I'm about to get very, very busy next week. Some big things are going on next month. Things are picking up at work.
On top of the extra activity there are some other things that got sorted out this week which will make everyone feel better.
No much on the personal front though. Still playing the FM2010 demo. Still breathlessly waiting for it to come out this weekend.
It's nice to have such simple needs. I remember it used to be so much more complicated with all kinds of drama going on.
Of course, the other big thing that happened was September 16th being declared a public holiday from next year. About time, I'm happy about that. I got myself in the paper too with some comments.
It's quiet. But it's pretty ok so far. So I don't have much to complain about, unfortunately. And I don't have many meaningful things to write about either.
The muse is very quiet these days...
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
The Beautiful Game
....is...BEAUTIFUL!
If you are a football fan I URGE you to try this game out. You WILL love it!
As good as FM2009 was, it had some problems that turned off a lot of people. For me personally, these would include the broken Italian Serie A transfers and Italian lower league problems. The game's tactical side didn't really work as well as I wanted it to either. It was tricky and a lot of people who used to play FM casually stopped playing it. Which is sad.
Other things that bothered me a lot is how many clubs in the game world don't retain their players. As a result as time when on, the AI squads would get smaller and smaller especially in the lower leagues. Another thing I hated was some leagues were just... broken. Especially the financial part of it. I like to try and play in different parts of the world and I couldn't get in to it due to some of these leagues not set up properly.
As one can imagine these problems caused a storm on the SIGames forums and apparently, the game devs took notice and made improvements. And improve they did!
I want to note down and write EVERYTHING that I loved about the demo but that would make this post huge! So I'm just going to write the more important ones.
Where do I start? Tactics would be a good place. Last time, when I wanted to change something I go into the tactics section and move many, many sliders that control things like width, tempo, defensive line etc. This goes for player instructions too like tackling and closing down and creative freedom and runs etc etc.
Those sliders are gone in FM2010. Instead, there are drop down menus with general instructions and strategies all written in plain English. So, if I want my team to play a high line and close down our opponents more.. I just tell them that. No more fiddling with damn sliders. Same goes for player instructions. If I want let's say, Leo Messi to run at defenders more or sit back and be a play maker or be a deep striker I just tell him that via a pull down menu. No need to set sliders anymore!
And these instructions WORK! I SEE them being executed in the new, improved match engine. Words fail to describe how much I love this new tactical interface! With this, I done things like change formation during a match, change player roles and duties from attacking to supporting to defending, subbed in extra strikers/defenders/midfielders etc. You know... like an actual football match in real life.
I never bothered before because previously it would take too much work to do it.
Now it's easy! It feels like... coaching a football team instead of playing a computer game! I could go on and on and on but the new tactics part of the game is a giant leap forward, nuff said.
A new FM player will be able to get in to the game immediately and start coaching his team instead of learning what all the fricking sliders do.
The 3D match engine is improved as well. It looks better and smoother now, the AI plays better football and looks even more real.
They fixed Italian Serie A! Woot!! And lower league teams aggressively recruit players! The finances of small teams are now logically set up!
The backroom staff talk to you now! They make suggestions on everything! Tactics, player interactions, the team's strengths and weaknesses. Your physio reports back regularly about injuries! Your scouts proactively make suggestions on players to look for!
Non useless backroom staff! I love it!
Media has improved too. So has hundreds of other small, small things. Like the customizable tool bar on top of the page! And the speed of the game has improved yet again. I've managed to play 25 matches in one go in a little more than half a day on Saturday. That's...... FASTER than FM2009!
The next feature I'm itching to try out is the editor which will come out together with the game. You now can create and edit your own league and cup competitions. This will include activating leagues and cups that are already in the game database but are not officially licensed.
Many people have already stated that they want to do things like activate and manage in leagues like England lower leagues, Italy Serie D, USL (US leagues) etc. I also might try activating leagues in Africa (Egypt!) and the middle east (UAE, Saudi Arabia). And sooner or later someone will create a database for J-League! I know they will.
So yeah, I'm really looking forward to this. I went and checked for all the things that used to bother me in FM2009 and all those things are gone. I'm going to get all my friends to play this especially those who got turned off by FM2009.
