FIFA 11 Demo Impressions XBOX360/PS3

My impressions:

I'll say initially that I am coming from WC, which may change my judgments compared to people who are coming from Fifa 10. For people coming from 10, this will be a very big improvement. Those coming from WC, I don't think it will be as much. As I said when I did my PES demo impressions, I was a PES man until FIFA 08, and I've been all FIFA since then.

My impressions are after about 7 games on Legendary:

Pro passing doesn't have enough of an effect. It does have some. I actually will echo something that Romagnnoli said a few weeks ago that passing is actually too slow (keep in mind I like the slower GAMEspeed). When I get the weight of a pass right with Xavi, the pass still feels very sluggish, which just shouldn't be. Correspondingly, I just don't feel individuality in passing yet, we'll see as I play more.

Dribbling - The same really, except holding players off is MUCH better, which is a good improvement. The problem is you still don't feel enough of a difference when dribbling with a less skilled player. The difference is there, mind you, but not as pronounced as it should be in my opinion, especially after playing the PES demo. In that game, you really feel like you want to get the ball to the correct players' feet and if you don't, you play differently (ie with Busquets). In Fifa, I don't really feel like I hve to play too differently with each player, and this takes away from individuality. Angled turning, as we saw in the videos, is way too fast with no foot planting. I could deal with this I guess if it were only good players that saw this effect but bad dribblers do this too.

AI tricks - at first I say to myself hurrah! AI is doing tricks! But then I start seeing them again, and again, and.... are they doing them too often? I'd say yes. They constantly do that 'right stick up-->right stick right' move for one. It would be a shame if this weren't balanced correctly.

Heading - pretty much exactly like WC, which is a good thing. Scored a great header with Amauri.

Haven't tested weak foot accuracy- but put in a perfect cross with Messi's right, the only cross I did with his right...

Shooting- need some more time to get off proper long shots

Free kicks- haven't gotten any close enough to goal yet.

First touch - You'll see some variance on high balls, but on balls direct the player, almost non existent, esp when compared to PES.

Long passing felt pretty good - I need to remember to try the new low high pass!

Defensive lines are definitely improved, time will tell if it's enough.

360 jostling is excellent, and adds to gameplay.

Work rates... well, they work. I had Pedro who is High attack and Defense, and he would roar back to defend and take ball off people. Good to see.

Defending - Same as WC, though you will see more fouls from attackers which is good to see, when they go in for challenges. Pressure is toned down, but I hardly use it so need to see how it's used online, but I think it will be much better. Defending definitely takes more skill in PES however, as you have to time your x presses as they almost directly correspond with going in for a challenge. In Fifa it's pretty much automatic.

Individuality/Personality +: I would take out the +. There's definitely more personality, but nowhere near to PES in my eyes. From passing, to movement with the ball, first touch, it's not there as it should be. While playing PES I REALLY felt, with Xavi, I could achieve things that I just couldn't with others. Xavi in Fifa? Yea, he's good. But do I really feel empowered? I say not really, compared to any other good midfielder. Especially in the passing, u just can't get the whip on the passes that you want to, which would be fine if it were based on stats, but not when you're Xavi and the passes are rolling too slowly. As for Traits, it seems to me they are either what governs what computer players will do when controlling the player, or are just an amalgam of stats - ie if you have good jumping and heading, you'll get the header skill trait.

It's a strange thing to say, but initially now I feel like the freedom of movement can almost be a negative - only in terms of how free you feel with each player. You feel almost too free with most players as compared to PES, where in PES with the right players you feel free, but when the ball is with the wrong player, you know it. So it's almost as if what could be a negative for PES for me is at the moment, a positive.

It absolutely sucks that they only give us 3 mins to play and I will never understand why (do they really think giving us 6 mins will stop us from buying the game???) and it does take away from the demo, and could skew the rating of the demo vs. PES in which you're allowed to play a full game. But my initial impression is I'm enjoying PES more. It's done enough freedom wise to get me back into it, and the fundamentals and individuality are really making the difference for me at the moment. It remains to be seen whether this will last as I get to play the full game, but given where the games were last year I can't believe PES has gotten to this point. I think it'll be a tough competition and for many it will just come down to small personal preference rather than having to sacrifice a lot of what you like to play one game or the other.
 
