Re: FIFA 09 - Discussion Thread
I really can't understand the violent negativity towards it at some websites, although admittedly, if it's widespread (IGN, MaxConsole, the EA forums) then quite a few people must have issues with it.
Playing it again though (couldn't help myself, even though I'm making the wait to October worse) it looks and feels like the perfect football simulation to me. I can't see anything like "you can't control your players" - I can control mine perfectly. Do these guys not understand momentum? They've played PES too much and got used to what Trance_Allstar describes earlier in the thread (i.e. players could turn "on a dime", or as my dad says, "on a sixpence").
The thing is, and I did it myself, when you play a game non-stop and all the magazines tell you it's a near-perfect simulation, you start to believe it. But players don't turn like they do in PES, you have to shift your weight and think ahead. You have to turn one way knowing that when you're facing that way you can easily knock the ball in a certain direction, where the opposition player can't imagine you knocking the ball to, and where he can't get you. Players aren't balls, they can't just roll in a new direction. Even the fastest and the most agile know they have to go one way to "set themselves up" to move to the spot they want to get to. You can't run backwards and flip around like you're magnetic to face a new direction.
The only criticism I could make is that it's a tad too fast for my liking, and yet at the same time shots could be harder. But you have to remember, we're playing Chelsea v Real Madrid, AC Milan v Marseille; I bet it's not fast when I play as Tranmere against bloody Huddersfield!! And I've still managed to score some screamers.
I scored a goal against a friend last night that was like the Bobby Charlton shots of old, like the one in that bio-yoghurt advert running at the minute in the UK where the cheeky kid asks for the ball back and he hits a hard, rising shot into the net. Absolutely beautiful goal to watch, and something the keeper would have saved every time in FIFA 08. Something that either would have rocketed over the bar in PES despite you tapping the button like that thing is on fire, or the goalkeeper would have palmed into the net like an idiot.
I really don't understand the negativity that's around...