Football season is over here in the US, and that means a long, boring wait through spring and summer before we see more pigskin action. But don’t worry, NFL fans: you can get some vicarious football thrills in the interim via Football Manager Handheld, a portable version of the popular PC and console game. Developer Sega says it’ll release the game next week for £6.99, and presumably its local equivilent currencies. Players can choose from football leagues in Australia, Belgium, Brazil, England, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Portugal, Scotland, Spain and Wales. Hey, wait a second…
Oh that’s right, everywhere else in the world erroneously refers to soccer as “football”. Football Manager Handheld has you managing a team of lithe, padless punters instead of eleven meatheads bent on play-by-play violence. What a letdown.
In all seriousness, the full versions of Football Manager have become incredibly popular as a sports business simulator. The game’s unique design allows you to oversee every aspect of your soccer football team, from budgeting, hiring and firing players to choosing the formation on the field. The player never actually takes direct control of any of the footballers, but advises before and during games, literally coaching the digital players to victory.
The graphics on the Android version seem decidedly low-rent, but considering the content of the game, they don’t need to be fancy – and that means that users of older Android phones and tablets won’t be left out of the party. Sega will release the game in Europe for all Android devices 2.2 or later. There’s no word on when the game will come to other territories or if the European version can be bought by international owners, but there’s enough of a worldwide audience for the games that it’ll probably make the rounds some time in the future.
[via EuroGamer]
Thanks for the article – much appreciated. If anyone has any questions about the game then please feel free to ask them here, I’ll pop back sporadically and attempt to answer them.
Marc Vaughan – Sports Interactive Ltd
It’s a game played with the feet. So it’s called football. Your game should not be called football. So the dumb ones are the american.