Welcome to another of my occasional reviews of a football management PC game that is outside Sports Interactive’s catalogue. With the FIFA Women’s World Cup kicking off this week in France, I thought I’d look at one of the few computer games that covers women’s football.
I have been playing this particular game for about a month now, which is perhaps a promising sign. However, I can’t find a single professional review online, and Steam’s reviews are a minefield of sarcasm, poorly-written banter and open sexism (no surprises there). I hope that you will find this article more informative and useful.
So let’s not delay any longer. Let me introduce you to Women’s Soccer Manager.
BACKGROUND
I’ll get this out straight away: Women’s Soccer Manager is NOT related to the Soccer Manager series or its imaginatively-named developers Soccer Manager Ltd. WSM is, in fact, the product of Trophy Games – a company based in Copenhagen whose staff call themselves “boys with a deep passion for football”.
These Danish devs have been producing football management games since 2006, starting with Trophy Manager – an online game that still gets thousands of users logging in daily. After that came a mobile game called Football Management Ultra in 2013. From what I can tell, that’s just a decent, run-of-the-mill title with not much to write home about.
Then we come to WSM, which was released in 2017 and targeted as “the world’s first sport game directly targeted at women”. Though I don’t exactly fall into their target market, I am moderately interested in women’s football and have closely followed the sport’s progression towards professionalism in England.
Just like SM19, this is a free-to-play game available on multiple platforms. Mobile users can download it on Google Play or the App Store. If you’re more of a computer gamer, you can get it on Facebook, Steam, or – if you’re really desperate – the Windows Store. (Just to clarify, I will be reviewing the Steam version here.)
STARTING OUT
When you start the game, you’re first greeted by a loading screen showing the smiling face of the product’s ambassador. That is the current Chicago Red Stars midfielder Morgan Brian, who won the 2015 World Cup with the United States and is playing in her second global finals this summer.
Once the game has loaded, you’re asked to choose a team from one of 12 top-level women’s leagues. Give your manager a name (in the spirit of things, I named my manager Christine), and then you’re ready for the tutorial, which introduces you to all the game’s key features over roughly 10 to 15 minutes.
There are no official licences, so some teams have been renamed for legal reasons (e.g. London Gunners instead of Arsenal). This also applies to the players, though your initial squad will consist of players who share nationalities and surnames with your chosen team’s real-life stars from 2017/2018. As such, my London Gunners started out with a van Veenendaal in goal, a Scott at full-back, a Little in midfield, and a Miedema up front.
Tactics are easy to get to grips with, as you’ll only have to worry about selecting a formation, a mentality, and attacking and passing focuses. You won’t get bogged down in your players’ attributes either, as they’re rated out of 300 in ten different categories and are then given an overall rating for their best position.
The match engine is very basic, bearing some similarities to classic Championship Manager in its text commentary. Though you can’t pause a match that’s in progress, you can still tweak your tactics and make substitutions if need be. You can also play a Defense, Midfield or Attack ‘card’ to temporarily strengthen the relevant area of your team, but you can only do that once per match.
Mobile gamers will also be very familiar with the in-game currency concept, which come in the form of cash (the main currency) and credits. These can be accrued in several ways, including via those much-loved loot boxes, which you get for certain achievements. And yes, you can buy extra cash and credits with actual money if you’re that way inclined.
WHAT I LIKED
WSM is an asynchronous multiplayer game where you can pit your squad against other managers’ teams, even when they’re not online. There are several competitions in which you will compete over the course of a season, which runs for two real-life weeks.
In the main League competition, you will play against 13 opponents home and away. When a game is scheduled, the home team has 24 hours to play the fixture, after which the away team will also have the option to kick-off. There are five divisions to get promoted from before you can enter the Super League system, which has another five divisions – with the Premier Division serving as the pinnacle.
