Just had a session of ten games with a friend and the more I play the game, the more I love it. There will come a point where I feel like there's some glitches in there that make the game too frustrating I'm sure; no game is perfect and I'm dreading reaching that point. However, as of right now, it just feels so right.
(Positives)
We played a ton of different matches and different things kept happening. I like playing as Chicago Fire because I hate playing as teams like Barcelona with all of their five-star players and silky skills. I played against Chelsea twice and got beat 3-0 twice, without feeling frustrated. It felt exactly like it would in reality. They were too fast, too skilful and Anelka is just a pain in the arse to defend against!
Playing as a team like Bayern, defensively you're always a bit panicky, but in attack guys like Schweinsteiger are so strong and you feel like you can take on the world with them (without it feeling like it's too much, like a glitch). Playing against Marseille I managed a 2-0 win followed by a 2-2 draw. There was a great own goal - the ball came across and there was a goalkeeper, defender and opposition striker in the mix. The defender stuck his toe out to knock the ball away from the striker but it was tapped into the net. It looked so real, like a real defensive mix-up.
Through the rest of the game I experimented with different things and just had an absolute blast against a friend. I'm finding skilled dribbling really hard to do, to the point where I'm running into players FIFA 09 style, but I think I'll get used to it. Some of the shots you can hit are sublime, and the same with the crosses. I love hitting a curled cross and a hard low screamer!
Which reminds me, the people who are complaining that there are too many "goals of the season" being scored... Well, this is my opinion; every week when I watch Match of the Day, I see at least one, if not two, stunning goals. The teams in this demo are five-star teams. The recipe is there for that to happen.
I'm not scoring a wonder goal every game. I'm scoring it at just the right ratio for a single five-star team (when you watch Match of the Day and you see a wonder goal, it's not always for the same team obviously, so they won't be scoring a wonder goal every game - but every few games seems right to me).
All of the videos of superb strikes are coming out at once because the demo is out now and with the teams/players in the demo, it's going to happen. Not every goal is like the goals you'll see on YouTube. But without wonder goals the game would be flat, and it would be nothing like real life when you're using these kinds of teams - so I think the balance is perfect. But that's just my opinion.
I do have complaints though, I should say.
(Negatives)
First of all, I'm not happy with the amount of bugs and glitches appearing
IN THIS THREAD. I would imagine only one or two will be fixed and that's quite disappointing. I can live with them, for now, but knowing they're there is frustrating. Even the smaller ones, like the referee blowing the whistle for throw-ins, are annoying.
Secondly, I think it's way too fast on the normal speed setting, but on the slow speed setting you lose a little bit of responsiveness. So I can't decide whether to allow the game to be too fast or whether to slow it down and get less of a headache looking at the screen.
Finally, and this is the big one... Goalkeeping. The majority of it is great I think, with shots going in that leave the keepers watching the ball go into the net. I love that, but, there are definite issues. Yes there's a bug in the demo where keepers like Cech have a 1 out of 99 positioning rating, but playing with a keeper where the bug isn't there (as Bayern/Marseille), you still see crosses and shots going into the net that shouldn't.
All of the goals bar one that I've scored today have been fine, but last night one goal was like this - the goalkeeper stood still for a ball heading straight at him (towards the underside of the crossbar), put his hands up, and the ball went straight through his hands like they weren't there.
A keeper would get beat by a cross occasionally, yes - AND I WOULD LOVE TO SEE THAT! But in an instance where he's standing on the goal-line, he shouldn't just let them in.
But, all that said, none of this has overshadowed the game for me so far - a game that will be the best football game I've ever played judging by this demo.
