Guest Author: Alberto
Being a sports fan is not always easy, between the losses of your team, the dead time between seasons, and the oh-so-bittersweet moment when they win only to vanish seconds later when you start thinking about standings and playoffs. Being a sports gamer is even worst, and while I do appreciate the bragging rights that beating my friends on FIFA or making that 60 yard play on Madden grants me, sometimes I long for something more, sometimes I just want a team to call mine, something I can forge from nothing and nurture to Champions and Pro Bowlers. Even if FIFA Manager offered a good choice, its impending disappearance left me with the doubt of future success on that terrain.
Then someone introduced me to a game, one that made a simple promise: giving me full control over a football team, a team where I can not only choice which plays to run, or what players to pick as starters, but one where I could draft, trade, fire, raise, train, learn with, and finally call it home.
Front Page Sports Football
All the statistics your little heart could desire.
The first time I ran the game, I was somewhat annoyed by the lack of tutorials, so I took it upon myself to find the basics of the game. Not five minutes, later I realized something: I didn’t need the tutorials at all. The game does a marvelous job at merging the basic mechanics into the game actions and explains everything, like the role of the position to the key attributes your player should have. Each player has an even more detailed menu, where you can choose from the most basic statistics and salary, to the more complex data per snap.
Like all stories on sports it all begins with a draft pick, and the game does a perfect job simulating it. You can filter players by position, sort by stat, and compare with someone on your roster or on the draft list. When you are ready to pick him, you can simply short list him and the game does the rest, if he is available by your pick you will get him. Not satisfied with his stats or his practice progress? Not a problem! You can cut him or even trade him with the rest of the league.
Look! A playbook!
The rest of the game is as intuitive as the start. You can decide which players to start on you team, the play style, and even the playbook you will use. Decided to draft the nifty running back? You can compliment his abilities by picking a gameplan more focused on rushing. You have the feeling your rookie quarterback is the next Peyton Manning? Then choose a gameplan based on an aerial game. You can even opt to make a complete new play book from scratch between weeks in your schedule!
Multiple views and camera angles allow for you to catch all the action.
The game game comes with two options for the presentation of the game day: you can watch a 2D dot based view, or you can choose the 3D view and any of his five angle points to have total control over the field. All the standard rules are there, and the fouls and timeouts couldn’t be left out. The game selection screen gives a pretty detailed list of all your available plays and you can even sort them by play time, by formation, or by type.
While Front Page Sports Football might not be a masterpiece, it sure does a good job at delivering everything a football fan could hope for and more. Now its your time to join in the game and forge your own legend, work the way to the top, train the next true legends, keep them focused and healthy, and win the Bowl for all the fans!