Разработчик: Solecismic Software
Описание
2015 Rosters
NEW! On December 8, just in time for the holidays, Front Office Football Seven was updated to use 2015 rosters (as of week 11), coaches, schedule and the new 33-yard extra points. The update will download automatically for those who already own the product. This does not affect saved games. New games will now begin in 2015 with the 2015 rosters.
About the Game
Put Yourself in the Front Office
Front Office Football is a text-based sports simulation. It's a game for those of us who love the numbers in sports.
In Front Office Football, you play the role of your favorite team's general manager. You determine your team's future through trading with opponents, negotiating contracts, bidding for free agents and discovering new talent through the annual amateur draft.
You can also play the role of the armchair coach, setting game plans and depth charts, or even calling each play from an extensive playbook.
You can determine ticket prices and submit stadium construction plans for public approval. You can move your team if the public won't properly support your franchise.
Front Office Football Seven includes a multi-player career mode with full ftp support, allowing you to compete in a league with up to 31 other enthusiastic general managers. Multi-player mode runs independently of Steam and requires a commissioner to manage the web site.
The original game, released in 1998, received an Editors' Choice award from Computer Gaming World and a 4 1/2-star review. It was nominated for numerous Sports Game of the Year awards. This is the Seventh full version.
Front Office Football Seven features a 2015 player file and new careers with the default files begin in 2015 with the 2015 schedule. We're keeping this product on sale at half price to promote the series. For the latest in the series, Front Office Football Eight is available and features a 2018 player file and schedule.
Your Goals in Front Office Football
In order to succeed in Front Office Football, you need to perform as well as possible in four different areas.
- Team Performance. On the field, your primary goal is winning the coveted Front Office Bowl. Your fans, players and staff all want to see that championship banner raised to a new position in the ring of honor surrounding your stadium.
- Financial Performance. Off the field, your team needs to show a profit, or the owner will become angry and threaten your job. You need to control salary and staff costs while balancing the need to spend money to build and upgrade your stadium against the risk of facing stagnant ticket revenue with an aging arena.
- Roster Value. You need to negotiate contracts, sign free agents, make wise decisions in the amateur draft and outsmart opposing general managers in trade. Building a strong, capable roster means everything in Front Office Football.
- Franchise Value. The bottom line is that a happy owner has a franchise that's the envy of professional football. Nothing means more to the owners than seeing their franchise on the top of the list of most valuable franchises. You help put your team on that list by excelling in the three other categories, but the best general managers look for opportunities to move the team in order to find a home town with a strong economy that will support your team like none other.
Major Features of Front Office Football
The game concentrates on roster management and career play. There are several key elements emphasized in the game design:
- A realistic trading module. You can't simply take the players you want from other teams.
- Proper aging of players. Players at different positions age differently. Quarterbacks need a couple of more years to reach their prime, but their careers last several years longer, on average, than running backs.
- The amateur draft. Teams realistically assess their needs, and build through the draft.
- Statistics. All the major stats are tracked and are available at any given time. Career and full season-by-season statistics are tracked in 135 different categories, including Red Zone and Third Down numbers. You can view and sort statistics by team, category and position. It's fast and accurate. Front Office Football also tracks and displays 182 different team statistics and league totals.
- Play calling. Designed to allow quick selection of a large library of players, you can be the ultimate GM and wrest control of the play-by-play action from your coach. You can tailor your in-game strategy to your team's strengths without having to build each play from scratch.
- Free agency. Teams compete with you to sign the best free agents. Each player has his own idea of how much he wants to stay with his existing team, and how much he wants to play for a champion. But money is still at the root of all decisions.
- Home towns. Each player will have a home town from nearly 10,000 American cities. When deciding on teams during free agency, players may prefer a team closer to home.
- Depth charts. You set the depth chart at each position for your team, and fill out a play preference chart. Front Office Football simulates games based on these charts. You can choose different personnel depending on your choice of formations.
- Game plans. The game plan will allow you to specify different strategies depending on the score of the game and how much time remains. There are literally thousands of choices to make, or you can leave everything to your coaching staff.