I said to Klash via PSN that the top passing speed is far too slow. The bottom end of the power bar is very forgiving but the top end doesn't get your passes hard enough to cover the width of the pitch. All of the pro passing error is in bounciness and slight speed decreases, but the ball still goes in the exact right direction, and players cannot struggle to control an overhit pass if the ball cannot be hit powerfully (not that they seem to struggle with long balls out of the sky anyway!). So whether you min or max the power bar you control the ball equally well, and the ball never seems to be misdirected, only misweighted. The end result for me is that passing feels fairly...safe. The passing speed in particular is back to what it was in Canada when I told Gary P it was too slow and directionally accurate. The fact that it is so slow also means that even if there is directional inaccuracy the ball doesn't really have a chance to slip away from you as a result.

Further to this, the players on the pitch can change direction too quickly and are not much slower than the ball. Because of this and the fact you can't ping it into a player in space with any power, you can't really pull teams apart and make use of that space. The end result is that the game is forced by design to be a pressure fest.

You have the driven lob but you shouldn't have to use that as often as you'd need to for something as intuitive as passing 30 yards.
 
I said to Klash via PSN that the top passing speed is far too slow. The bottom end of the power bar is very forgiving but the top end doesn't get your passes hard enough to cover the width of the pitch.

This is frustrating me a lot, I completely fill the power gauge with Xabi Alonso, Marchisio etc yet their passes struggle to reach the other side. It's as if the game is intentionally holding it back.

Was it like this for everyone when they play tested the game?
 
This is frustrating me a lot, I completely fill the power gauge with Xabi Alonso, Marchisio etc yet their passes struggle to reach the other side. It's as if the game is intentionally holding it back.

Was it like this for everyone when they play tested the game?

Using manual through balls is ironically the easiest method to play the game!

it's the less most affected button in terms of the slowed passing!
 
Is it me, or the full manual controls are easier than theyve been in FIFA 10? Im not saying its bad or good, but I have the feeling thats there is a certain margin of error in manual passes which is corrected by AI. In other words - you dont have to aim EXACTLY like you had to in FIFA 10 and the pass will still hit the target. Maybe its the way PP and P+ work, high atributes of Real Madrid, Chelsea, Barca players correct the not 100% directed passes and with worse plyers it will be harder.
 
Nah, you misplace plenty of passes. Or at least I do.

You cannot "ping-pong" pass anymore anyway. Which is pretty much all to do with underhitting the pass anyway, as you can't get the power anymore to do it 180 degrees. Unless you don't know what ping pong passing is.

Yep I do, and hate 'em. They shouldn't be easy to pull. You say I can't ping-pong passes anymore but I did. I can't for the life of me understand this over hitting/under hitting thing with no error if we can use manual anyway?
 
I've now put in a few good hours with the FIFA demo and also played a couple matches of pes. First off, FIFA 11 is a definite improvement over the wc game and 10, no doubts about that, and the more I've played, the more little improvements I've noticed and enjoyed. But that's just the problem: it's all little improvements whereas some more major changes would've been nice. Defending, again, is way too simple and easy - on legendary the CPU can barely get a shot off before I'm able to barge them off the ball.

After playing pes it becomes really apparent how poor and inaccurate dribbling in fifa is - it doesn't feel like dribbling but more like pushing the ball, or dare I say, ice hockey. Smaller skilled players are better than previously but still nowhere good enough. Meanwhile the AI is straight-up retarded - it's great that the CPU is finally doing tricks but it doesn't take long to realize they still suck at putting together quality attacking movements while my dumb ass teammates love to stand still with their hand down their shorts instead of going after a beautiful pass I made into space.

Pro Passing definitely makes a difference, but again only a very minor one. The user element certainly makes it slightly more challenging but maybe since I typically play all manual I just acclimate to the change quicker.

Personality+ is also easy to notice but the level of individuality is still unimpressive when compared to pes.

Like I said, many of the new additions I really like, such as the variety in refs and the new lob pass. I know this may sound a bit silly but player boots are much improved - in the past I had a huge gripe with red boots and I went so far as to edit player boots in the wc game to make sure none of my players had red boots! They just were this obnoxious unrealistic bright red. Anyways, I can gladly confirm this is no longer an issue! On a more serious note, graphics in general are improved and the player faces done with the new tech are simply phenomenal.