There’s also a Cup competition (straight knockout) and a Champions League (for teams who finish in the top four of their league), plus a couple of optional challenges. In the World Tour, for example, you’ll get to play against six teams from each of the 11 countries your team isn’t based in. Get as many points as possible to collect those precious loot boxes.
Admittedly, rising through the leagues and winning trophies does take patience and dedication. The eventual rewards are worth it, and the same is true when you unearth a wonderkid in your Youth Academy and develop her to her maximum potential.
If that sounds like a slog to you, then you can just dive into the transfer market and look for players who can immediately improve the weaker links in your team. The search function is quite easy to use, which is a rarity as far as the UI is concerned.
WHAT I DIDN’T
Yes, I’m afraid to say the user interface lets this game down and shows it up as little more than a direct port from mobile. It’s clunky, the main menu is a mess (seriously, the ‘Squad’ and ‘Tactics’ options are on opposite sides of the screen), and you have to ‘swipe’ your mouse to access certain sections of the game.
I’ve already touched on the rudimentary match engine, so I won’t repeat myself here, but the text commentary is similarly primitive. One of the more cringeworthy quotes was that a goalkeeper who’d made a great save was “like a warm blanket on a cold day”. The writing doesn’t get much better, though part of me finds it refreshing to see a game that doesn’t take itself too seriously with its pre-teen-friendly language.
More worryingly, I found some inconsistencies with the use of gender pronouns. While all managers are presumed to be female (even if their names obviously aren’t), the referee is always referred to as he/him/his. Seeing as most top-level women’s football matches are officiated by women, I thought the developers might’ve picked up on that.
I’m not too keen on the two mini-games either. There’s a negotiation mini-game that you play every few days to earn extra sponsorship money. It’s basically a case of pulling a handshake back for just enough time to eke out a 10% rise. Dragon’s Den it isn’t.
Then there’s an equally naff dribbling game designed to improve the quality of your daily training sessions. Gamers of a certain vintage might compare it to Daley Thompson’s Decathlon, except that your mouse – rather than your keyboard – takes a pounding as your player dodges onrushing defenders.
WE MUST TALK ABOUT
The players. Firstly, you’ll notice that their profiles are shown as Ultimate Team-style ‘cards’. You will also see them do little animations, especially during a match when they either score or receive a card.
Admittedly, the player models don’t look fantastic (one Steam reviewer negatively compared them to orcs), and some players’ ethnicities and nationalities don’t quite match up. Similarly, a surprisingly high percentage of British players are given Japanese first names. These are just minor cosmetic issues, mind you.
Players develop attributes through training at a largely linear rate until they reach their peak, which is mainly based on their ‘rarity’. The rarer the player, the more scope they’ll have for improvement. There are seven rarity levels, ranging from ‘Common’ (average Janes) to ‘Mythical’ (think Birgit Prinz or Michelle Akers, but even better). You can get a good idea of how close a player is to maximising her potential by swiping on her profile and looking at the ‘Development’ bar.
WSM is set in a world where female players are as highly-valued as today’s top male players, if not more so. While common players can be picked up for metaphorical peanuts, prices go up dramatically at each rarity level. Don’t be surprised if you have to fork out well over $200million for a young mythical player.
In fact, elite superstars on WSM can become obscenely valuable. While looking through the official number 1 team in the world, I found that they had a 25-year-old American striker (named Morgan, obviously) who was valued at precisely $1,684,356,584. Neymar has just become very envious.
SUMMARY
Women’s Soccer Manager is clearly not one of the most sophisticated or realistic football management games out there, but it is one of the most charming. It’s easy to play in 15/20-minute bursts and might appeal to younger football fans (girls especially). Also, you can certainly enjoy moderate success without having to pay a penny, so why not give it a try at least?
FULLER FM RATING: 3* – Football League.
If you have enjoyed reading this review, feel free to let me know your thoughts, either in the comments below or on Twitter @Fuller_FM.
Fuller FM 
You must be logged in to post a comment.