- Player ratings. Each player is rated for 53 different skills. But you don't have access to the raw numbers. Where's the fun in that? You hire a coaching staff, with varied strengths and weaknesses. Your coaches tell you how good they think your players are - and how good they think your opponents' players are.
- The salary cap. It's an essential tool in keeping parity among professional football rosters. You'll have to cut your aging, high-paid veterans just like any ruthless general manager worth his weight in negotiations.
- City profiles. Submit a plan to build a new stadium to your voters. If they turn you down, you can propose a move to any of 169 cities modeled in the game. Each city is rated for several economic criteria, which affects its desire for a new team.
- Team chemistry. Players will perform better or worse in some instances, depending on how they feel about players in their group.
- Dynamic Quarterback learning process. As quarterbacks learn more about the game, they will have access to more plays during games, allowing the smarter signal-callers to better confuse their opponents.
- Record keeping. All team statistics are tracked for a manager's entire career. Team records, including all-time performance against every other team, are kept. A game-by-game performance breakdown is always available for individual players.
- Power ratings. You can see how your team ranks using Solecismic Software's custom power rankings. These ratings are used to set a point spread for each game.
- Enhanced replay value. Every time you start a new career, the core ratings for each player are randomly affected. For veterans, the random change will be very small. Established stars will always be significant players. For rookies, however, performance will vary significantly. This allows for a more challenging game and greater replay value.
- Multi-Player League Support. Choose a commissioner to run the games for your league. Your commissioner will simulate the games and process every team's instruction set for each stage during the game. Up to 32 people can compete in each multi-player league.
Thanks for taking a look at Front Office Football.
Поддерживаемые языки: english
Системные требования
Windows
- OS: XP
- Processor: Intel Pentium 3, Intel Core, AMD Athlon 1 GHz+
- Memory: 1 GB RAM
- Graphics: 1024x768 Display
- Storage: 183 MB available space
- Additional Notes: saved games require about 30MB, plus another 30MB per season
Отзывы пользователей
Very detailed and immersive.
This game seemed right up my lane. I always loved drafts and team building more than taking control of a player on the field.
It started out seeming I would love this. So much potential. potential UNDELIVERED it turns out.
I roll up my sleeves and spend quite a bit of time working on my team building - drafts and FA. My eyes get sore after crunching numbers for my first round pick. I hired the best coaches I could with ratings in interviewing, player development and young talent.
To no avail it seems.
Every season my draft picks just die before they reach year 4. MY cornerstone LT I was so proud to get in the first round to build my team, drops from a 71 future to 39!!!!! This is with an interview and low volatility.
The LG I draft the next season who was a 65? he drops to 42.
The next year the CB I draft who is a 72? Over 4 seasons as a starter he drops to 50.
The 74 OLB I drafted last night who was a 74? He comes out of pre season and his Future is now 59.
Is this supposed to be fun in anyway? How am I supposed to build a team? I love drafts, but I would just be better off going George Allen and trading all my picks for veterans.
Except it is the same with veterans. the LE I signed that was a 71 and only 25 years old - You guessed it immediately died. He spent his final season riding the pine and rated 36 while making 11 mil that season.
It wouldn't be so bad if it balanced out and my 2-4 round guys would have a player or 2 that bloomed, but that NEVER happens, except maybe 5 points temporarily.
The 3rd round QB I drafted last night went from 50 -30 by the end of pre season. Yahoo!!! So fun!!!
Oh- and those busted out players who are now 30-45 ish, they all hold out their final season asking for HUGE salaries, and if you don't pony up 5-13 mil per season on them they won't re-sign with you and go to FA where they get 1-4 mil per season.
In 2020 I have exactly ONE Very Good player on my team, the SS who came on the roster at the start of the game.
I was thinking of grabbing FOF8, but now I ill be saving my $.
