Football Manager Handheld 2009

When football management games first came out in the early 80s it used to be a ridiculous notion that you could take a lowly conference side up to the top of the (then) First Division and win European trophies. Okay, Wimbledon FC bucked that trend to some extent but you know what I mean. Nowadays though, money has changed the game beyond recognition and it only takes a Sheikh or Russian oligarch to get on the board for miraculous things to happen.

But what's refreshing about the Football Manager Handheld series is that you're only going to reach the top through hard graft, not an injection of cash. Though financial wheeling and dealing clearly plays a role in the latest offering from Sports Interactive (now the fourth iteration on PSP) you only get as much as the board think you deserve. Indeed, you even have to go cap in hand to your directors to get higher salaries and transfer fees for your players.

The upshot of this is that you get a tremendous sense of satisfaction from small victories. It might be reaching the Third Division playoffs at the end of the season; it might be getting to the final of the Paint Cup; or it might even be avoiding relegation in a very competitive Championship division. Everything in FMH 2009 is earned through perspicacious decision-making and astute tactical changes.

We point this out because there are a few rival football management games out there that are on the easy side. As long as you establish a boring 4-4-2 formation and constantly upgrade your squad with better players as the cash rolls in you can take any tin-pot club to the top of the Premiership with little effort. Not so here.

Sports Interactive's games have always been developed for the football cognoscenti. The kind of audience that knows the difference between wingbacks and sweepers (and this game lets you assign such roles). Sitting on your laurels and letting your assistant pick your squad - though this is not a bad option early on - will win you nothing.

But if there's one criticism about FMH 2009, it's that it can be incredibly overwhelming at first. There are so many tactical options to choose from, management decisions to make, menus to navigate and players to pick that newbies can feel initially intimidated. The good news is that what starts out as a flaw soon turns into a benefit once you overcome the icy cold chill of plunging into this deep management sim.

Choosing the best squad from the players on your books should be your first goal. But what makes this initially daunting is that each player has 20 basic stats, and as there's no direct player comparison tool it means painstakingly going through each profile, writing them all down and comparing them on paper (at least if you want to be nerdy about it).

When you add to this the copious training options, maintaining the morale of your players and selecting the best formation and strategy for your next opposition, finding the correct balance for your squad can take a whole season. But that's just how it should be.

To give you a further sense of the game's depth I should point out that along with assigning penalty takers, free kick experts and corner takers from each side of the pitch you can even micromanage the defensive mentality and passing range of each individual player on your squad. And if you feel the standard formations in the game are not working for your team then you can assign movement patterns of your own while games are in progress.

And come match day things are more exciting in FMH 2009. A new 2D match display has been implemented that shows you top-down highlights of the game alongside the commentary. In truth, this doesn't help much in terms of tactical information but it does add an extra frisson of tension to the games.

During matches several screens can be highlighted to give you additional feedback on how your team is coping with the opposition. Match stats, including possession and shots on goal, are now standard but you can also call up your player ratings so anyone not pulling his weight can be instantly substituted.

Once you've established your best squad you'll then need to plug areas of weakness. It's here where the transfer market comes into play. Along with sending scouts off to Africa, Europe and the UK to do the leg work for you, you can go hands-on to see who's available from the world's top leagues, including France, Italy and Spain. The player database is immense, so vast that you will spend a sizeable amount of the game trying to prise players from other clubs.

FMH 2009 is the most sophisticated handheld football management sim currently on the market. One could criticise it for not evolving very far from the last iteration but this would be picking nits from a series that keeps getting better every year, if only marginally.

FMH 2009 may be stat heavy and require a lot of mental concentration but if you like your football and have ever wanted to take Burton Albion from the Blue Square Conference to the Premier League (without pots of cash) then this is the perfect place to do it.