After playing a couple games of the pes demo I can understand where some of the more negative reactions are coming from - FIFA is simply far superior on a superficial level and leaves a much better first impression. For starters it's simply more accessible than pes though that's nothing new. FIFA is also more fluid, the animations are less clunky overall, and the controls are more intuitive. Defending is much easier too, and while I like pes's more realistic player models, there's no contest over who's got the better graphics up close, especially when considering FIFA's new face tech.

That being said, I suggest neither trusting anyone's impressions of pes if they haven't played at least 10, maybe even 20, matches with the pes demo, nor writing-off pes before playing that many games yourself. After playing only FIFA since 08 I'm struggling mightily with the pes controls and i'm still trying to play Pes like pes and not like FIFA. The thing with pes though is that while it is not nearly as polished as FIFA and probably is not close to being as good a video game overall, it is so much more accurate in it's portrayal of football than FIFA. I have little doubt of that after only a limited time with pes, even before I learn all the ins and outs and become competent again with its controls.

So my conclusion, which may as yet prove premature, is that while FIFA is the better video game, PES is back to being the better football game. As long as you can look beyond some poorly executed fundamentals of football, FIFA is a great game; meanwhile if you can look beyond some poor next gen tech, PES is also a quality game.

Honestly, at the moment, I have no clue which game will suck away more of my time this year but I can promise you I'll be buying both PES and FIFA - and that's a first going back to the 08 games.

Well explain to me what difference does it make? After a few games you get completely used to it and you can ping pong all you want. It adds no error. It's only there for over and under hitting passes, which aren't really accurate at all, as seen in Rodelero's video.

It certainly does add error though I admit its learning curve is tiny as hell. But I have noticed quite a few times I was unsuccessful making certain physics-defying passes that were previously possible. Rod's vid proves that these passes sometimes work out when, imo, they shouldn't, but PP is def making a difference.

Again, whether the difference is enough is debatable, especially since some people are having difficulties with it. Maybe the differences in opinion are due to whether you've played manual constrols?

I said to Klash via PSN that the top passing speed is far too slow. The bottom end of the power bar is very forgiving but the top end doesn't get your passes hard enough to cover the width of the pitch. All of the pro passing error is in bounciness and slight speed decreases, but the ball still goes in the exact right direction, and players cannot struggle to control an overhit pass if the ball cannot be hit powerfully (not that they seem to struggle with long balls out of the sky anyway!). So whether you min or max the power bar you control the ball equally well, and the ball never seems to be misdirected, only misweighted. The end result for me is that passing feels fairly...safe. The passing speed in particular is back to what it was in Canada when I told Gary P it was too slow and directionally accurate. The fact that it is so slow also means that even if there is directional inaccuracy the ball doesn't really have a chance to slip away from you as a result.

Further to this, the players on the pitch can change direction too quickly and are not much slower than the ball. Because of this and the fact you can't ping it into a player in space with any power, you can't really pull teams apart and make use of that space. The end result is that the game is forced by design to be a pressure fest.

You have the driven lob but you shouldn't have to use that as often as you'd need to for something as intuitive as passing 30 yards.

This is a HUGE problem - I'm having to rely on the driven lob pass far too often, IMO.

With manual passing it's even worse!
 
Does anyone notice analog sprint or a difference in stamina?

Haven't seen a difference myself.

Also, what happened to the new camera view we saw in the GC vids?
 
Playing a game with assisted right now I cannot believe that Pro Passing does nothing. Actually I can because that's what all those videos from Germany were on. It's like EA forgot why people wanted pro passing. We wanted it to stop the assisted pricks from Ping Ponging. Pro Passing is nonexistent on assisted. On Semi and Manual you feel it but on Assisted you don't.
 
It's an improvement over 10, as expected the animations are superb and the lighting is much better.
However, it still plays NOTHING like football, even on manual, and on assisted it's an absolute joke as Pro Passing does fuck all so ping-pong passing is still easy, every player can finish one-on-ones with ease, first touches are 100% perfect... Same problems as 10 basically.

Pretty much sums it up. A buddy of mine was making every pass he tried even when I was watching the passing lanes and trying to stay in front of the guys he could potentially pass to.

I said to Klash via PSN that the top passing speed is far too slow. The bottom end of the power bar is very forgiving but the top end doesn't get your passes hard enough to cover the width of the pitch.

Noticed this as well. Whether it be Fabregas or Alex, holding the pass button down as hard as I can (on manual) still results in a very slow pass across the pitch. It really felt like it was only when trying to pass across the field though. Trying a long, hard pass up the field to a striker moved like a rocket.