I had this in my game library for ages and had hardly played it. Got frustrated with the limited elements of Madden 19 and wanted something that was less console and more PC and tried this again. Now absolutely hooked - just led Dallas to their second "super" Bowl with years of 15-1 and 14-2. Regularly juggling player personality clashes, having no cap left to spend and trying to find that star of the future in the draft. The option I have played is full draft and drafting a team from scratch - great fun. Despite not being from the US and having only a limited knowledge of some of the finer points - this is a hit. I always play on simulation mode but that is because I love the contracts side and blending the team more. Next season is going to be tough as I have already franchised Cam Newton last season and he is going to want a big pay day as a free agent. Can't wait!
I'd been looking for a game like this hoping I'd be able to act like a GM who can identify talent, build a winning team, but through things not entirely under my control -- player retirements and salary cap pressures -- I have to dismantle the team and rebuild it. To do that, I need to be able to reliably identify and obtain good players. This isn't that game, and for two reasons: 1) the developer seems to think it's "fun" to withhold information and 2) there is some really poor design in this game.
I'll use the trading system as an example of what I mean. I once drafted a player that was clearly the best one in the draft. The problem was, it wasn't a position of need. No problem. I had a veteran player in the prime of his career. I could trade him for similar veteran at a position I do have a need at. Right? Not really. When you bring up the trade screen you're can shop a player around, which brings up a list of teams that are supposively interested. But if you read what it says, it's only a "rough estimate" of their interest. In other words, they could be yanking your chain. And, indeed, that appears to be the case. After an hour of trying fruitlessly to trade a star player, I offered a clearly advantageous trade that any GM would have leapt at, only to be told they wanted a player with greater impact. No, I don't like games that jerk me around anymore than I like people who do that to me in real life. This could all be avoided if I were allowed to ask the question: what would you trade for this player? But there's no way to do it. Because of poor design, I'm left frustrated, angry, and unable to perform what should be a simple task.
Or consider the draft. I've gone through a couple dozen drafts, and if there's a way to reliably identify good players, it eludes me -- and, yes, that includes considering combine results. In real life, if I took over a franchise, I'd immediately beef up the scouting department so I get accurate information from which to make decisions. IN FOF, it appears that is done through your coaching staff. The problem is, you can only replace your staff after their contract runs out. So, if you inherit a coaching staff that doesn't know how to scout and you can't replace them for a few seasons, the predictable result is that you end up drafting stiff after stiff after stiff. No, I don't consider that fun and, yes, I put considerable time into trying to figure it out. I've come to the conclusion that the game is designed for failure.
https://store.steampowered.com/recommended/recommendgame/344340#
So, no, I don't recommend this game.
I hate this game, it makes me want to punch walls. The players are a bunch of overpaid, underachieving prima donnas. The coaches are idiots, the refs are blind, the fans are fickle...
In other words, it might just be perfect.
not up to par with other sports games, especially the OOTP baseball game. I love football... American... football a whole lot, but this game is too cumbersome, just not structured so as to enjoy the game. Rather you have to learn FOF7 and attempt to find some kind of enjoyment out of that experience. It seems like they are a decade behind in development compared to other sports games. If it can be done for Soccer, Baseball, Basketball... why can't it be done for American Football.
It is just not worth the cost.
This game is frustrating as hell. As much as I try to like it (as I love the stats that it generates), here are the problems.
The interface is from the 90's. Horrible modal windows that need to be constantly opened and closed to the point of exhaustion.
Too many injuries to the point of being unrealistic. I've had several seasons completely ruined by having my roster decimated with injuries. I dread checking the injuries after every game. I've never seen teams completely wiped out by injuries to that extent in the NFL (to the point where I need to acquire 1 to 2 players each week just to field a freak'n team). I shouldn't have to tweak the config settings to make injuries realistic.
One of my best players was "severely depressed" for an entire season and would not play. I could have cut him if I wanted to pay about a $1 mil. settlement. I know that kind of stuff happens from time to time for real, but combine that with my six players that are out for 10 weeks with broken arms, feet, clavicles etc. and it gets a little unnerving.
