Digital Sportspage Blog

OK. I’ve gone from not happy to somewhat intrigued after playing some more and noting the following things:

I’ve discovered the left trigger as the player run button (it would help me to actually read the instructions), and that’s helped a lot. I’ve also discovered the wonder of manual/semi passing settings. Tweaking these things to your liking makes a definitely gameplay difference. Now onto the new impressions…

You get burned if you try and make a defensive play out of position. AI passing seems really good. I’ve seen the AI make some really smart passes that I haven’t seen in a FIFA game before. They will punish you if you leave an opening on defense. It’s difficult to do against the AI defense, because they don’t seem to leave any holes in the middle of the defense. However, this could be because of the relative quality of the teams in the demo…if some League Two team is easy to beat because of bad defensive positioning…wow. That would be impressive. I am curious to see how this plays with crappy teams.

Passing is such a mixed bag…I experimented with passing at semi or manual, and at times I found it to be a lot more enjoyable…with more control, you could (at times) do what you wanted. But it was somewhat difficult to get the ball where you wanted, or to judge the correct weight of the pass (especially on through balls). I really wish through balls were smarter in this game…it’s a big difference to me between FIFA and WE. I don’t know how much control I want for through balls…a big part of me just wants it to be that if there’s space, the player (depending on passing ratings) will put it nicely into space. I’m not sure if you have that in FIFA 08 yet.

Player seem heavier than in WE, and it seems more difficult to quickly cut to change direction. This isn’t necessarily horrible…but I’m not “feeling” a big difference between Christian Ronaldo and a lumbering center back in agility. By the way, I’m not saying that there’s no difference whatsoever. It’s just that the difference isn’t as noticeable as in WE.

Fouls seem a bit like WE9 in that there are a few more touch fouls than I expected. That’s a definite bonus.

I’m also a bit torn on the shooting system. Shots are definitely dynamic…lots of spin, and lots of randomness. It’s actually a wonderful thing…I’ve seen some pretty nice shanks (and no repeats of that first physically impossible Rooney goal I saw before). I’m wondering if it’s too random…but we’ll have to see after more gameplay.

It’s growing on me. I can definitely say this: it’s the best FIFA in a while. Whether I’ll be playing it along side of WE/PES remains to be seen.

Oh, and this post from the Evo-web forums clarifies some of the differences between the two games, and sort of helped me understand the “mentality” of FIFA 08 a bit better.

In pes if you see a player with a bit of space infront/around him, say for example a winger, you pass the ball into the space infront of him and then he will go after the ball and you end up crossing/dribbling/etc. But the key is that you make him move by passing the ball. In fifa its the otherway round, you have to keep possesion and wait for a player to make a run/create space and then you pass. It seems something small, but it really does make a big difference to how you need to pass/play the game.

Whether you like it or not is a different matter, some will find that you dont have enough control because of it, other will say thats how football is played and it highlights the team ethic of the sport. I think its great, however I do notice how much of the ball i lose by trying to make something happen. Especially when attacking, most of the time ive tried to pass to a player so i can make him do a run/dribble/etc but more often then not the defender gets the ball. However if i keep possesion and wait for a player to make a run, then pass, it works. He gets the ball and has space to then do something. As mentioned with the xavi example, the get/give/ask method of playing. I also noticed this alot when i changed tevez for saha. Tevez for the most part stays central with defenders around him, meaning that most of the balls i played to him (in the pes manner) meant i lost possesion. Saha actually made a lot more runs and had more movement allowing me to keep possesion of the ball higher up the pitch as he was making space for himself for me to pass to.