To summaries, FM2010 is a giant improvement and will be the best Football Manager game EVER. Strong points are the new, very user friendly tactical interface, the improved match engine and 3D, improved processing speeds, improved staff interaction, improved media, improved AI squad management, improved transfers and improved finances. The game editor will be awesome and I can't wait to try it out!
I hope these improvements will make long term career games viable again!
So if you like football, play FM2010.
Edit: Oooh, I forgot! New tactical element. Touchline instructions! Now instead off shouting at your monitor you can shout orders to your players! I love it!
Attention! This post is about a game. If you would like to skip all my ranting and frothing in the mouth you may scroll down to the last paragraph and read the summary. Thank you.
I downloaded the demo for this last week and I've been playing it to death, trying to find out whether anything isn't working properly. My conclusion is FM2010 is so fantastically awesome it's beyond belief.If you are a football fan I URGE you to try this game out. You WILL love it!
As good as FM2009 was, it had some problems that turned off a lot of people. For me personally, these would include the broken Italian Serie A transfers and Italian lower league problems. The game's tactical side didn't really work as well as I wanted it to either. It was tricky and a lot of people who used to play FM casually stopped playing it. Which is sad.
Other things that bothered me a lot is how many clubs in the game world don't retain their players. As a result as time when on, the AI squads would get smaller and smaller especially in the lower leagues. Another thing I hated was some leagues were just... broken. Especially the financial part of it. I like to try and play in different parts of the world and I couldn't get in to it due to some of these leagues not set up properly.
As one can imagine these problems caused a storm on the SIGames forums and apparently, the game devs took notice and made improvements. And improve they did!
I want to note down and write EVERYTHING that I loved about the demo but that would make this post huge! So I'm just going to write the more important ones.
Where do I start? Tactics would be a good place. Last time, when I wanted to change something I go into the tactics section and move many, many sliders that control things like width, tempo, defensive line etc. This goes for player instructions too like tackling and closing down and creative freedom and runs etc etc.
Those sliders are gone in FM2010. Instead, there are drop down menus with general instructions and strategies all written in plain English. So, if I want my team to play a high line and close down our opponents more.. I just tell them that. No more fiddling with damn sliders. Same goes for player instructions. If I want let's say, Leo Messi to run at defenders more or sit back and be a play maker or be a deep striker I just tell him that via a pull down menu. No need to set sliders anymore!
And these instructions WORK! I SEE them being executed in the new, improved match engine. Words fail to describe how much I love this new tactical interface! With this, I done things like change formation during a match, change player roles and duties from attacking to supporting to defending, subbed in extra strikers/defenders/midfielders etc. You know... like an actual football match in real life.
I never bothered before because previously it would take too much work to do it.
Now it's easy! It feels like... coaching a football team instead of playing a computer game! I could go on and on and on but the new tactics part of the game is a giant leap forward, nuff said.
A new FM player will be able to get in to the game immediately and start coaching his team instead of learning what all the fricking sliders do.
The 3D match engine is improved as well. It looks better and smoother now, the AI plays better football and looks even more real.
They fixed Italian Serie A! Woot!! And lower league teams aggressively recruit players! The finances of small teams are now logically set up!
The backroom staff talk to you now! They make suggestions on everything! Tactics, player interactions, the team's strengths and weaknesses. Your physio reports back regularly about injuries! Your scouts proactively make suggestions on players to look for!
Non useless backroom staff! I love it!
Media has improved too. So has hundreds of other small, small things. Like the customizable tool bar on top of the page! And the speed of the game has improved yet again. I've managed to play 25 matches in one go in a little more than half a day on Saturday. That's...... FASTER than FM2009!
The next feature I'm itching to try out is the editor which will come out together with the game. You now can create and edit your own league and cup competitions. This will include activating leagues and cups that are already in the game database but are not officially licensed.
Many people have already stated that they want to do things like activate and manage in leagues like England lower leagues, Italy Serie D, USL (US leagues) etc. I also might try activating leagues in Africa (Egypt!) and the middle east (UAE, Saudi Arabia). And sooner or later someone will create a database for J-League! I know they will.