There is not enough background on players in the draft other than combine scores. What this means is that the draft is usually a complete crap shoot. Acquiring new staff members with good scouting ability doesn't seem to change a thing.
I need to draft coaches...give me a break.
I'm required to have a fullback on the roster...give me a break. Waste of a roster spot.
This just names a few of the problems.
I used to play Front Office Football in the late 90s/early 2000s and was looking for a good football sim to return to. There is very little available on the market, so I gave FOF7 a shot.
I have to say, after spending years playing other sports management sims, especially OOTP, it was a huge let down to see that FOF really hasn't evolved. This version is really no better than one I played in 2000. In fact, I think when they actually had the NFL license, the game at least looked better. The game may have some redeeming qualities, but it's really hampered by the terrible interface which makes trying to do anything a huge pain. It's a shame that the developers haven't been able to make any susbstantive improvements to what was once a great sports sim franchise.
Very realistic (American) football management sim where you base your decisions primarily off of your players statistical numbers and ingame performance (like real life). This game does a very good job at simulating accurate numbers for both the players in real life and the players it creates through the draft. It's fun taking control of a team that's a QB away from playoff contention and trying to find your guy in the draft and turning him into a franchise QB. The best thing about this game, however, is the playability. It's accessible by pretty much anybody's timeframe in one way: you can sim entire seasons in less than a minute, get right back to offseason, and keep building your team. Or, if you prefer, you can sit back and watch detailed text based action unfold, adding a suspense aspect to this game.
Even for its debatably steep price, I would definitely recommend this game to (American) football enthusiasts. We've waited a long time for a good football sim.
This is by far the best (American) Football Manger available today. The simulation is very impressive, statistics and player performance is very true to life. Trying to put together a championship team through drafts, trades and free agency quickly gets fun and addictive.
That said there are some issues:
- It can be hard to get started, there is no tutorial.
[*]It is not visually impressive and the GUI is a little awkward.
Well worth the price if you have a little GM inside you.
I have officially played this game long enough to create a dynasty, then watch it fall apart again. A lot of the guys doing reviews on this game have 2k+ hours on record, so my 60+ really aren't impressive in the least bit, but this game deserves as many positive reviews as it can get.
This game is as deep as you personally want it to be. Want to just do the draft, sign free agents, and simulate a few seasons to see how you did? Go ahead. Want to do that, plus set the actual packages and plays your team runs, along with formation specific substitutions? This game will let you do that.
I've played 25 seasons in this game. The progression and regression of players is extremely realistic, and the effects of how good or bad your coaching staff is is very noticable. I've felt the pain of having the first rounder I was gunning for get taken right in front of me, I've felt the nervousness of trading away a ton of future draft picks to move up early in the first for a guy that I thought could be the face of my franchise, and I've felt the triumph of seeing that guy become the face of the entire league over the past 12 seasons.
At some point I want to start a new game, create new stories, start over with the players that are in the league today. I'm far enough to the point that every player in today's NFL are a distant memory, and sometimes I long for the familiarity. With that said, I can't just end my game. These "Fake" players are very real to me. I've seen how rookies I've drafted have panned out over time. I keep tabs on them as they go to other teams, and wonder how I let them slip away. I've seen guys I've drafted make it to the hall of fame, and its just incredible.
If your a fan of the sport, or a fan of management games in general, this is the game for you. Be warned though, this game is very addicting. I haven't even tried an online multiplayer league yet, and I've heard that's the best part of the game. I'm very satisfied with this purchase, and will likely purchase every future installment of this franchise for the rest of my life. I just bought like, 12 games on the steam summer sale, and I honestly have no desire to even touch them because of this game.
10/10
>Trade draft picks to acquire players that all went to the same college
>Trade other players for rag tag group of QBs that have bad stats but have "potential"
>Average 2-14 next four seasons
>Get fired
>Select to ignore the firing
>Offer insane contracts to the rag tag QBs that still have "potential"
>Move franchise from Philly to Orlando
>Trade all remaining draft picks to Dallas for nothing in return
>Switch to Dallas, and use draft picks to coach team to 6 straight Super Bowls
>Laugh as Philly Orlando crumbles into nothing
10/10 Would be Chip Kelly again
I play this game without the Steam interface so 1.4 hours is not accurate. It's probably in the hundreds actually.