Does anyone notice analog sprint or a difference in stamina?

Haven't seen a difference myself.

Not much of a difference spotted. Overall I think acceleration for EVERYONE has been put way too low across the board.

But can ANYONE tell me why this 360 jostling was getting so much press? IT. IS. TERRIBLE.

I have Ronaldo on the sideline, I'm not trying to abuse sprinting as it can't be done anymore, but he simply will not try to run as fast as he can. Everyone catches to him and every other fast player on my team with ease and it's really getting annoying. I'll blow by a LB with Ronnie but he'll end up catching up to me just before I'm about to take a shot but the most annoying thing by far is the fact that I simply can't get players to run as fast as they should be able to in the open field.

Tackling battles are silly as well. So many times it'll look like I have the ball and then my guy will either stop, or the opposition player will run through me, or we'll be sliding around while being latched to one another. It just looks weird and not even slightly realistic.

Lastly, I like that they call more fouls for pressure-induced tackles, but they call far too many on you, and not enough on the CPU.
 
Ok played a bit more, still impressed however some teams like Madrid try to walk the ball in which is annoying.

Shooting seems an issue for the CPU teams - either they don't shoot when they should (usually they opt instead for spin move!) or they can't aim for a damn (and I'm talkin world class and legendary difficulties).

In general I'm seeing way too many skill moves for 3 min halves, which has me worried. Sometimes they do them at the most inappropriate and random times!

While I'm loving the overall gameplay pace I can't help but feel like something is off, like the slower pace has come at the expense of something. Player movement seems a little too sluggish for me and the sprint button has been nerfed to the point of being completely irrelevant. The result, I feel, is that defenders have a massive advantage because the teammate press button and tackling animations are so effective. The physical side of the game is much improved between offense and defense since the WC game, but physical play still dominates skillful play.

Also, skilled dribbling when it was first introduced was actually an effective way to get by/through defenders, but is it me or is it now mostly useless. For me the game is now pass-shield-pass-shield-pass-shield-pass-shoot!

I'm loving (and kinda hating!) how defenders try to intercept my keeper's goalkicks to fullbacks.
 
I'm not feeling the demo to be honest. Sure it's an improvement on Fifa10 an WC2010 but, as others have said, this feels more like Fifa10.5.

Personality + and Pro Passing are just marketing gimmicks. They have only a very subtle influence on the gameplay, but not nearly enough. The same goes for all the other 'improvements'. They exist, but I'm still left with a 'same old same old' feeling after playing this demo.

Fans of the franchise will love Fifa11 but I don't feel that it offers enough to win over the likes of me - the people that have not been enamoured with the series. The playing experience is just too joyless. It's the vanilla football game compared to the rival.
 
Pretty much sums it up. A buddy of mine was making every pass he tried even when I was watching the passing lanes and trying to stay in front of the guys he could potentially pass to.



Noticed this as well. Whether it be Fabregas or Alex, holding the pass button down as hard as I can (on manual) still results in a very slow pass across the pitch. It really felt like it was only when trying to pass across the field though. Trying a long, hard pass up the field to a striker moved like a rocket.



Not much of a difference spotted. Overall I think acceleration for EVERYONE has been put way too low across the board.

But can ANYONE tell me why this 360 jostling was getting so much press? IT. IS. TERRIBLE.

I have Ronaldo on the sideline, I'm not trying to abuse sprinting as it can't be done anymore, but he simply will not try to run as fast as he can. Everyone catches to him and every other fast player on my team with ease and it's really getting annoying. I'll blow by a LB with Ronnie but he'll end up catching up to me just before I'm about to take a shot but the most annoying thing by far is the fact that I simply can't get players to run as fast as they should be able to in the open field.

Tackling battles are silly as well. So many times it'll look like I have the ball and then my guy will either stop, or the opposition player will run through me, or we'll be sliding around while being latched to one another. It just looks weird and not even slightly realistic.

Lastly, I like that they call more fouls for pressure-induced tackles, but they call far too many on you, and not enough on the CPU.

Wow, couldn't have said it any better - you read my friggin mind
 
Played another half a dozen matches, still liking it a lot.

One negative is that I don't like the normal lob pass. It's still far too scripted, it needs to feel free and self-weighted like the PES lob pass. It's difficult to float one over the head of the fullback into the space behind, because it tends to get sucked toward said fullback instead.

