Over the years I've had many debates with Marc Vaughan (team leader for the Football Manager design team at SIGames) about what should be in the match display. Five years or so ago Marc insisted
there should be no visial display at all, 2 years ago he argued that FM would never have a 3D match display - by that I mean something similar to what you see on tv or a cinema screen.
Well we all know what happened to those arguments.
The soccer management game is a role-playing game but one where there is a real-world role to copy and a role we soccer fans feel we understand well. The success of
such a role playing game is very much dependant on how realistic an environment the game creates. The closer we feel to the real-world role the more involving and entertaining the game.
For that reason it's essential that the match - the very core of the game where our success is measured - should be as close to "real" as we can make it. SaaP, or earlier versions of SaaP,
have had a 3D display since 1985 as a result.
There are undoubtably problems - mainly how does one cut the game down from 90 minutes to a more reasonable time whle maintaining its ability to inform us of the effectiveness of our tactics and
the overall skill of the team - but it can be done with a 3D display.
SaaP chooses to show the match flow - the flow of the game back and forth up and down and across the pitch - rather than every individual tackle and pass (which causes you to show only "highlights").
I believe that match flow tells you more about the match than highlights ever can. Is my team under seige, is the opposition counter-attacking, am I being exposed down the flanks, where is my team falling down etc?
All are well shown in a match flow display but are not obvious from "highlights".
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Sick as a Parrot 2009