FOF7 is a fantastic simulator. It's probably the most realistic and immersive game of its kind, far exceeding the realism of Football Manager series (it's soccer, but there are no other football simulators so bear with me here). Everything from setting up your starting line-up to play calling is completely realistic. Player stats are completely within an acceptable range; you don't see QB's who throw for 7000 yards or RBs running for 3000. Even things out of the realm of football (like the population of cities, differing fan preferences, franchise values etc.) are simulated extremely realistically. The game has unending replay value; just pick a different team (or the same team, as stats and future development of players are "random" within a pre-determined range) and call different plays. The players coming out of the draft also add to the playability because the talent pool never seems to drop and you can have a career that spans for more than a century! The best part is that the game doesn't experience any lags, even after 100 seasons.
Of course there are a few negatives: The "graphics" are primitive. Actually, there are no graphics to start with. It's a completely text-based simulator so if you are looking for a 3D interface like in FM, tough luck. Other than that the play calling, while very extensive, lacks a few crucial ones such as trick plays where a WR or RB passes the ball. You can still go for fake punts or kicks, but I found it weird that the developer overlooked trick plays during regular downs.
I highly recommend FOF7 to all American football fans who were dismayed by Madden's franchise mode. What's lacking in graphics is made up by the extreme realism of this game.
I'm a bit up in the air about this game. I'll give it a thumbs down, because it's not worth the money I spent on it, and it's a huge pain to be able to play the game the way I want to play it.
Positives:
- It's a good simulator, if you want to play with current NFL players.
- The preseason draft option is fun, again, if you play with the current NFL players
Negatives:
- Trying to play with randomly created players. When creating a draft for these players, there are normally 2-3 good quarterbacks to chose from (rated 75-95), another 3-4 decent ones (rated 55-74), and the rest are completely worthless (Sometimes, the best rated qb is in the low 60s). Unless you get the first few picks in the draft (you can't chose what pick you will get), you won't get a good quarterback, and if you don't have a pick in the top 15, you are screwed, and your team will struggle to win any games because your quarterback is so terrible (we're talking backup NFL material here). The poor quarterback ratings don't seem to affect the computer-owned teams much, but a poor qb certainly affects you plenty.
- The "Preference Draft" idea sounds like a good one (you can chose to allow the computer to draft for you, based on your weighted preferences on each team unit), but it doesn't work correctly. You'll likely end up with 4 RDEs and 0 LDEs, and if you try to move a RDE to LDE, he becomes worthless (his ratings go down tremendously). Even switching a RDT to LDT, or a RG to LG (both of which should have little to no effect), makes the even the best player on the team a mediocre one. If you could trade to even up your roster, that might help, but teams won't trade after the draft (I don't know how long this lasts...it's at least half a season).
- Trading is difficult. If you can find a player that another team will actually let go of, they want way too much for him.
- Searching for kick returners and punt returners in the game is a pain. Basically, you have to open up the profiles of all the running backs, receivers and defensive backs to see if they can fill that role. A search for roles would be extremely helpful in the draft (you can search in this manner after the draft). It would also be helpful for the long-snapping role. I hate wasting a roster spot on a guy who is nothing but a long snapper. Centers should also show long-snapping ability in their profiles...only the rookies do.
The "Full X-Factor" option seems to do nothing at all. It certainlky doesn't do what it says it should.
I give this game a 6 out of 10. It is a good game if you want to play with real NFL players, but personally, I have more fun with computer-created players, and this game just destroys that aspect of the game with it's many flaws. It's also a inferior product for the price I paid for it.
This game is text based. If you're in to that sort of thing and have imagination then you can have a great time with this game. You're the president of a team. You choose where your team is located, the name, the coaches, the players, the training staff, roster moves, draft decisions, trades, gameplan, ticket prices, stadium construction, and essentially anything else that a team president would generally control.
