Speaking of watching the action, the 3D match engine is pretty solid. Graphically, it's nothing to get excited about - but as a visual representation of tactics and player movement it does a good job. Fluid, realistic plays can be seen to develop, especially if the viewpoint is fixed to 'elevated' - which results in a kind of 'middle tier of the Nou Camp' vantage point. Most pleasing of all, in the multiple matches I watched my battling Harrogate Town side play there were very few ludicrous player decisions or immersion-breaking errors of the sort seen in Championship Manager 2010. Goalkeepers occasionally seem a little lazy about trying to stop close-range shots, and there also seemed to be a dubiously high frequency of shots which hit the post and bounce back onto the 'keeper and then into the net. That aside, the action portrayed was pretty convincing, and it's terrific to witness the ebb and flow of a game in driving rain on a total quagmire of a pitch. In one particular match, my side had taken a 2-0 lead only to concede a late goal. As I nervously ordered my team to try to keep possession, get defensive and play on the break, the highlights became ever more nerve-wracking as my defence dropped deeper and deeper, inviting the eager opposition forwards into a host of chances. We clung on. Barely.

The addition of Touchline Instructions makes it quick and simple to issue on-the-fly commands to the team in situations like the above. Specific tactics like 'exploit the flanks' or 'take more risks' are available from a drop-down menu of commands - and, assuming your players are skilled enough to follow your advice, will subsequently play out on the pitch. One problem the match engine does have, however, is that it will infrequently decide to pause the action, leaving players of both sides doing some jogging on the spot for a few seconds before it resumes. This is different to the pauses in action which occur between key highlights and can happen during a flowing move. Whether this is related to PC specs, it's hard to say - it affected my game every ten matches or so, which is not exactly a major setback. Needless to say, with all this talk of the 3D engine, lovers of the 2D representation can still view their games in classic overhead fashion. A quick word too about the hilariously bad crowd representations, which look like fuzzy, flickering cardboard throwbacks to the era of mid-90s football titles.

Off the field, FM 2010 deals with the media side of football via a multi-response press conference system. While these are fun for a bit, it seems highly unlikely that anybody outside the most dedicated of roleplayers will select any of the obvious 'bad' response to questions. Selecting a reply along the lines of 'No, I think my new signing is probably going to be terrible. In fact I hate him already, he stinks.' is clearly only going to cause trouble. Once this realisation dawns, the press conferences become a bit of a bore - but one which has to be endured, as sending the assistant manager instead can lead to some foolish answers being given. Training too is a bit uninspiring, with a bunch of sliders (yep, them again) being used to dictate the time being spent on improving attacking, set-pieces and so on. Although as training can often be the most tedious part of a football management sim, it's nice that FM 2010's system is quick to deal with.

Inevitably, for such an in-depth piece of software, there are also a few lingering bugs. When trying to assign one of my fresh substitutes to the role of 'inside forward' during a match, the tactics screen got a little confused and defaulted to a list of roles available to defenders rather than wide midfielders. Elsewhere, opposition players sometimes disappeared completely from the 'opposition instructions' page - meaning it was temporarily impossible to issue any commands to 'always close down' or 'tightly mark' certain dangerous players. When the opposition players were present (clicking around a few screens would often bring them back), certain targeting commands would sometimes affect players beyond the one selected. The additional 'tight marking' (or whatever) instruction could subsequently be removed, but having to do so several times was a bit of a pain. There are also a few textual anomalies in match reports and news items, but frankly a football management game without these would be something of an anomaly in itself.

Overall, FM 2010 is an accomplished and responsive management sim. The user interface feels sensible, with almost every piece of information just a few clicks away. Due to the complexity of the title it can sometimes take some searching around to find exactly what you need, but once located it's often possible to customise a screen or menu to always show that detail in future. The default white skin also gets a bit strenuous on the eyes, likely making the darker skin the preferred option for most. Whether there is enough on offer here that's substantially different from FM2009 or even going back to '08 or '07, I'm unfortunately not really in a position to say. I do think that anybody completely new to football management would find the levels of information totally daunting; even with the welcome addition of text-based tactical options and backroom advice. For those familiar with the genre though, or for those completists who simply have to buy every single iteration of this series, the believable match engine and a myriad of other in-depth features should provide more than enough managerial satisfaction.

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