Scored a delightful goal with Messi, cutting inside the fullback and curling a sidefoot shot into the far corner:

YouTube - FIFA 11 Demo - Messi goal

I like the new selection options. At the moment I have 'aerial ball' (or whatever it is called) on, and it helps to solve an annoyance I had in FIFA10 about not being able to switch player and challenge for headers quick enough. In general it feels like a lot of the things that irritated me about FIFA10 (and they were many and frequent) have been addressed. So far, anyway.

@mfmaxpower: I didn't enjoy the static, clunky PES demo, and didn't feel while playing that it replicates football noticeably better than FIFA, but then I am one of those people you shouldn't trust with less than 10 PES matches under my belt. If I play another few matches will my teammates actually start to move and use the whole pitch?

After playing pes it becomes really apparent how poor and inaccurate dribbling in fifa is - it doesn't feel like dribbling but more like pushing the ball, or dare I say, ice hockey. Smaller skilled players are better than previously but still nowhere good enough.
I don't really understand this. I feel so much more under control when dribbling in FIFA. I can use LB to stop, I can use L2 to do dragbacks and turns, and I can shield the ball pretty well now. And that's without even mentioning the impressive trick-stick possibilities. I have tools with which to manipulate the ball. It feels much more fluid and seductive than dribbling in PES, to me.
 
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Loving it!

Decided tonight I would give them both a try. Few games of fifa first, all manual. CPU skinned me several times with a skill move. Nice to see.

Stuck pes on... 2 games later back to fifa for the night. I was hoping to buy both games, but its going to be fifa. Just hope they have fixed the clubs issues.
 
Re: Re: FIFA 11 Demo Impressions XBOX360/PS3

Yep I do, and hate 'em. They shouldn't be easy to pull. You say I can't ping-pong passes anymore but I did. I can't for the life of me understand this over hitting/under hitting thing with no error if we can use manual anyway?

You were able to ping pong your way up the field? Cause 1-2s will happen but u can't just ping pong from the defense to the goal.
 
In my firt 15 secounds of gameplay at this morning (I got to go work)I scored a goal so easily in world clas (experienced player) with the assisted controllers on and power bar assistance off. Then my first impressions in these few secounds were really bad.

I've just got back to work and I kept playing on the default settings for more 10mins. I could see that the ridiculous -and most of them- brainless fast passes forwards with those terrible one-twos were still too easy to performe.Nothing like football. Then I uploaded some videos to show them because I really got upset about how ridiculous and arcade the game can be played if you want.

But now I got rid of the assistances and returned to the old settings I usually play: all manual with slow speed, and then i change the dificult to legendary.

I didn't play more than 2 minutes with those settings, but now my impressions were a lot more optimistic about the game. I'm very satisfied about what they have done with manual. It's simply more balanced than ever before. I'm not sure how is the impact of the atributes, but manual feels very good and it's dificulty has been toned down on a proper way. Actually, imo manual feels like what the semi-auto settings should have been all these years, and then it would have been by far the most balanced passing settings in Fifa as manual is now, definetly.

I'm pretty sure manual will really take two or three games to get used to, there's no longer excuses for not trying it (except if you really enjoy a very childish game).I can feel some assistance that has been added to manual on a proper way, and this surely is being based on atributes, wich is nice. BUT I need to play more to notice better evidences of passing atribute's effects on manual (I want to see Ronaldinho and Xavi having an accurate and very beautiful passing compared to the other players) and also contextual error(this last one i'm not sure if it's there, because players still can turn very qickly before taking a first touch on the ball, wich is very sad)

About the movement of some players, I could feel that Iniesta, for example, can move differently from other players, and I've just performed a beautiful dribbling(without using advanced skills dribbling) that I could never done in Fifa 10.

Sorry for my english
 
Played another half a dozen matches, still liking it a lot.

One negative is that I don't like the normal lob pass. It's still far too scripted, it needs to feel free and self-weighted like the PES lob pass. It's difficult to float one over the head of the fullback into the space behind, because it tends to get sucked toward said fullback instead.

Scored a delightful goal with Messi, cutting inside the fullback and curling a sidefoot shot into the far corner.

I like the new selection options. At the moment I have 'aerial ball' (or whatever it is called) on, and it helps to solve an annoyance I had in FIFA10 about not being able to switch player and challenge for headers quick enough. In general it feels like a lot of the things that irritated me about FIFA10 (and they were many and frequent) have been addressed. So far, anyway.

