While our love for the Fantasy Premier League (FPL) game is unshakable, there’s nothing wrong in throwing an admiring glance the way of attractive distraction now and again. There are other Fantasy fish in the sea and if you’ve been scanning these pages over the past couple of weeks you would have caught us gallivanting with FPL alternatives.
The Daily Telegraph want you to pay for it, the folks at Sky are even offering to pay you; so do the freebie rag merchants from the Metro have the stuff to turn our heads? We took their game for small talk and coffee to find out…
First and foremost, let’s get the money issue out of the way. Surprisingly the free paper you find on the floor of your bus and scattered around the tube have managed to bundle up a reasonable sum of cash to offer their most successful managers. The manager at the pinnacle will gather up a cool £15,000 while ten “bite-size” portions of £1,000 will be handed out to the manager of the month. That’s certainly a decent opening gambit.
Here at the Scout we dipped our toes in the world of Metro Fantasy Football over the summer this year by partaking in their World Cup action. Whether it be by skill or the grace of god I even managed to come out top in our very own Scout League and just shy of the grand prize. I for one then, was pleased to see the majority of the scoring system follow over into the 2010/11 Premier League season game. It’s this system that’s at the heart of this game’s appeal, helping it to offer us something different.
The points on offer may look needlessly super-sized (25 points for a goal for example) but the scoring system does fit together nicely to create a different, and enjoyable Fantasy experience. Not only do the regulation goals, assists and clean sheets earn your player the rewards – every action on the pitch is chronicled using OPTA live statistics; subsequently points are handed out for all manner of player actions. In fact, the live scoring is perhaps one of the true highlights of the Metro game – it’s incredibly slick and provides up to the minute information on just how well a team, and its players, are performing.
Every block, tackle, clearance and interception will immediately tally 2 extra points onto your players scores. This game offers defensive midfielders some much-needed Fantasy love then. As demonstrated during the World Cup, Xabi Alonso was the 7th highest scoring midfielder in the game without a single goal or assist to his name. Some may find that jarring, but the points thrown his way were rewards for performances that were under-appreciated in other Fantasy games. Alonso did wonders for my World Cup squad; maybe the likes of Mascherano, Essien and Dikacgoi will follow suit and prove to be Fantasy gold here.
The offensive half of the pitch is not neglected either, attacking players are also offered some new methods of gathering points. Every shot on target your players will add 5 more points to their fantasy haul, and earn 1 more point for every successful pass they make in the final third. It all adds up to rewarding a player’s contribution to match as a whole, and is revelatory success. Remember how good little Leo Messi was in the World Cup? He played his heart out but couldn’t buy himself a goal. In the Metro however, he could rack up the Fantasy points for his domination of the game; the Ballon D’or winner was the 7th most fruitful striker in the World Cup game. Again, just rewards for his performances.
The rest of the game bears many similarities to our well-practiced Fantasy Premier League learnings, so there will be some instant familiarity. Despite the more complex scoring system, the Metro game proves easy to grasp – even for Fantasy newbies. Managers are handed 1 free transfer a gameweek and can make as many more that they want to for a forfeit of 25 points, pretty comparable to that of FPL. Unlike the World Cup game when managers could change their line-up and rotate their squad of 15 before each game, we follow more regular trends in the Premier League effort. A starting XI needs to be selected and transfers made before noon on a Saturday, a deadline to remember after the regular 11:30 FPL deadline.
In an attempt to draw in the social Fantasy Managers and mini-league organisers, the Metro continue to offer opportunities to those who want to back their fantasy abilities with friends and strangers alike by providing wagering tools. Once more, for a 10% administrative fee, the Metro will allow you to set up a mini-league with an entrance fee ranging from £2 to £50 where the winner takes all – all the fussy financial work is handled by the game. A lovely touch.
Similarly you can set up a tournament for anything ranging from 10 to 50 people, with varying entrance fees, that will last either 4 gameweeks or the remainder of the season. Rather than winner takes all here, the tournaments will dish out rewards proportionally to the managers in top 10% of the competition. Again, a well-thought out addition.
It’s not all plus points. The game offers far too much leniency when it comes to selecting your squads. It’s really not that difficult to select a strong XI, on paper at least, with 4 players to a team allowed and a budget that appears to be inflated a little more than necessary. It’s something I’m willing to forgive though; because I really learned to enjoy the scoring system over the World Cup (did I mention I was pretty successful? I don’t think I have…), and with all the man hours we dedicate to FPL week in, week out, it could perhaps even become a blessing in disguise knowing that balancing the books won’t take hours of forethought.
The two key proponents of our first glances at the team sheets also reward us with a wry smile – both Martin Olsson and Gareth Bale have remained defenders here. They will duly deliver a substantial 40 points for every goal they score, as well as any clean sheet points that come in their direction. Undoubtedly there are further under-priced and out of position gems to be found once you put the player list under a thorough examination. Again, an experienced Fantasy Manager will have no issues piecing together a squad that looks strong on paper.
As with the two previous Fantasy game reviews we’ve provided a poll in the middle column to gauge your interest in the Metro game. False bravado aside, for me this is very much going to be my second game this season but we’ve yet to commit to a second Fantasy effort here on the site so we’d certainly be interested in your views.