Hello there, folks. This is Chris from Fuller FM, back once again with another of my occasional soccer management game reviews.
I bought a couple of Football Manager alternatives during Steam’s winter sale right at the end of last year. I reviewed Club Soccer Director PRO 2020 a few weeks ago and wasn’t exactly gushing with praise… but maybe this next title will be more to my liking? Seeing as it comes from a developer with over 15 years of developing quality football games, the signs look promising.
New Star Manager, this is your time to shine. Don’t let me down.
BACKGROUND
My family first got the internet in our house during the long, hot summer of 2003. Being a 13-year-old football fanatic, I spent the rest of that year downloading pretty much any freeware or shareware soccer game available. Some were good, some weren’t so good… and then there was New Star Soccer.
In June of that year, Simon Read – a part-time indie developer from Bedfordshire – had unleashed New Star Soccer into the world. That game saw you play as a 16-year-old youth footballer, developing their skills and executing them on the pitch as well as managing relationships off it. I enjoyed the demo so much that NSS was the first digital video game I ever bought.
New Star Soccer 2 built on the original title’s promise, but it was New Star Soccer 3 (2006) which truly broke out, making Read enough money to go full-time. Another two sequels followed, though deviating into other sports proved a misstep. New Star Tennis double-faulted, while New Star Grand Prix crashed into the barriers.
Read went back to his roots in 2012, rebooting NSS for mobile devices. Met with great commercial and critical success, this new title ultimately yielded a BAFTA Games Award (presented by tennis ace Boris Becker) and even a short-lived Angry Birds spin-off.
Read and his Yorkshire-based company New Star Games have continued to make strong progress. They recently delved into football management with the release of New Star Manager – initially on the App Store and Google Play in 2018, but later on Steam and Nintendo Switch. In this review, I will be looking at the Steam version, which is currently priced at £15.49 (€16.79 in the EU; $19.99 in the USA).
STARTING OUT
Upon starting a new game, you’re asked to name your manager and select a country to be based in. You’ll then take over the reins at New Star FC – a struggling team who are battling against relegation.
The tutorial takes place over the final few games of the first season. You are gradually introduced to all the key gameplay features as you pull New Star FC clear of danger. By the time the tutorial ends, you’ll be ready to get started in earnest.
If you’re worried about having to manage a soulless, non-descript team full of ugly misfits… firstly, thank you for visiting Fuller FM, Nigel Pearson. Secondly, you can rebrand New Star FC as you see fit, even up to redesigning the kits and club badges. I renamed my team after my hometown club, partly because… well, I couldn’t possibly do any worse than Romford’s real-life manager/chairman.
Managing your team feels akin to a board game, as you use cards to develop players and keep their energy levels up. Certain cards can also be used to remove player concerns, or to reduce the lengths of injuries or even suspensions.
You’ll also placed in charge of upgrading club facilities and agreeing sponsorship deals when necessary. Everything is paid for using ‘Bux’, which are earned as you progress and serve as the only currency in NSM. Speaking of that…
WHAT I LIKED
…you won’t find any microtransactions here! While you can buy more Bux on the freemium mobile version of NSM, the Steam and Switch versions only ask you to pay around 15 quid upfront for the full game. You get exactly what you paid for without being pestered to hand over everything else in your wallet just to make any meaningful progress.
Taking out microtransactions allows your NSM career to breathe and progress at a natural rate. Well… to a point. With new cards coming your way whenever you complete a match, level up or meet your chairman’s targets, it likely won’t take long to build a team capable of dominating the lower divisions.
Of course, mastering the match controls helps as well. Whenever your team launches an attack, the game switches over to the pitch view, where you get to control your players. I won’t go into specifics here, but you’d basically use your mouse like a finger on a touchscreen. It works quite well, even if there’s a very thin line between instructing your player to shoot and telling them to dribble.
Opposition attacks are strictly ‘commentary-only’. You can influence things by asking your squad to work harder or changing strategy. Primarily, though, your players’ strengths, weaknesses, traits and experience will make the biggest difference between winning and losing.
Squad management plays a huge part in NSM. Over time, your players will want to develop their skills, get more gametime and/or renew their contract – and having too many unhappy players could affect results. Compare that to some inferior games, which allow you to easily sign a load of superstars and win everything without having to worry about these things.
WHAT I DIDN’T
While I like the squad management aspect of New Star Manager, I also don’t like it. Keeping everyone (mostly) happy becomes a tricky balancing act over time, and what was once an enjoyable challenge could eventually become tiresome.
My next complaint is related to ‘immersion’. There are no official licences, so many club names are shortened (though you know who ARSNL and MBORO are supposed to represent) and players are randomly generated. But I’m obviously not complaining about that specifically…
What I mean is that random player names and ethnicities don’t take nationalities into account. Don’t be surprised if you come across a black South Korean named Tardu Livesy, or a Frenchman named Calum Kojima. While I don’t expect ultra-realism, I do expect the game to bear some resemblance to reality.
I’ve also come across a few stability and performance issues, some of which caused NSM to crash to the desktop. Of course, certain users may be lucky (or unlucky) with crashes… but for some context, I played over 600 hours of Football Manager 2019 without experiencing one CTD.
WE MUST TALK ABOUT
The mini-games. They’re quite naff, in truth, but they make a refreshing change from anything you’d normally encounter in a management game.
As shown above, pre-match press conferences take the form of one question. You’ll usually be asked a right-or-wrong teaser that tests your knowledge of your squad, facilities, backroom staff, etc. A right answer yields some extra cards, but a wrong one will hurt your relationships instead.
When it comes to half-time team talks, you are asked to memorise four or five cliches highlighted in green, and then select as many of them as possible within five seconds. Each right answer increases your squad’s energy, but just one wrong guess ends the mini-game and takes away your energy boosts.
Lastly, contract negotiations boil down to a ‘higher or lower’ numbers game in the style of “Play Your Cards Right”, only without the late Bruce Forsyth or his dolly dealers. Play ’em right, and you can get players to sign for much-reduced fees. Make a mistake, however, and you’ll have to either cough up more Bux or walk away from negotiations, potentially annoying the player in question.
SUMMARY
I played New Star Manager on mobile when it first came out… and I really didn’t like it. Then again, I’m generally not a fan of the free-to-play model (can’t you tell?). The experience of playing a premium version on Steam is infinitely more satisfying and rewarding.
What looks like a basic mobile game is deceptively sophisticated and translates pretty well onto the PC. While some of the cheesier features may put off some people, I found this game enjoyable enough that I’ve continued to play it every single day for the past month. It’s definitely given me a lot of bang for my Bux.
FULLER FM RATING: 4* – Premier 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.
And if Super Bowl LIV has whetted your appetite for a more Americanized version of football, you might be interested in New Star Games’ newest star game. Retro Bowl is a simple but addictive mobile game based on 1980s gridiron classic Tecmo Bowl. It’s free to download on the App Store and Google Play, and you can try it out for five games before buying the full version for just $0.99/£0.99.
DISCLAIMER: New Star Games have NOT paid me in any way to endorse their products. I just really, really like them – that’s all.
Fuller FM 
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