@mfmaxpower: I didn't enjoy the static, clunky PES demo, and didn't feel while playing that it replicates football noticeably better than FIFA, but then I am one of those people you shouldn't trust with less than 10 PES matches under my belt. If I play another few matches will my teammates actually start to move and use the whole pitch?


I don't really understand this. I feel so much more under control when dribbling in FIFA. I can use LB to stop, I can use L2 to do dragbacks and turns, and I can shield the ball pretty well now. And that's without even mentioning the impressive trick-stick possibilities. I have tools with which to manipulate the ball. It feels much more fluid and seductive than dribbling in PES, to me.

To be fair you've not got nearly as much experience with recent PES's dribbling (AFAIK) so you don't know how to use it. It's exactly the same as when people complain that you can't beat your man in WC2010 but when I explain the concept of stopping and starting, or using the right stick to knock it into space, they say they had no idea you could do such things. PES's dribbling is wildly different to FIFAs so skills aren't really translatable from one title to the other - I'm much better than I was but still don't really get it after 3 weeks of playing 2011 in it's various guises.

Both titles will probably need much more playing time than has really been afforded them so far in all these impressions. We need to find out what the impressions are like come September 30th to get a better idea. If anything Konami could have done with releasing their demo to everyone on the 8th just so people would be more likely to stick with it than play 3, 5, 10 games and make a call.
 
Completely in line with your thinking here mfpower. While some people may find PES still too rigid, it has significantly bridged the gap, and for some (like me) the other fundamentals it does get right might win people over. I personally am of the opinion, as I said, that some of the 'rigidity' can actually can feel more realistic and lead to more individuality, while with Fifa control is way too free with average players on the ball, and even 'skatey' or 'floaty' at times. I've found that the more I've played PES, the better I've gotten at dribbling and close control, and have gotten really good and keeping the ball from the opposition. As you recommended, I think any person who used to be a PES fan should give it at least 20 games. As I said tho, the games are very close this year and will be more a matter of preference than a huge gap in technical proficiency. I'll definitely be getting both games though!
 
@mfmaxpower: I didn't enjoy the static, clunky PES demo, and didn't feel while playing that it replicates football noticeably better than FIFA, but then I am one of those people you shouldn't trust with less than 10 PES matches under my belt. If I play another few matches will my teammates actually start to move and use the whole pitch?


I don't really understand this. I feel so much more under control when dribbling in FIFA. I can use LB to stop, I can use L2 to do dragbacks and turns, and I can shield the ball pretty well now. And that's without even mentioning the impressive trick-stick possibilities. I have tools with which to manipulate the ball. It feels much more fluid and seductive than dribbling in PES, to me.

Well I have to say the more I play each game, the more I'm liking FIFA while I'm finding it hard to get into PES. But like Rom indicated (and taking my own advice!) I expect i'll enjoy pes the more comfortable I become with it after so many years away.

Still, I believe the pes 2011 website says "engineered for freedom" and yet it is just this that I'm having the hardest time getting into - maybe I've been spoiled by FIFA's manual but I'm getting frustrated with the feeling of massive assistance coming from the CPU, sometimes choosing the option I don't want. That's exactly why I switched to all manual in FIFA. There are so many fantastic pieces underneath the surface of pes but I'm really stumbling over feeling a major lack in freedom.

Regarding FIFA, my (early) impression is it's the best since 08 and maybe better than 08. However, there are a couple things REALLY pissing me off. One is the speed of passes on manual - they are too slow and I'm having to use the new lob pass too often. This really causes some pretty buildup to go wasted once I get into tight quarters and don't have the time to power-up the pass sufficiently. On a similar regard I'm not liking the power I'm getting with my shots. So, IMO, the velocity of both ground passing (on manual) and shooting needs to be increased.

Next comes the CPU attacking AI. Not only do they do far too many tricks - especially the spin moves - but they can't hit the goal if their lives depended on it. Just saw cr7 take a free kick and miss by at least 20yards!

Last, and maybe most important, is the physicality of the game needs to be toned down a tad - especially for the CPU, which is always barging through my players backs. The funny thing is that both games feel a bit clumsy although for different reasons. FIFA feels clumsy because of the overly physical nature - players are stumbling and falling all over the place! - plus reaction times seem a liitle sluggish; meanwhile, pes feels clumsy more because of technical reasons - it's just a bit clunky and the animations still aren't up to par with FIFA yet. I've been switching back in forth between the two demos quite a bit today and I can't help but feel like I'm playing a game from a couple years ago when playing pes.

