Just had an amazingly absorbing match as Germany, I beat Denmark 1-0 to reverse a number of absolute hammerings the game's been dishing out on zero assistance. I tried switching back to 1-bar and the game was instantly vastly easier. Switch back to zero again again and it's crazy hard, but I'll persevere. The Germany match was a brilliant midfield stalemate with few chances, doesn't sound exciting but it felt so fluid and organic. One sequence saw both teams giving the ball away down in the corner flag, challenges from both teams flying about then the ball goes out and I see a cut scene of my captain screaming at his team mates encouraging them to get stuck in
Anyways, on comes veteran Klose with ten mins to go when Denmark had got on top of me and I start using Klose by knocking it long, using long ball and R2 to really loft them up to him, and the amount of first balls he was winning was remarkable. He formed the basis for a rare attack via Klose flicking the ball on to Podolski down the inside right channel, and winning a corner. Then, from the corner he takes a loose ball on his thigh before hooking it into the net. The change of tactics and personnel felt so satisfying.
On another note, I enjoying defending so much in this version. On higher difficulty the AI will skin you if you blindly wade in, but cut off passing lanes, jockey, slow up the play, wait to dive in with either R1 when jockeying or tapping x, and the AI responds by passing backwards, sideways and trying to pick you apart. It's resulting in some fantastic matches and I'd argue that the biggest revolution in this game is with how you have to defend and the way the AI responds to that. THAT makes this game what it is.
As for zero assistance, it's fantastic but I'm having trouble adjusting. It feels almost manual to me. While top players are more noticeable on zero assistance, it does still irritate slightly when Ozil miscues a simple short pass because of my input, the pass is of course my doing but I'd have thought that some top players would still be a bit more forgiving with their assistance. The likes of Pirlo still feel like his stats are really at play even if I make a mistake, but other world class players still feel a bit too manual for my liking. That said, it's the only way to go, I tried one bar passing again and everyone felt like passes were laser guided.
I also love how even on top player that physical challenges are still even. The only issue I do haves is that again the AI seems to easily able to chase you down even when you have a fast player. Player speed and catch-up seem to be a bit of an issue.
I still think this is the best football game ever made though.