Some of the things that i'm able to control I really don't want to control such as the gameplan for the team. That's something the coach that I hired should control. I don't want to guess how much to charge for tickets so that is also delegated. For me the fun is in putting the team together. Deciding on my coaches, players, free agency, and the draft. The key to success in this game is drafting well and being smart with your contracts. The scouting information you receive is dependent on how well your scouting staff evaluates talent. Then there are curveballs thrown in such as player volatility. Many factors go in to scouting information and the accurracy of that information.
In some cases your scouts can be dead wrong about a player such as in the real NFL. In some cases players may not be committed and you will see your prized first round pick with tons of potential not really develop. Or in some cases he may even begin to regress. This accurracy of information can be adjusted. By default it's set at 50. I have left it on 50 because it does seem like a good balance. I would imagine that on 0 you just couldn't depend on any information your scouts give you and set on 100 the information would be 100% accurrate.
This game is a lot like Head Coach 2009. That is a game that I loved because the draft was very exciting. Front Office Football gives a similar excitement. Though the drafts are not accompanied by Schefter talking about the prospects you are not limited to just 15 seasons like in HC09. I think i'm currently in year 2132 of my franchise. I should have been dead long ago. :)
You have to consider things like leadership, how players mesh together, conflicts between players, and players with a bad attitude. All of these things are done very well in this game. I'm not a young man anymore and played Madden since the first one. Franchise mode was what I used to love to play because it felt like you were in control of your favorite team. Head Coach was similar. However, I think that FOF7 does a much better job of giving you control and a realistic feeling of managing a team.
I'm so thankful that I found this game. I didn't know it existed until it arrived on steam. I was still playing Head Coach 09 even though I had memorized all of the players names and how good they were. Then when I got this game I just fell in love. Not at first but once I got into it a little deeper. FOF7 is a game that has infinite replayability. The drafts are completely random. The names and stats are randomly generated so you'll never run into that problem that I had with Head Coach.
It's hard to describe a text based game but I can say that this game is a ton of fun. It's challenging, rewarding, and something that you can play without getting bored of it.
That being said it isn't perfect - but it's close. There are some little ergonomic issues like with mouse wheel scrolling in certain menus and things. Nothing major and it's just more of an annoyance that adds an extra click to your menu diving. That's really the only complaint. I'm not sure how many hours i've played but i have never had a single crash in all my hours. Everything runs perfect.
This is truly the greatest football management game ever. It's certainly worth it's pricetag if you're someone like me. I will probably play this for the rest of my life and not get tired of it. I love it.
I'm relatively new to this game in that I've logged maybe 50 single player seasons and I'm just starting my first season on my first multiplayer league. That is still noob status, as many of the people in the community have been playing for over 10 years and have simmed literally thousands of seasons. The depth of detail in this game is incredible, and the amount of data mining the community performs in order to understand the ins and outs of player development and play calling is astounding. If you are interested in this game do yourself a favor and look up a site called Front Office Football Central. Browsing there will give you a hint as to what you're getting with this game. It's definitely not a casual sports sim. For a comparison Madden is to Front Office Football what Call of Duty is to ArmA. If you're looking for a game that lets you pretend to be your favorite player and rack up 5,000 receiving yards in a season look elsewhere. If you're looking for a game that forces you to debate signing veterans vs. getting rookies playing time and whether you should build a smashmouth defense oriented team or a spread offense high flying powerhouse, this might be the game for you. You'll never get to watch your players make acrobatic leaps, but you will get to watch them develop as players and have to deal with how they form friendships and animosity between their teammates and the fans. If you've ever had the urge to study film on your favorite team's offensive line you'll fit right in here.
This game is probably the best Football(American Football) sim I've come across, but it does come with some flaws as well.
If you don't know what you're getting yourself into, it's a text based game that is focused on statistics(and does this game ever track them).
