Gaming Trend

Gaming Trend Review

by Matt Mumma

Football Mogul 2007 puts you in charge of your favorite NFL team!

Do you have what it takes to win the Super Bowl? Football Mogul gives you a chance to call the shots. With full control over your team's roster and finances, you must negotiate contracts and trades needed to assemble the best players. Football Mogul's new play-by-play engine gives you complete control over your team during the game. Choose plays that accentuate your team's strengths and exploit mismatches.

The top half is the roster for each team and their stats for the game. Between those is the field and ball’s position, game stats, game clock, “down and to go”, and the score. The bottom half of the screen you have 3 to 5 play types and 10 plays to choose from each. Then the screen divides the Defensive alignment on the left, and the Offensive alignment on the right. I think it would have, at least, been a better idea to place them one over the other for the slightest bit of immersion; however, in between the two pictures of alignment there is some rolling text about the results of the play. It is a lot of information, but it is all there once you become accustomed to the lay out. The text is legible, but could have used some flashing to draw your attention to important things like the down, or if the clock is under 2 minutes.

At the end of the game, you can export the results to an HTML format. Full play-by-play is available although I got errors trying to make this work. Something about an output folder not being created or such, but we’ll put that on my shoulders. The team logos are generic as NFL Licensing was not obtained, but you can create your own team name for your favorite city whether it exists or not. There was no option that I found to customize team colors, logo, or helmets. When the computer makes trades there is a pop-up with a photo of the agent in question, but those were little more than photos that appear to be covered over with a free paint program. Also, when the final score is shown, the home team is always yellow. I’m used to seeing the winning score highlighted somehow, and I found that confusing.

There was no sound other than the Windows Pop-up ‘ding’ when it asked if I wanted to go for 2. The entire 32MB CD consists of 10 different .mp3 sounds, but they are all very short and I don’t recall hearing a single one go off in game. There were no cheers after good plays, boos after bad plays, no whistles, no lineman shouting instructions, nothing. Even when the computer tried to make trades with me there was no phone ringing, or fake conversation, or shock when I tried to trade Eli Manning & Tiki Barber for my third string QB. Mainly you click the screen with your mouse to choose a play, or get some details on a player. Everything else is covered in the Menu bar with various Ctrl+* shortcuts. There were a lot of these, but they did work when you remembered. I was disappointed by the lack of audible options when I realized the Defense called a very good formation against me, and I couldn’t switch field to play against the short or long side of the field. The plays were totally generic, and every team uses the same batch. You simply call the play and wait for the text to stop.

There is no multiplayer option, and that’s a huge drawback. Plus, the AI simply puts the highest numbers into the starting lineup. While Alex Smith is a bit of a raw rookie, he is definitely the starting QB for San Francisco, but the game starts Trent Dilfer because his overall score is higher. To a computer that might be the way, but I would not want to tell Mike Nolan I was right in a face-to-face conversation. Even after 3 seasons of drafting nothing but the highest of available quality Defensive players, the Arizona defense never got more than one star. I even led the league in turnovers for a few weeks and got no respect. The plays add in a lot of random factors; that includes injuries which was a nice surprise, but it was a little too random. Edgerin James had a 3TD game, each score from behind my own 20 yard line. Oh how do we wish Edge had an offensive line that strong. That and divisions often had all 4 teams over .500, or all 4 teams below .500 when full seasons were simulated. Again, the Cardinals finished 10-6, 2nd in the division, and yet missed the playoffs. Lastly, there were way too many tie games. That is not very realistic.

There is control over the financial aspects of the game. You can change ticket prices, concessions, even the scouting and medical expense plan. You can compare your team’s value with the others, but I’m no Econ student so I wasn’t able to do much more than help my team win games. The financial portion of the game may be where the meat is because the play calling and individual games aren’t too catching.

I am a sports fan. This is more of a business simulator. For a budget title this will keep you busy for a while. Unless the financial angle is very crisp, and given the small number of dollar variables you can affect I am not sure how it is, this is simply not going to stay in the CD-Rom drive for long.  As a sports fan, I would have liked some more sounds like the lines clashing, QB calling out signals, crowds cheering and jeering. Multi-player would have made this much more interesting, but I can’t begin to explain the complexities therein. Try the demo, and if you like it, support them because I think they tried but just didn’t quite execute. Football fans can empathize with that.

Gaming Trend Score

37

1. Graphics: 50
2. Audio: 10
3. Controls: 40
4. Gameplay: 50
5. Value/Replay: 20
6. OVERALL:37