Anyone play this game or played any in this series?  Opinions?

 

I used to love playing EA Sports NFL Head Coach '09 and building a dynasty from the front office perspective.  I'm worried that FOF8 gets into things that might be too real and less fun.  I thought Head Coach '09 did a good job of balancing realism and fun.  The execution of plays during games weren't always realistic though.  For instance, I found it very difficult to run the ball even with a line full of A rated players and a very good running back.  Also, Manning would eventually retire and some scrub would end up being the clots QB and would run the same offense with essentially the same success.

 

Anyway, if anyone has played FOF8 and has an opinion, please share.  Or if anyone still plays Head Coach '09, please chime in as well.

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I've never heard of it but it looks pretty cool. I played Head Coach '09, I wish they would bring it to franchise mode in Madden. 

 

I play Football Manager (soccer) which is the most in-depth sports simulation game and is awesome if you are a soccer fan. I've also played hockey and baseball sim games.

 

 

Is it NFL teams and players or is it generic?

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I played FOF7 for a week or so , usually love those types of games but I found it hard to get into. Going to start it again soon.

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Is it NFL teams and players or is it generic?

 

From some of the pictures on Steam, it looks like the team names are variants of their true NFL counterparts.  The Jacksonville franchise is called the Cougars for instance.  You can also move your franchise to another city from what I've read.  I'm not sure if you can change the team names or not.  I have seen several screenshots that show real players' names.  I'm not sure how they can do one and not the other.  Perhaps they have the license from the NFLPA to use player names but not the NFL itself to use the team names.

 

It's $30.  I think I may just buy it.  If it's good, it would be interesting to get a league with several human owners going.

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Interesting, I didn't know this existed on Steam. I know the creators of Out of the Park Baseball have been working on a football sim that's scheduled for a summer/fall release.

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I downloaded FOF8 and have played it off an on the past few days.  It has some merits though I'd say it's overpriced at $30.  I'm assuming that has more to do with the fact that they have real NFL player names which means they probably had to pay the NFLPA an arm and leg.  The team names aren't the real NFL teams but you can quickly edit them to be.

 

I'm not 100% familiar with everything just yet, but I think this game really missed the mark on the scouting and drafting of players.  The scouting is done automatically.  By comparison, Head Coach '09 made you make decisions on who to focus on at the combine, what pro days you were going to attend and which specific players you would bring in for a private workout/visit and those decisions would help determine how accurate your big board would be on draft day in the areas that you focused on.  That part of the game was what hooked me on Head Coach '09 and I would never let the computer make picks for me in the draft or in UDFA.  In FOF8, I may make the first few picks for my team, but I quickly grow bored of the draft and let the computer finish up for me which is probably because the game doesn't have me put any work into the player ratings unless I'm missing something major. 

 

Despite Head Coach '09 at this point dealing with very old NFL rosters, it is a far superior game in my opinion.  It has its flaws, but the fun factor for me was much higher than what I'm getting out of FOF8.  It's too bad there wasn't enough interest in the game for EA Sports to pump out a new version every couple of years.

 

I have not yet played a multiplayer game of FOF8 and that part of the game is appealing to me as Head Coach '09 was a single player game only and the idea of a league populated by 32 human owners sounds intriguing.  

 

If you like the idea of running the front office of an NFL team and have never played Head Coach '09, I'd encourage any reading this to look into picking up a copy of it online some where.  It was only available on Xbox and Playstation and you can probably pick it up now for under $10.  I no longer own an Xbox and I'm not buying another one because I'm not a big console gamer.  If I could figure out how to run my computer to emulate an Xbox and play that game again, I probably would.

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After playing FOF8 for about a week, it has hooked me a bit.  You can actually participate in some scouting by selecting up to 12 college prospects to bring in for private interviews/workouts to get more info on them.  I also discovered that the trading and contract negotiation functions are a little more in depth than previously thought.  For instance, I reneged on a contract offer to my franchised star DT that he had accepted and then when I went back to offer him a deal again, I was told that he no longer had any interest in signing with my team due to "prior injustices."  So the game doesn't let you overshoot the contract offer and then scale it back to find the lowest agreeable price for the player.  You can scale the offer up incrementally, however.

 

For being a text and spreadsheet kind of game, I still think it's a little pricey at $30 but if you like the idea of being an armchair GM this game can provide you with that experience and I'm looking forward to playing it in multiplayer mode some day.  

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After playing FOF8 for about a week, it has hooked me a bit.  You can actually participate in some scouting by selecting up to 12 college prospects to bring in for private interviews/workouts to get more info on them.  I also discovered that the trading and contract negotiation functions are a little more in depth than previously thought.  For instance, I reneged on a contract offer to my franchised star DT that he had accepted and then when I went back to offer him a deal again, I was told that he no longer had any interest in signing with my team due to "prior injustices."  So the game doesn't let you overshoot the contract offer and then scale it back to find the lowest agreeable price for the player.  You can scale the offer up incrementally, however.

 

For being a text and spreadsheet kind of game, I still think it's a little pricey at $30 but if you like the idea of being an armchair GM this game can provide you with that experience and I'm looking forward to playing it in multiplayer mode some day.  

I may give it another go. Are you able to import draft classes into the game?

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I may give it another go. Are you able to import draft classes into the game?

 

Yeah you can apparently import prospects from their other game FOF: The College Years.  

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Football Manager (Soccer) is my jam,love that game

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