I just couldn't get into it. I think the game killer for me was the in-game play-by-play. It could be so much simpler than it currently is ("Brown winds back with the pitch ... here it comes ... slow dribbler to short ... Johnson has it, fires to first ... out!"). I just want a simple "6-3" and I would be happy lol. Or at least an option to simplify the play-by-play and make it quicker. Other than that, yes it is an amazing game and if the above paragraph doesn't bother you and you're a baseball fan, you would love it. It does appear that the 2010 game will have customizable leagues. (see middle paragraph at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_Manager_2010.