Did Sega’s new MMO football management sim have a debut to remember, or was it sent off to an early bath for foul play? The answer to these and more football clichés in this week’s Very British Gamer.

Be warned; Football Manager Live and Football Manager 2009 are not the same game. OK, yes, that’s obvious, but don’t let them both having Football Manager in their titles fool you into thinking they are similar, because they aren’t. Please don’t buy Football Manager Live if you think it’s going to be the same Football Manager experience, but played with countless others across the globe. Don’t buy it thinking that you can play as your favourite club with your favourite players. Don’t buy it thinking that you can instantly dive into a well of intricate tactics. If you do any of these things then you will be sorely disappointed, because Football Manager Live is a whole new life form, mister.

My unusually shaky start is proof of that, of course. So, once I’d signed up, chosen my game world and created my fabricated club (the mighty Reilloc Elite), I selected a squad from players available within my budget. Wait, doesn’t that sound familiar? Well, the fantasy football approach makes sense within the game’s limitations, since it does begin with tons of newly created clubs and many more tons of unsigned players. Regardless, I soon realised that I wasn’t sure how much money I should spend initially; should I go for a couple of superstars, relying on them whilst sacrificing the rest of my squad’s quality, or go for the conservative option and purchase only fairly competent players whilst saving a few pennies? The only indication was the imposed wage constraint, but I still wasn’t sure of what other investments might have to be made in the future, such as stadium improvements and youth team academies. Consequently, it was no surprise when the first team I amassed proved themselves to be total garbage. How was I supposed to know how good they’d be?

Being a smart, beautiful, and astute reader – you are reading one of my columns after all – you’ll have noticed that I said “the first team I amassed”. That’s because Football Manager Live generously lets managers reset their club, as long as they do it within seven days of originally setting it up. That’s what I did, and I suspect that I wasn’t the only manager who chose this option, an apparently defeatist one since the game tells you that you should hang your head in shame for doing so. Well, loads of people should be doing exactly that right now if the game’s news stream was anything to go by. Either way, it’s a munificent liberty to extend to noobie managers, and one that I was most grateful for.

After resetting my club, and thanks to being more knowledgeable of deeming which players were worth my money, of my club’s likely financial projections, and on how to balance the two, I was able to settle into my second attempt with some positive results in friendly matches. OK, so this wasn’t world domination for a humble club from the small town of Halifax, but thanks to the familiarity of the historically much-maligned spreadsheet interface, modest top-down 2D perspective for matches, and the tactics page’s Subbeuto-esque look, it still felt like good ol’ Football Manager.

I had been fooled, however, because Football Manager Live is its own beast, and looks can be deceiving. So, once again, be warned, because this game is definitely an MMO. Here’s an example of its MMO-ness: rather than having all the tactical options available at the start of the game like Football Manager 2009 allows managers to have, Football Manager Live makes managers learn their tactical (and coaching) skills over time. So, if managers want to learn how to make players use the offside trap or man-marking, they’ll have to learn that skill over the course of what can be minutes, hours, or days depending on the skill. Dammit Football Manager Live, I know how to tell my team to man-mark! Yes, it’s a little patronising and strange, but there is a good side to it, as skills can be learnt whilst managers are signed out. Unfortunately, they can’t be set up into an automated queue, meaning there can be periods of time when you’re not learning a skill that other managers are. Yes, you can set up to learn skills that take a long period of time to learn when you plan to be signed out for a long period, but the principle goes against the developers’ theory of a game that wasn’t going to give advantages to players who play more frequently. Hmm, what genre does that remind you of? Well, it reminded me of the same one.