Ok... I didn't know I'd ordered it, but it's just arrived. Maybe I added it to my cart when I pre-ordered RDR2. Fuck it.. oh well, here we go again. I never really got a go at the demo, it made my PS4 fan go crazy loud so I didn't think a demo was worth risking damage, so these are first impressions for me.
First note, the menus are appalling. Who's idea was it to go with grey? I'm trying to remember a worse looking game menu design. Also the pop up stat boxes in game look so outdated.
Game play, seems ok, can't compare to demo. Still got no joy from scoring as it felt too easy to hit 30 yard screamers. As noted on here keepers are seemingly locked to the goal line, which is just stupid.. it's not table football. Also I found it far too easy to move through midfield with the ball, the defence backed off and let me have a free run at them. BUT, it looks nice. Little too quick for my liking but I get that'd be an appeal. Wasn't as 'back heely' as 2018 either. Just wish shooting and passing was a little more random. (I played on default settings as I just clicked play). Also noticed when the ai keeper did get the ball, he do some kind of jagged run to the edge of the box before clearing every time, maybe it was a weird game. Hope that's not the same for every match, variety is key.
Also I don't know if my settings are weird, but the commentary was drowned out completely. Just mumbling in the background behind the crowd noise, maybe that's for the best
After that, I've literally just set up a Master League to look at things. I'm Espanyol. Someone should tell Konami that the International Champions Cup is not actually a big thing. speaking of which I'm in the competition. Despite being a mid table La Liga side?? In my group are River Plate, Anderlecht and Lyon. So it's not even realistic.
Transfer wise, I'm not going to bother playing that mode or bidding yet, but I have 20 million to spend, salary budget of 3m left. Here are the bars/chances of signing a few players for Espanyol. Bars are out of 5, so 3 bar is 60% chance
2 bar - Suarez, Lewandowski, Coutinho, Neuer, Hummels, Bale, Casemiro, Diego Costa, Mbappe
3 bar - A. Vidal, Mane, Firmino, Gabriel Jesus, Giroud, Morata, Gundogan, Bernardo Silva, Alli, Asensio, O. Dembele, Martial, Lo Celso, Kovacic, Rashford
4 bar - M. Dembele, Cuadrado, Biglia, Mandzukic, Milner, Lallana, Moses, Pedro, David Luiz
Not any 5 bar stars though, so it has improved... but still not great. It seems that Espanyol are rated in the same transfer bracket as Liverpool and Chelsea. Hmm.
Anyway, that's my, 'had the game for 30 mins' impressions