Football Manager is one of those rare games that caters to a specific type of mind. The people that study statistics and imagine classic teams matching up in their heads are a unique breed. These types are typically found playing stat-heavy baseball games such as Out of the Park Baseball, Franchise Hockey Manager and others. While it’s certainly not everyone’s cup of tea, playing statistical games scratches the itch of wanting to know if Beckham’s 1998-99 treble winning Manchester United could beat Messi’s 2008-09 treble winning Barcelona. It’s the matchup dreams are made of, right there on your computer screen! Or is it?

As with most statistical based games, FM22 doesn’t really even try to compete with the standard games such as FIFA and PES.  FM appeals to a specific audience, because the reality is 90% of the FIFA players don’t care about the minor little decisions that go into running a club. FM22 appeals to the hardcore supporters who just want to tweak their favorite teams and see if they can do better than the real manager and get their own little slice of self-satisfying glory. Despite yearly efforts from EA Sports, Sega still owns the crown as the best football manager game in the world. Fortunately, I can say they still hold the crown.

To be clear, FM22 isn’t a huge upgrade over last year. But there really wasn’t much higher they could go. FM21 was great by most any standard, and though FM22 is a slight upgrade, it still brings the franchise closer to perfection. Improved AI and graphics bring the realism to another level. While it’s not up to FIFA 22’s standards of eye candy, FM22 certainly is best in the stats based game category.

In FM22 you get to take over one of over 2,500 football clubs. There are clubs that seem to have a bottomless pit of money to pull from; however the real challenge is taking over a once great team and rebuilding them into a powerhouse. You get to find players, set tactics and develop a squad that does your town proud. This is one simulation where the little decisions matter.

You get to pick your management style, with each having it’s own set of consequences. You can automate some tasks if you don’t want to get bogged down in the minutia of daily decisions, however some people really get invested in building up a 3^rd string bench warmer to a starter. Deciding what John Doe’s training regimen will entail every single session builds your investment in the experience I suppose, but it sure does eat up time.

Have no fear though, there is a fairly extensive tutorial system that helps those who don’t want to spend hours looking at the myriad of charts and statistical data. Pretty much anything short of a player’s family tree is available to you so you can obsess over anything you like.

When you finally get into an actual match to see the results of your labors, it can be a slightly mixed bag. The graphics have improved over last year, but sometimes it seems that what you are watching in the player fitness charts don’t match up with what is being displayed on the pitch. The frustrating reality of poor player performance can be the result of any number of things. If they want to a new contract, any little interaction can set them off. Praising the team for a good game can even have mixed results. As it is in real life, the personalities, and how people interpret things, matters.  While I certainly love little details, FM22 is amazing in its complexity but can be way overboard for my tastes.

The initial interface for FM22 on a Macbook Pro is incredibly small. I mean almost illegibly small. I eventually figured out how to improve the system menus and other tweaks but the initial install really shouldn’t be like this.

The amount of players you have loaded can have a huge impact on your system requirements and loading times. If you just have the European teams loaded it’s much better than having the entire 22,000+ database loaded. Unfortunately, that means the data on players in La Liga, MLS etc. won’t be tracked with anywhere near the level of detail, but for those with limited resources, this is a godsend so you can still enjoy the game.

Now, as has been in the news lately, FIFA (the organization) has further enhanced their greed and are asking outrageous amounts of money for a license. Many clubs and FIFPro (the player licensing organization) are following their example. The result is the somewhat limited number of officially licensed leagues, teams, logos, players and kits. As with PES, Football Manager has done an excellent job providing the tools to fix and customize existing teams or create your own.  Enter: Football Manager 2022 In-Game Editor.

The FM22 In-Game Editor is a $7.99 (Steam) add-on that lets you edit existing teams or create your own.  I could spend days setting up all my favorite teams over the years, but even if you are not into all the data entry and research, other people are, and have made available hundreds of databases. Everything from the basic ‘corrected names/crests’ to a full out list of all-time great teams are available to download with a simple Google search.