So yeah, I'm really looking forward to this. I went and checked for all the things that used to bother me in FM2009 and all those things are gone. I'm going to get all my friends to play this especially those who got turned off by FM2009.
To summaries, FM2010 is a giant improvement and will be the best Football Manager game EVER. Strong points are the new, very user friendly tactical interface, the improved match engine and 3D, improved processing speeds, improved staff interaction, improved media, improved AI squad management, improved transfers and improved finances. The game editor will be awesome and I can't wait to try it out!
I hope these improvements will make long term career games viable again!
So if you like football, play FM2010.
Edit: Oooh, I forgot! New tactical element. Touchline instructions! Now instead off shouting at your monitor you can shout orders to your players! I love it!
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Demo!
I'm downloading the FM2010 demo this very minute. I'm excited.
There isn't much else to talk about at the moment, unfortunately. Life is as it is. One minor thing though. At work, I have my own cube now unlike before where I had to share my space with 4 other people. Perhaps I should think about a little decoration to make it look a bit more lively?
Something to think about this week.
There isn't much else to talk about at the moment, unfortunately. Life is as it is. One minor thing though. At work, I have my own cube now unlike before where I had to share my space with 4 other people. Perhaps I should think about a little decoration to make it look a bit more lively?
Something to think about this week.
Thursday, October 08, 2009
Things that Didn't Happen
...like my blog post yesterday. I forgot. And some crazed people from a neighbouring country were supposed to invade today weren't they? I was looking at the sky expecting some spear armed paratroopers to descend and they would somehow win, forcing us to go underground and form a partisan unit ala Red Dawn.
I'm so sad to note that some blogs I follow have disappeared suddenly. It's too bad. Now I have to find more to replace them. This is hard since I don't really follow the so-called blogging scene these days.
The weather has been quite nice these days. I got me thinking, since when did people equate rain with nice weather? And who else thinks this way?
I have a sudden craving for Japanese food.
I also have cravings for new games. Unfortunately, most of the ones I want aren't coming out anytime soon. At least FM2010 is out the end of this month. That should be a blast. I've been following it's progress on the MirrorFootball FM blog and I'm liking what I see.
Things are pretty good so far in everyday life. I'm pleased, more or less. Things are rapidly accelerating at work and in the coming weeks I'm going to be quite busy.
I just hope this lack of drama will last at least until the end of this year. So, does anyone have any good blogs to recommend?
By the way, a little bit of advise here. To prevent your blogs, mail and other cyber real estate from being hacked and hijacked, a strong password is a great start. 12345 isn't a strong password. Neither is "password". And same goes for your name, phone number etc.
A strong password looks something like Pa5sW0Rd!!. The longer the better. The more funny characters the better. Even spaces will work. That way, at least it'll be more resistant to brute force attacks.
So ends this week's public service announcement.
I'm so sad to note that some blogs I follow have disappeared suddenly. It's too bad. Now I have to find more to replace them. This is hard since I don't really follow the so-called blogging scene these days.
The weather has been quite nice these days. I got me thinking, since when did people equate rain with nice weather? And who else thinks this way?
I have a sudden craving for Japanese food.
I also have cravings for new games. Unfortunately, most of the ones I want aren't coming out anytime soon. At least FM2010 is out the end of this month. That should be a blast. I've been following it's progress on the MirrorFootball FM blog and I'm liking what I see.
Things are pretty good so far in everyday life. I'm pleased, more or less. Things are rapidly accelerating at work and in the coming weeks I'm going to be quite busy.
I just hope this lack of drama will last at least until the end of this year. So, does anyone have any good blogs to recommend?
By the way, a little bit of advise here. To prevent your blogs, mail and other cyber real estate from being hacked and hijacked, a strong password is a great start. 12345 isn't a strong password. Neither is "password". And same goes for your name, phone number etc.
A strong password looks something like Pa5sW0Rd!!. The longer the better. The more funny characters the better. Even spaces will work. That way, at least it'll be more resistant to brute force attacks.
So ends this week's public service announcement.
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