I've always wondered how the game appears to those who are not familiar with it. Once you get the gist of the basic rules, watching good batting and bowling can be quite exciting. I prefer to play but it has been many years since I have played. The last time I practised was training in the nets with a local team here in the mid 2000s, and I was still competitive enough. I'd like to play again some day. Maybe I'll wait for the "over 40s" side and try out lol Ive still got 1.25 years until I'm 40 though :)

Haha....yeah, that would be quite a crowd to cheer along with. :P

FM 2015 does suck, its pretty much just reskinned football manager 2014, because sega has no serious competition there.

and not to mention most people who like football dont even like FM games, because football manager isnt flashy and you dont actually play your matches (like in lets say fifa), so yeah i suppose there are a few people in the world who like football enough to make FM games so popular, considering its not even game about football per se, but more about stats and spreadsheets and stuff. Its like Eve in ... umm football world. you watch stats, give instructions and hope for the best :P

ah and yeah im one of those who played like 12 different versions of football manager (i started in like 1999-2000 or so?) and i could still get like 20000 hours of gameplay out of it, even if its just a few minor changes from version to version, it offers unlimited replayability and maybe thats why people like it so much.

dam and i just wanted to say how fm 15 sucks but ended up writing a mini novel. oh well.

I always liked Anstoss 2 better. But I could live with an Anstoss 1+2 and another Anstoss 3 + Anstoss Action package on GOG. But I'm not sure if there even was an English translation for these games.

Oh sweet, that'd make Risen $1.99 which is in that RPG sweet-spot that I can't resist. Got some chores to do around the house soonish, but I hope that one doesn't whiz past me while I'm choring. I'll have to remember to reload the page frequently to check up on it.

Football Manager and 2K Sports games are pretty good, chances are your taste just 'evolved'. I recently got hold of a copy of NBA 2k12, it's a cool game and all, but it just doesn't connect as it did years ago.
I have to get my hands on a decent NFL game, that's what I used to play with my freinds on XBOX. I'm curious if it's as much fun as it was then.

Fifa the main sports game franchise is still pretty good actually and I always have a lot of fun with it every year playing with my friends, every iteration is bringing it closer to the real game while still keeping it fun and accessible. Only downside is that you have to deal with Origin if you want to play on PC.

Thank you very much redeemed :) I'd +10 if I could

Football games are aimed at the casual unimaginative gamer who wears his team's colours and when there's no football on the telly, watches captain tsubasa. Fifa is consistently, a piece of shit game, but they buy it religiously every year and play it while yelling, "Wooo 'lookitme' Imma Leo Messi!". Football Manager is even worse, it's not even a game it's a dynamic spreadsheet, designed for people who can't even handle a controller.

There's an anecdote about a guy who got tendonitis in his right hand from playing 40 hours straight, to which he added "but it was worth it, my team won the champion's league!"

No there is a time limit for all forms of the game. As mentioned earlier, there is an "over rate restriction" in the limited over forms of the game (20 and 50) and they have to bowl all overs in the allotted timeframe or the team gets a fine. Game can be interrupted by weather, in particular rain, and then the number of overs are reduced. For example, one team might bowl their 50 over and then it rains. The team batting second might only have 30 overs of batting and the score they need is reduced, using a convoluted mathematical equation that no-one understands lol.

Test matches last for 5 days, and can often end in a draw! Each team gets 2 opportunities to bat. Test matches can be both very exciting and very boring, depending on the result. It is the sort of cricket to leave on in the background whilst doing something else and watch the beginning, the highlights and the end if close.

I haven't played Anstoss 2 - couldn't get it to work on my Computer - was too old. I only played 3, Action and some of 4 (meh) but i'm sure i have seen 1 and 2 in englsih on some abandonware site.

Okay, thanks for explanation ! (even if for me it's mainly "theory"). I hope to be able to see at least a part of a match one day, to see a little what it looks like :)

I'm slightly tempted to pick up Seven Cities of Gold as I used to love that game on the Commodore 64 but I've never seen it on PC or any other platforms. Does anyone know how well the PC version stacks up to the Commodore version both with graphics, audio and gameplay to be worth it? Also has the gameplay value + nostalgic value aged well? Definitely was a cool game on C64 in the mid 80s anyway.

This cricket talk is great, i usually only watch the T20 matches as well, but the world cup has had some quite exciting matches just in the first round, the match between NZ and Aussie was a nail biter right to the finish. There should be even more drama once we get into the knockout games