Football Manager 2012

Football Manager 2012 comes into full force with more than 800 new features plus rule changes as well as over 50 league to play.

In terms of improvements the list is long, but it includes stand-outs such as:

Improved Transfers and Contracts system: possibly the heart of the matter when it comes to virtual football management. To keep your Giggses and lose your Tevises, the addition of the loyalty bonus is aimed at making squad cohesion a little less fractious.

Enhancements to the amateur and youth contracts have been made to let managers build from within rather than splashing out hard earned cash. When buying or loaning is the best (or only) option however, the transfer centre has been improved in with the ability to lock areas of the contract negotiation added into the mix.

There's little point in entering the transfer market as a buyer, however, unless you know who you're buying. With this in mind the Scouting system has also been tweaked with real life scouting reports, and a new in-game report that includes squad analysis, tactics information and information about goals scored and conceded all now part of the manager's arsenal.

On the pitch improvements have been made to the 3D engine including new animations, and even a brand new crowd system where the crowd will react more realistically in the tried and tested stadia as well as the additional grounds added into FM2012. Adding to the challenges is the improved weather system. Adding to the realism are two new camera modes: "Behind Goal" and "Director Cam". These are on top of the fact that all the standard cameras are now reversible.

Making player motivation deeper is the new tone system, this enables virtual managers to go from calm and reasonable to hair-dryer teacup thrower in a set of six different tones and related comments.

A new screen layout also contains additional filters, as well as user customisable columns. These sit with a brand new tactics screen.