Gaming Review: Football Identity

Article by Ice

This month I wanted to include a different type of game, I don't normally do sports games (excluding Football Manager) but I couldn't help it. I'm afraid the first thing I should explain is this is a Soccer game not American Football, but as a Brit I will be calling it Football (as the game has).

This game is a real-time game, you don't get to control the pace the earth's rotation does this, games are scheduled twice a week; whether you show up or not the game will happen.

Firstly, you decide if you want to be a manager or a player, this will depend on how you approach the game, as a Manager you find players and sign their contracts, choose the formation and give training instructions - come match day you're on the sidelines with limited control. As a player you select your position and can decide how to train, come match day you only control your player, if your teammates don't arrive they are controlled by the games simulation.

I have never played a browser game like this before, I created my place and got signed to a club in Greece where only me & the manager are active. So far we had 1loss & 2draws - this game is definitely not easy, the computer simulation is a little odd in that it is passing the ball to the opposition and kick corner's directly out of play wasting opportunities.

If you are looking for a game that won't take up a huge amount of time, then this could do the job, I would recommend playing Football Manager over this as you are in a lot more control and can determine as and when things occur but if you're looking for a hobby game or something you can enjoy over time I think this has potential.

I know a few members of Outpost10F play FM so as a brief example, the match simulation on older FM's (the dots) is how this game is played, if a player has the ball the time is split into 4 sections, this is decision time, the 1st portion goes to the player with the ball, the 2nd to their teammates, the 3rd to the team without possession and the 4th is where things move. If no-one has the ball then the 1st portion is how the ball moves, the 2nd for players and 3rd for action.

The game itself has a lot of issues or bugs and definitely needs work but after around about 80emails in 3weeks I can see they are actively looking to improve it and although it's a small community I think there has potential and in games of this type getting in early can often be key.

I'm still getting the hang of things so maybe in a few months I'll do another article on it with more feature or depth, but if your bored and interested in trying it out then have a look and let me know what you think.