The good parts of this game is that is when I've ran statistical sims without giving much attention to rosters for testing purposes, the game does provide pretty accurate data that corrensponds with the players rating, the teams rating and other factors such as personality, coaching etc. This exceeded my expectations on how the game would compile stats. The game doesn't allow for too many lopsided trades to load teams up(note you also have a salary cap to deal with), but if you really try hard you can fleece the AI(but what fun is that?). Aside from being the General Manager, you are able to coach your team, set your depth charts, and run 100's of different plays. It's not too complex, and it's very enjoyable(remember, this is a text based sports sim, not Madden).
My biggest gripe is the user interface. The UI is so outdated(it's something you'd expect out of a game created 20 years ago). It makes navigating really difficult, and it's unsightly compared to other sports sims. Back to the navigation, is that it's very clunky, the menus aren't well organized(I attribute this to the clunky feeling of the UI). If the UI was ever improved, this game would be a hit amongst sim enthusiats. The UI also makes this game very unfriendly to new players, not just to this game, but those making this their first sim they've tried. There is no tutorial, there is no glossary for stat abbreviations (or the reason they're tracked).
I'm a little harsh on the negative aspect, but once you get used the UI and if you have prior knowledge of Football, the game is quite a bit of fun. While it's not a 10/10, I'd give the game a solid 8/10, and I recommend it with a little caution as there is a bit of a learning curve.
The old classic is back, man I missed this game. It is good to see them putting out a new version like this. For those of you who like management sports games, this is one of the best.
I have been playing Front Office Football for a very long time. For those who have played older versions and are wondering why you should get this one, the biggest improvement is in the financial model. It is much harder to play games with contracts with this version than in older versions. The simulation engine remains very strong, but player contract AI is much stronger than in the past.
For new players wondering what this is, think realistic fantasy football. If you have ever wanted to be a GM and/or coach of your own team, this is the game to do it. You draft players, sign free agents, extend or renegotiate players, manage your depth charts, set a gameplan, and if desired call your own plays. You can build stadiums, and relocate the team if needed. And you get to do it season after season, building up decades of history in the process. It has a very strong game simulation engine, and a very good professional football financial model. Not everything is there - no compensatory picks, for example, and only one type of free agent, but the feel of being a professional GM is very much there. If you start to get lost, there is an online community called Front Office Football Central that can offer help. Also look through the game's options, you can turn on AI help for various aspects. If you want to GM, you can let your coach manage the depth chart and game plan so you can focus on signing players, or switch roles and try to coach the team the AI GM hands you.
Do note that while playcalling is available, it's not the primary focus of the game. It's set up to sim entire game weeks at once, or you can watch your individual game sim out one play at a time, or sim an entire season in one shot.
The game's UI is very spreadsheet-oriented. This is both a strength and a weakness. Beginners should check out some of the intro guides and videos posted, as the options can be overwhelming when you start. Just remember that you start at week 1 of the regular season, so focus on managing your depth chart and maybe dabble in some contract extensions, but mostly get used to the game feel during that first season before you hit the offseason.
The big strength in this is the wealth of data you can mine about your league. There is page after page of statistics and records, and you can view individual player cards to decide if they are playing up to their ratings. There is a scouting system, so young players may or may not turn into the player you think they'll be, or 7th year pros can suddenly blossom into stars. Invest in your staff and it will pay off. All this data can also be exported from the game into CSV files that can be opened in Excel or outside utilities (I've written a few) to complement the game's own interface and browsing.
The modal nature of the UI can be frustrating at times, but most screens have the information you need. For example, when setting your depth chart, you can view individual player ratings. It would be nice to have the roster screen up beside it, but you learn to live with it (or have your own Excel worksheet you've pulled the roster into for browsing in a separate window).
There is a strong multiplayer component as well for those looking for a human challenge. There are many leagues out there full of human GMs to trade with and draft against, many of which take advantage of the game data export to provide rich web experiences beyond the game.
If you are looking for a deep, realistic professional football sim, this is the game to look at.
Madden sent me here.
