It’s always the way, you watch your favourite team lose on a Saturday and you’re adamant that the manager is making all the wrong decisions - and of course you can do better. Now, the chances of most of us getting to manage our favourite teams are pretty slim, so games such as LMA Manager 2007 on the Xbox 360 can give you the opportunity to prove once and for all that, given the job, you can take your team to the top.
One of the best things about football management is that it gives you full control over a team for you to do whatever you like with. In LMA you take control over not only the team, but other managerial aspects as well; from improving your training ground to choosing your sponsors. Now that’s not to everyone’s taste, so if you only wish to concentrate on who’s playing in the next match and where, then you have the option to assign these other, less meaningful tasks to someone else, so things such as ascertaining new contracts on players can be sorted out for you automatically.
You begin the game by using the manager editor, allowing you to create a manager that looks just like yourself, or create something of your own imagination. Once started you have a vast amount of options available to you. You can also check various statistics for all your needs as you undertake your managerial role. Many of us are used to playing most football management sims on PC, but the transition to Xbox 360 works well; luckily Codemasters have integrated a nice user friendly interface which is generally very easy to use, and doesn’t take too long to get used to. There are various options you can choose to make the game more accessible for yourself, such as deciding on what news you receive, and what your scouts report on. So if you are going to look over every piece of information, including reports on your next opponents, with a fine tooth comb then you are able to do so.
Proceeding to your actual matches, you have the opportunity to watch them in 3D and see the events unfold as your team plays in front of you. You also have full control over tactical adjustments throughout the whole game. Watching the game also lets you observe weaknesses in your and your opponent’s team, thus giving you the chance change tactics accordingly. But for some, watching each and every game just isn’t practical and would be too time consuming. Loading times to view the full 3D match can be rather lengthy too. Luckily, there is an option to skip the match, and this gives a quick representation of 90 minutes going past and you can then check the score of the game in the results. The main problem with this is that it doesn’t give you the opportunity to detect any weaknesses in your side and change tactics accordingly – although substitutions seem to be made for you automatically.
After the game you have the opportunity to read through all the latest news stories and you can also watch the highlights of the game just played. What is really handy though is the after match commentary from none other than Gary Lineker and Alan Hanson. Believe it or not, but at times their ‘observations’ from the game can be quite helpful and at times amusingly obvious, detailing possible areas where your team may be failing in some way. You also get the odd amusing anecdote from them both too. There isn’t much in way of a soundtrack to LMA Manager 2007, you get a little music when you load up the game and aside from that there is little to nothing else. However, as well as getting the opportunity to listen to the aforementioned commentary from Mr Lineker and Mr Hanson you can also listen to commentary of the proceedings in the highlights.
In-between matches you can check your in-game laptop for messages (although it’s possible to turn this off and choose what you wish to return on, if at all). It can be extremely handy at times, letting you know various information depending on what you want to find out. It gives you updates from things such as transfer negotiations through to who is injured, or information about your next match if you so wish.
