Football Manager 2010

One new feature that I'm reserving judgement on until I get my mitts on finished code is the new match tactics designer tool. This involves a series of steps that lead you through the creation of a bespoke tactic. On the one hand, it's likely to help newcomers get to grips with the complexities and intricacies of creating detailed match strategies, yet there's also a lingering suspicion that veteran users may find the whole process a tad patronising. New tactics are created by choosing a formation and playing philosophy (very rigid, rigid, balanced, fluid and very fluid), then defining player roles (wing-back or full-back, target man or poacher), duties (support, attack, defend), the level of creative freedom and how much your players close down the opposition. Adding clarity to each option is a detailed description of what every role and selection entails, meaning you're never left wondering how your decisions will impact the on-pitch action.

Having spent a fair amount of time previewing and reviewing Championship Manager 2010 over the past few weeks, it's striking how threadbare FM2010's slider training options feel in comparison, while the limited set-piece instructions feel positively underwhelming compared to CM's excellent set-piece creator. However, Sports Interactive has certainly stepped up when it comes to news reports, with a dedicated news section offering you a wealth of football-related information from across the globe, ranging from key transfers to informative match-related snippets. Better still, some excellent filter features allow you to define exactly which stories you're sent and which ones are discarded.

In a clear bid to rival Championship Manager 2010's ProZone, Sports Interactive has created its very own match analysis tool. While it may lack the intricate feedback of its rival, FM2010's breakdown of each match is shaping up to be an invaluable tool when it comes to discerning where your players are succeeding and coming up short. By selecting any player, you can identify every header, tackle, pass, shot and cross that they performed in a game, and view each instance in all its real-time 3D glory.

Two slight disappointments are that little or no work seems to have been put into team talks and media interaction. The former still seems unclear when it comes to gauging how your comments affect your players, while the latter remains rather hit-and-miss. Once a press conference is called you're bombarded with questions, some of which are impressively probing, but it's your choice of answers that sometimes disappoints, often feeling like tiered and rather generic responses rather than the genuinely distinctive, even off-the-wall answers that a manager might offer.

With its fresh new look and several key additional features, coupled with an improved level of player feedback and further enhanced delegation tools, Football Manager 2010 is shaping up to be another quality addition to a franchise that is likely to continue its dominance over the football management genre. However, with Championship Manager 2010 making such impressive strides, it'll be interesting to see exactly how these two great rivals compare when we get our hands on the final FM2010 review code over the next couple of weeks.