That is a true story. I have played Madden since the 93 version on my Sega. It was so great when they finally added franchise mode and then added the draft. I loved drafting players and playing multiple seasons to see how they progressed. On into the 2000s we got 3D, motion capture, and all these fancy graphics. That was great eye candy, but man did it slow down the draft. I wanted to look at every player and every stat of every player to make sure that linebacker I was targeting at round 2 pick 7 was going to fit my vision and help the team out. That took forever. Sure having their picture there added to immersion, but when you got to fictional players it really didn't matter. It was just another generic face.
Then I discovered the greatness of Front Office Football. I could peruse the draft class in minutes. I could filter by linebacker. I could see all of his stats in a bar graph that easily let me make a decision if he was a fit or not. I could create a gameplan to fit my new first round running back. I could see the results of my planning. I was in love with this game. How could it get any better?
Well if it had the fancy 3D game replays that would be great! EA tried that with a game about a head coach. I didn't like it at all. It was still cumbersome to get through the menus and get to what really mattered. If I wanted to watch every play of the game I could do it with the FOF replay. Sure it was text, but it was fast and had colorful text that told me what was happening on the field. The stats gave me the overall view so I could easily see what my competitors in my division were doing. I could get through a whole season in an afternoon and get a great feeling of acomplishment. How could it get any better?
I discoverd multiplayer leagues! Now multiplayer was nothing new. Madden had it. You could play against your buddy who you just knew was looking at your side of the screen and figuring out which play you called. At least until they added the bluff system. Most football games had some sort of multiplayer. No this was differnet. Every team could be represented by a real living person. It wasn't a bunch of button mashing and test of reflexes. It was a test of the brain and preparation. You could build your team through the draft or free agency and then create your perfect offensive and defensive game plans. Once the commisioner had everyone's gameplan then it was on! FOF managed to simulate up to 16 games and send out the results. Results that could then be replayed in the game viewer play by play. It took a little bit of imagination to see your players preforming a pancake block or a diving catch, but it was there and it was uncanny acurate compared to the NFL. Then there came that day that you get to the Super Bowl! After playing all year against 32 humans! This team that you built up storms the field and .... how could it get any better?
It was just released on Steam.
I've played FOF7 off and on now for ove a year since it's release.
So what is good about the game?
You are going to get an incredibly strong simulation of being a General Manager. Yoru decisions matter in a lot of ways. Is it worth picking up that stud free agent if he doesn't get along with the position leader? Should I spend my money on one big name, or spread it improving my squad with a few players instad? Should I gamble on that top rated Qb even though he has a high volatility and could be a huge bust? How likely are the combine scores to matter in figuring out which top player to pick at my 1.11 spot in next year's draft? Do I have coverage in case my starting RB is ut for injury? And how how of my salary cap should be invested in quality backups? Should i move to a 3-4 defense so I can focus on getting quality LBs? After a season of play, why did my 64/64 rated DE just get four sacks? What can I do to inprove his perforamnce next year? How long should I hold on to my aging QB as he begins to slip from All Pro to Pro Bowl, and looks to be getting worse? Do I even have enough cap room there? Should I franchise tag my good TE< even though I'll be forced to pay him a lot more than I otherwise would have to do? Whcih is better for my coach, playcalling or injury avoidance? Should I build a new stadium or just re-finance my current one? If I decide to leave town for a better city, where should I target? A team in my division just offered me a really good trade, should I take it, even though I'll likely strengthen a fellow divison rival with it? How high can I increase my ticket prices before people stop coming to my games?
As you can see, there are a ton of questions, mechanics, skillsets, finances, and more to balance. That's the good of the game!
But, the games UI isn't going to win any awards. The graphics sometimes look like they are a few years out of date. So frankly, I'd rate it a 10/10 for gameplay, but a 6/10 for presentation.
It's worth it. And more.
Игры похожие на Front Office Football Seven
Дополнительная информация
| Разработчик | Solecismic Software |
| Платформы | Windows |
| Ограничение возраста | Нет |
| Дата релиза | 15.01.2025 |
| Отзывы пользователей | 79% положительных (121) |