FM22 is by far the most advanced football manager simulation available. While it may not be worth an upgrade from 2021, it does provide significant improvements over any ‘non-pandemic year’ version.  Both the Windows and MacOS versions require at least 7GB of free space to play, which on the surface seems a bit excessive, but once you get into the meat of FM22, you’ll quickly realize the level of detail Sports Interactive went to for you to realize your football management dreams. Football Manager 2022 will be your favorite statistical simulation game in no time and before long you’ll wonder where all your time went.

Bloodshore is the latest interactive entertainment title from Wales Interactive, and after reviewing I Saw Black Clouds back in March I was pretty excited to check this one out.  While that game was more of a psychological thriller, Bloodshore promises a lot more gratuitous violence, action, and campy dialogue that borrows on numerous films, games, and other pop-culture references.  The core premise is ripped straight from the 2007 Steve Austin flick, The Condemned, where prisoners are put on an island to fight to the death for their freedom and the entertainment of millions of viewers around the world.  You can also find references to Hunger Games and some of the more recent Battle Royale modes in games like Call of Duty and Battlefield where “contestants” are supplied with periodic loot drops and forced to converge on each other with a shrinking circle of death.

Bloodshore creates an interesting mix by blending in a near-future gameshow aesthetic with overly stereotypical Gen Z architypes consumed with social media and streaming followers.   It’s all about the views, likes, and subs for them while Bloodshore is all about an aging reality show, Kill/Stream that has been going on for far too long and is starting to lose its ratings.  Originally created for prisoners to compete and win their freedom (and millions of dollars), the produces have now opened it up to willing members of society seeking fame and fortune.  That is where we come in, joining up with a group of unlikeable kids trapped in adult bodies, you’ll play as Nick, just one of fifty contestants air-dropped onto an island.

Much like the show Survivor you’ll want to establish alliances, but who can you trust?  This is where the game really starts to shine with some of the more subtle decisions and conversation choices.  You’ll even have a chance at romance with either a male or female contestant.  Some choices seem trivial like drinking a beer, while others like choosing to keep or give away a malfunctioning weapon could have repercussions much later in the game.  Over the course of a single playthrough I made 62 decisions out of a possible 294 to reach one of at least six possible endings.

Every decision and action you take affects the game in some fashion, as tracked by five sliding scales for Team Morale, Audience Opinion, Romance, Strength, and Insight.  Team morale is based entirely on your interactions with the other players while audience opinion is based on how exciting and entertaining you are to watch.  Do you hide behind a tree or charge in guns blazing to delight the crowd.  The romance meter is easily swayed with only a few key choices while strength relies on grabbing weapons.  Insight is one of the more interesting stats and relies on you uncovering information about the corporation that’s running this corrupt reality show.

The presentation is quite excellent with a strong reality TV style of camera work from both handheld and drone cameras.  It’s not pristine digital quality, so you have this grainy footage and shaky cam style giving it an edgy look.  Bloodshore will often break away from the Kill/Stream show to highlight various viewers, streamers, and other audience members watching and reacting to the show in real-time.  You also have a crazy host reacting and commenting as well as other segments like a talk show focusing on the game and even an ongoing interview with the creator of Kill/Stream.  Often, you are given the choice to “keep watching” and this is where you can learn valuable intel and boost that Insight meter.

With eight hours of FMV footage, this is one of the larger games of its kind.  A single pass through the game takes 90 minutes including credits.  Decisions are put on a fairly fast timer to keep the flow of the game moving, but if need more time to make your choices or want to include the input of others (say in a video chat) there is a Streamer mode that turns off the timer.  This is a good way to replay the game when you are trying to tunnel your way to one of the additional endings and unlock those hidden achievements.  Thankfully, the game allows you to skip scenes on future replays, so you can get straight to those life-altering choices and explore the numerous paths this game can take you.

