EA Sports took a huge gamble with their latest football management game, and it paid off. After two almost identical games in the form of Total Club Manager 2004/2005 they had to bring in some new and better features to try and keep people buying their games with the Football Manager series starting to rise as a hugely popular game. Fifa Manager 06 manages to compete as a great game.

The best improvement is the layout of the game. It has a more professional feel to it and it shows with the nice graphics and smoother layout. As others have said the star/level/% ratings have gone meaning the manager has to make a better judgement about the choice of his players.

The game captures realism as I don't think there is one player that is far too good/far too bad (for the time it was made). The computer is reasonable realistic in it's transfers and makes few mistakes on selecting a lineup.

With the exception of a few random flaws (and that's probably because I'm not very good at management games), it's brilliant. A very strong effort by EA Sports.

I bought this game to replace my ageing 'Total Club Manager 04'. I would have bought 'Fifa Manager 07' only my PC doesn't have a DVD drive. I'm glad really because '07 has got some quite poor reviews. Anyway, this game does not deserve ANY bad reviews because it is a great game. At first it is a bit of a shock that the star ratings for the players have now gone, but once you get used to it, it makes more sense. You really have to study the players individual skills now and use the 'compare players' option to decide who would perform better. Much more realistic. I played 'TCM 04' since it was released and looking back, i have to admit, I just resorted to clicking 'choose best team' then 'play match'. 'FM 06' tries to make you think about your choices a bit more.

If anyone remembers the 'Premier League Manager' games (which preceded the tcm games) there were no star levels there either! EA have made things very easy with the TCM games! In fact, FM 06 is the logical succesor to Premier League Manager. It is simply the best footy manager game out there. It has all the depth of the previous games plus the 3D match has been greatly improved. And if thats not enough, you can get it on amazon for under a fiver! What are you waiting for!!!

It was good, at first i thought it was going to be quiet poor like the other games but i would give it a go, but i was suprised. The games flowed fluently and the overall game was brilliant.

I only recieved this game yesterday and already I`ve put in over 6 hours play.

To put it bluntly Fifa Manager 2006 is simply the best effort from EA Sports to date and deserves high praise.

True it is a far cry from the original TCM 03, 04 & 05 which were all very good in their own right.
True EA have done away with the original information of players, making it a little harder to asses who you`re buying, but if you got this game you obviously love football and should have half a clue about players anyways.
True it is no longer a case of taking a struggling team and automatically making them Premiership winners.

However you gain so much that this game has to become the ultimate football fans dream.

New and improved graphics on the match engine make watching your team play a real pleasure - no more super fast action or jumpy screen unless you change the seetings.
New and inproved over all layout makes makes the game far more interesting and makes buying players more enjoyable as, although the star ratings have gone, you now have information from fitness through to ability - amoungst others.
New and improved realism means that the top Premiership teams are the top teams and the bottom teams are bottom - this means if you take on a lower Premiership team you now have to work hard to get anywhere, just like the real managers would.
New and improved controls - navigation is much better once you get used to it and the layout is superior too, once again once you get used to it.

Over all Fifa Manager 2006 is the best football manager game I have played, with the best graphics ever seen on PC.

The one thing I think I like best is the way the finances are layed out and makes it easier to stay in budget.

The only fault I might give the game is that the game play is so different compared to TCM 03, 04, & 05 that it took a while to get used to the game play again.
However, once you get used to the game play it is still essentially TCM but on a bigger, better and improved scale.

Whatever you do DON`T miss this game.

Everyone knows that taking Wolverhampton Wanderers into the Premiership is impossible - Well that is no longer true. I made it with FIFA 06. Unfortunately after saving game 40 I had a terrible experience. The game reloaded but I could not play any more matches due to the gameplay reverting to "Highlights" and then back to game action and then CRASH...
I got on to technical support and followed all their instructions (updated drivers, etc etc.) but to date I still have no game. I must give 11/10 for the efforts of the technical support team however, clear simple instructions that even I could follow and continued efforts to try to resolve the issue which is still ongoing. But lets face it a game is supposed to be a leisure activity not a major hassle. Sorry EA thats the last I get unless you can put it right...