Front Office Football Seven News Post

Front Office Football Seven Review (PC)

01:16 PM - January 3, 2014 by RaychelSnr

For all the hype Madden and the NFL gets each year, it's surprising that there are very few pro football text sims available. Even those available don’t get much press.

I’m not sure why, either. Football is as ingrained in statistics as baseball, and there are multiple quality baseball text sims produced each year. American football is more popular here in the states than football (soccer), yet there are at least two annual soccer sims that regularly get top billing on Steam.

However, for whatever reason, finding a football text sim is difficult. Perhaps the most “mainstream” was the NFL Head Coach series, produced for consoles by EA. But there’s been another option quietly gaining a following among football fans for over a decade: Front Office Football. The seventh iteration of of FOF was just released by the small company Solecismic Software; will Front Office Football 7 fill the pro football text sim niche?

Read More - Front Office Football Seven Review (PC)

Game: Front Office Football SevenReader Score: 8/10 - Vote Now
Platform: PCVotes for game: 1 - View All

Member Comments

# 1 NaturalSelected @ 01/03/14 01:38 PM

Correction: relatively "steep" under learning curve.

# 2 soonermagic88 @ 01/03/14 01:41 PM

This looks fun. Are there any College Football text based sims out there?

# 3 RumbleCard @ 01/03/14 01:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by soonermagic88


	This looks fun. Are there any College Football text based sims out there?

It looks like the same company offers one. "The College Years".

I've never heard of this but I'm probably going to try it out. Looks great.

# 4 Kuroth @ 01/03/14 02:06 PM

Like your review.. Have you done any other reviews? I just picked up 4th Street Football and surprised there is not any Info on this site about it.. I am going to play it for a while and then maybe try and write a review about it here.. So far I am really liking it BUT I am only trying out the Coaching part of the game(Play calling) Have not even looked at the Drafting and team running(GM) yet..

# 5 daddytorgo @ 01/03/14 04:02 PM

Couple things Caley:

-I don't speak for the developer, but just as a member of the community at Front Office Football Central (the unofficial message board of the game). Want to make that clear.
-Very active community at http://operationsports.com/fofc . Welcoming to newcomers.
-One man studio is indeed correct. Has always been.
-The developer listened to community feedback regarding the graphics and is currently running a contest for user-submitted entries to replace some of them to improve the UI.
-Graphics mods (including logos, etc.) are typically done by the community (or have been in the past), and should be out shortly if they're not already (I don't know if they are to be honest).

# 6 form_an_opinion @ 01/03/14 05:17 PM

I have played this game since the beginning back in 98 or so.. I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that this is the best football sim out there. If you want to be a GM or coach and play a franchise to the end of time, you can. There is no built in end to the game, you can play til the year 3000 and beyond if you want to. The developer is also working on improving the graphical look of the game some, not a major overhauls, but better looking elements as far as background and calendar screens, etc.

Not only that, but the single player experience and multi player experience are both top of the line. Single player is a challenge now, which it struggled with in past versions. The AI is impressive, to say the least. Computer controlled teams will operate very much like they should, down to game planning to feature their most talented players. If you're someone like me who likes to manage and coach/watch my team play, this game blows any football sim from any time in history out of the water. It's not even a contest.

# 7 ajra21 @ 01/03/14 05:22 PM

anyway of playing this on a mac?

# 8 Popa721 @ 01/03/14 09:50 PM

The best way to play this on a mac is to buy a windows PC and tape an apple on it.

# 9 daddytorgo @ 01/03/14 10:52 PM

People play it on a mac using Parallels or one of those other emulator type programs pretty easily. I'm not a Mac guy, but I gather it works. You might want to check the forums at http://operationsports.com/fofc for more details to make sure you pick the emulator that works most seamlessly with it though.

# 10 lynkraid @ 01/03/14 11:21 PM

I have some questions to any who have played this. Can you sim a full season and how long does that take? And how well does the computer take care of your team during the simmed season? Another question, how well does progression and regression along with retirement work, is it pretty well realistic to nfl/madden?

# 11 tarek @ 01/04/14 03:59 AM

Has anybody tried running this or other similar text sims (like the wolverine or grey dog or OOTP) via a Microsoft surface pro?

I'm in the market for a tablet and if I can run sports text sims and some older games via a surface pro then I'll be purchasing it. If not, I'll be looking at a non-mac laptop to handle this and some other specific needs and stick with an iPad.

# 12 drewst18 @ 01/04/14 02:43 PM

I think Bowl Bound College Football is a much better Football sim than TCY

# 13 goroyals @ 01/05/14 10:57 AM

Does this edition feature any sort of league customization akin to OOTP? Basically, could I start with a 12 team league and expand it over the years?

# 14 Ben E Lou @ 01/05/14 12:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lynkraid


	I have some questions to any who have played this. Can you sim a full season and how long does that take? And how well does the computer take care of your team during the simmed season? Another question, how well does progression and regression along with retirement work, is it pretty well realistic to nfl/madden?

1. Yes, you can sim a full season. Simming straight through the Preseason, Regular Season, and Postseason games without stopping to look at any box scores/stats/etc. takes roughly 45 seconds on my machine (quad-core, 8GB RAM.)

2. The computer does a very solid job of handling your team in the simmed season. It may make some decisions that you wouldn't make, but they all seem to have a logical base.

3. Career arcs are very, very good. The developer adjusts those with every release (and sometimes even with free yearly roster updates when there's not a new release in a given fall) to match current NFL trends.

# 15 chzblck @ 01/05/14 06:35 PM

Upset their demo did not work for me.

# 16 conception @ 01/06/14 02:31 AM

A player of several years here, I will likely buy the new version when the new graphical interface is added in. I would have bought it already, but I just got NCAA 14 to toy around with and I've re-discovered NFL Head Coach, so finding time for both is a real challenge as it is.

# 17 bblack1207 @ 01/12/14 04:31 PM

Have Been Playing This Game For Years Now And Have Found It To Be Absolutely The Best. Have Also Bought Strat-o-matic Pro Football To Compare. Front Office Is Much Better, Strategically Dominant And Keeps You Interested.

# 18 Ueauvan @ 01/27/14 08:51 AM

i love this iteration of the game. an updated 7.0a was released which fixed a couple of things and added some graphics. the user community produce graphics options and other helpful tools for players to download. i prefer that this was designed for 95 rather than 8.1.

it does what it says on the tin unlike Madden

# 19 Crawdad7000 @ 01/31/14 01:06 AM

great game. I had the original 1998 version and then 2004. Loved how you could replay the history of the NFL from 1960/1961 with real names on all the players. But now I own a MAC and FOF doesn't support anything but Windows. Too bad. The college game is pretty good as well.

# 20 longranger @ 02/06/14 12:40 AM

Any for Mac users

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