Bloodshore is only $15; the same as you’d pay for any low-budget straight-to-video movie, only with this game you do have the ability to rewatch and replay with multiple outcomes.  Bloodshore is just good dumb fun with plenty of violence, a dash of mystery, and some hilarious characters perfectly cast to expertly act out this campy script.  You might even want to break this out at your next gathering so all your friends can argue over even the most insignificant of decisions.  At the end of the day I found Bloodshore to be much more entertaining than 95% of any actual reality TV programming and one of the best FMV interactive games released in years; definitely worth checking out.

MORE SCREENS

Take the art design of 2010’s Ilomilo and marry it to the point-and-click adventures of the yesteryears and you’d end up with Wabisabi Play’s Growbot. A biopunk space story, Growbot follows Nara, a sentient robot (a growbot) in training to become captain of her own space station, as she tries to save her station from unknown attackers. Nara’s daring rescue ensues through a traditional item-based puzzle solving adventure, that while beautiful and filled with lore, runs a bit short and leaves you wanting, just a little more.

Award winning illustrator, Lisa Evans, has poured her heart into the look of Growbot. Every room adds to the intrigue of the world she has established, from the station’s green areas in the interior garden to the Coral Grief and its colorful underwater world, there is something guaranteed to catch your eye. Adding to the charm, the original soundtrack scored by Jessica Fichot, captures the mystery and wonder surrounding you.

Going pound for pound with the visuals are the station’s characters and their designs. Creatures like the Light Sprites and the Geologists will immediately give you Pikmin vibes, which is never a bad thing. The standout though is easily Starbelly, the hologram yeti that is obsessed with space jam (actual jam, not the nostalgic cash grab from Warner Bros.) If you couldn’t already tell from Starbelly and Coral Grief, Growbot is humorous, and that humor, just like its looks and musical score, is charming as hell.

There are plenty of puzzles to be had in the four hours you’ll spend with the game. The closest the game gets to a fail state simply puts players back a few steps, so nothing overly aggravating. Puzzles aren’t too complicated but there were a few instances where I wasn’t sure what to do. Most of the time I simply just missed an item in the area or overlooked something in my inventory.

There were a few occasions that left me scratching my head regarding exactly what I had to do to solve a puzzle. For example, toward the middle of the game there is a puzzle that requires you to activate the cloud system by gathering three sources of energy. Seems simple on its surface but retrieving one source required me to grab a gear, activate a windup car, stick a Light Sprite in the car, and let it drive around. I discovered this by accident and had found nothing prior that indicated this solution.

Another interesting puzzle element is the Flower Arranger. Through combining musical notes, all assigned to specific flowers, you can design shield keys for locked doors and special shields that complete specific objectives. The special shields are a fun twist but are only used to advance the story. Locks that required shield keys popped up sporadically and only felt like they were there to slow my progress. It was an element of the game that felt great to do the first time but started to annoy me the further into the story I got.

I won’t get into spoilers about who is attacking the station or why, but Growbot is a story about overcoming inexperience and understanding what you’re capable of. Nara is a likable protagonist with a sense of humor. She also proves herself resourceful and worthy of the captain title she is pursuing.

At the game’s start you find a trainer handbook, filled with useful information. Taken in all at once though, that information can be a bit overwhelming. The lore that it offers feels like it could have been better presented in conversations between characters, coming out naturally in the world, instead of all at once in a cheat sheet, which would give players a better sense of discovery as they explore the station.

The biggest issue I have with Growbot is that it just ends. After the final puzzle, there are some dialogue choices between characters that led me to believe that I was in for a few more puzzles. Instead, the game hastily wraps up all story beats with a cutscene. Growbot’s strengths are in the beauty of it’s world and its characters. Jumping to the end and ripping the players out of the world just feels like a disservice to the world and its characters.

Growbot’s sense of wonder and mystique will leave you wanting more, and in that is the biggest problem with Growbot. With only a handful of hours and a breakneck-paced ending some players may feel like they’re not getting their twenty-dollars’ worth. That said, if you’re on the hunt for a new point-and-click adventure or looking for some eye candy with some humor, Growbot will pleasantly surprise you and leave you saying, “May I have some more?”

MORE SCREENS