@nerf: about dribbling, one of the great things traditionally about pes has been that only the joystick was needed for dribbling through tight spaces. Imagine the famous runs that messi will make- one fluid run, cutting and weaving with no fancy tricks, using both feet, inside and out. I know the tools FIFA gives us (granted I suck donkey balls at doing tricks) but dribbling with only the stick is not accurate enough, IMO. It may actually have less to do with a failure in dribbling controls and more to do with defending being too easy, though i think it's probably both.
 
Just had Walcott receive the ball in open space and while holding turbo to try and take off, he pretty much started walking until 2 defenders caught up to and barged him off of the ball.

I'm not even close to being a sprint whore, but I find it difficult to get away from anyone unless I'm in the open field with nobody near me. Only then do the players seem to sprint realistically. If someone is in the vicinity, I'm not going anywhere as it feels like the whole jostling system has been activated and it's time to battle.

It just feels like, for whatever reason, super fast players with high acceleration just aren't allowed to run as fast as they can when defenders are in the area and if fucking Iniesta or Xavi barge Khedira or Xabi Alonso off the ball one more time...:RANT:

The CPU on the other hand...they can run as fast as they want to whenever they want.

The good thing is, with the way that pressing has been gimped for the user, I get the feeling that this one might (HUGE EMPHASIS ON "might") be better playing against humans as the CPU routinely cheats and does things that often aren't possible.
 
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Just had Walcott receive the ball in open space and while holding turbo to try and take off, he pretty much started walking until 2 defenders caught up to and barged him off of the ball.

I'm not even close to being a sprint whore, but I find it difficult to get away from anyone unless I'm in the open field with nobody near me. Only then do the players seem to sprint realistically. If someone is in the vicinity, I'm not going anywhere as it feels like the whole jostling system has been activated and it's time to battle.

The CPU on the other hand...they can run as fast as they want to whenever they want.

The good thing is, with the way that pressing has been gimped for the user, I get the feeling that this one might (HUGE EMPHASIS ON "might") be better playing against humans as the CPU routinely cheats and does things that often aren't possible.

Yea I can't tell you how many times I've beaten a defender only for him to barge me off the ball quickly thereafter. Of course players run faster when they aren't dribbling but something is just wrong at the moment. Seems like maybe they've over compensated or something when they tried to correct the sprinting from 09.
 
Yea I can't tell you how many times I've beaten a defender only for him to barge me off the ball quickly thereafter. Of course players run faster when they aren't dribbling but something is just wrong at the moment. Seems like maybe they've over compensated or something when they tried to correct the sprinting from 09.

Yeah, players certainly run more quickly without the ball but let ME be the guy controlling a defender and trying to jockey while Anelka is turning left, right, left, right, spinning around in circles and then either running into the box or firing in a cross. CPU is untouchable with the ball at their feet.

Like I said though, this isn't really anything new for the CPU but if it's this difficult for the user, I'm confident that there aren't too many people out there who can do the silly shit that the CPU does and thus, it might not be an issue when playing against human opponents.

Once again, might not be...
 
Just had Walcott receive the ball in open space and while holding turbo to try and take off, he pretty much started walking until 2 defenders caught up to and barged him off of the ball. .

Did you flick the right stick to knock the ball ahead? Cause I was able to get separation from the last defender in a thru ball earlier doing that
 
Did you flick the right stick to knock the ball ahead? Cause I was able to get separation from the last defender in a thru ball earlier doing that

The problem isn't so much gaining separation as it is keeping separation - I can't tell you how many times I've embarrassed a defender only for him to barge me off the ball a second later while I'm in mid-swing!

Meanwhile the CPU gets away with far too aggressive physical play compared to the fouls given to me. It's as if the defensive AI is too stupid to properly defend so players are programmer to barge in rather than time their tackles and play containment defense and wait for the double team.
 
Haven't played fifa for years but thought i'd give it a go as i've heard many people describe it as a football simulation. Now maaybe i'm doing something wrong but playing as juve v barca i spent the whole time getting barged off the ball by xavi and iniesta. Also, every player seems to be the same speed, makes no difference who i'm dribbling with. How do you tackle someone without sliding in? I go smashing into iniesta with chiellini and he's too strong for me! Whether or not you like this game to describe it as a simulation is crazy.
 
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