Well the demo has now been out for a few days and i've had time off from looking after my son (thanks to my lovely wife) and have had a good play of the FM2010 demo and thought I would write a small article on what I thought from the features i'd seen so far and in general.

First things first, I have to say although yes I know its just a demo and its quick start leagues with a fairly small amount of data but jesus how quick was it to load a new game! My computer is quick, its new and fast as hell but the older version of FM were not as quick as I would have liked but they seem to have made an improvement here, im guessing it is their tweaks. I dream of the day I can run all leagues in full detail and it be fast, yeah I know that simply wont happen but you know its a small step in the right direction at least!

At the start I was simply having to get used to the new layout, but even then I was instantly impressed with it. SIgames must have put in a lot of work in getting this design sorted because it does hit the right notes. Only a few weeks before the release of the first info on FM2010 I was talking about how I would love the old layout to return, you know the one pre cm4. They have hit the right notes on this though and I do like it a lot and im sure it will be tweaked and improved further for the next release.

So what else caught my eye within the first 10 or so minutes of playing, I would say it was staff advice, this has been improved, again huge improvement in fact. I do believe this gets a bit repetitive later on with the advice you get before matches but hell its all good. For stats junkies like me this is heaven! I do like this , I would like it to be improved but I think for a new feature it does add a lot to the game, well played Sigame and whoever added that in.

Next up is the game engine. I read initial reactions to this on the forums when the demo was out for a few hours and people were saying its an improvement. I found this years to not be that smooth but it certainly is an improvement. Its quicker, it has new features the only one mentioning though is touchline shouts, these are cool. If you read my last article I did say that this feature was a long time coming and it was as good as I expected. I may have imagined it but when I was losing and told my team to press up more they seemed to listen! This feature plays a major role in the game when it comes to major games, possibly cup finals where you're urges to shout at the screen can be played out in the game. Top job.

Thats all for now but ill continue to play and be writing more soon, maybe it won't be so positive but so far im impressed.