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If you like soccer, you will love this game. Period.P.S. Be open-minded to new control system.
I love this game. It has alot to challenge the novice to advanced gamer.I love the tournaments, leagues from all over the world, and the international selections. I just wish they could have put the Paraguayan futbol league on the game.
I have just as much (or more) fun playing my Pro Evolution Soccer 2007, and that game is more than 3 years old. Let me begin by saying I haven't played a soccer game made by EA since around 2004, when I first played games from the Winning Eleven series (also known as Pro Evolution Soccer). After I read reviews for the latest offerings from Konami and EA, I opted to purchase Fifa Soccer 09.The good:- Graphics and animations- Official teams, kits, stadia- Wealth of game modes and in-game moves = good replay valueThe not-so-good:- Overall physics- Lack of European Cup tournaments (Champions League, UEFA Cup, etc)I think that this game is good, but I expected to be more 'wowed' by it. The realism of the ball physics and animations in PES2007, in my opinion, is just as good as Fifa 09. Fifa 09 is just a more polished game.
As with all of the previous (and much older) FIFA games I've played, there are some magical spots in and around the penalty area from which you can score with much more frequency than from other spots that might look like better candidates. Glad I bought it. Difficulty (3/5): Once you've mastered the game controls and figured out the most effective means of scoring, the game becomes pretty easy, even on the unlockable, 6th difficulty level. The game has a flow that gets passably close to the flow of a real soccer match, which will make it engaging for players and fans of the sport.
It took me about a month to figure out where and how to score - notably, you can take 3 kinds of shots in FIFA 09: driven, controlled (inside of the foot, curled) and chip. My last PS2 soccer game was Winning Eleven 8 (2004), and the controls are much more involved in FIFA 09. But it also means that once you build up some competence with the analog stick, you'll be able to play much more precise passes than you otherwise would have. I've been playing this game pretty steadily for the last 6 months or so. This is a great idea but doesn't work out well in execution (even though I still use them every game). And it's not too much harder, but enough so to make a difference to someone who, for instance, is more or less unbeatable because he's spent 4 months unlocking it. Much better than Winning Eleven 8, for instance.
This means that, as you begin to try to play through-balls, they'll go all over the place. Switching between players on defense is a problem - you can control it manually with the right analog stick but it's pretty clumsy even then. If your opponent is killing time playing possession, for instance, you can tell your team to press them while on defense - sounds great, but your players are slow to react to passes and generally don't press the other team's defenders, which leaves the player more or less helpless in the face of this sort of strategy. Probably the most difficult and most important controls to master involve through-balls, which can be played on the air and on the ground and are extremely sensitive to your control of them via the analog directional stick. Getting to control a whole team as they try to win possession, keep it or break down another side is a fantasy experience only available to video and computer gamers, so realism in the flow of the match is a make or break quality for these sorts of games. Defenders also tend to run into one another fairly often, disabling both of them and allowing attacking opponents to dribble freely through them. Very annoying.Physics (4/5): The physics is decent for a PS2 game. Attacking players on your team are woefully ignorant of the offside rule - if one of the last defenders abandons an attacker to double-team the man with the ball, the attacker inevitably runs offside as fast as he can, giving the defense an unrealistic advantage.
Another difficulty to overcome is learning how to score. In general, teammates you don't control are morons. Full array of real teams and players, nice looking stadiums and pitches, pretty good animations for in-game moves.Manager Mode (4/5): This has some fun features but is a bit less wieldy and a bit easier than it need be. Here's a quick summary of what I'm going to say at greater length below:Overall: 4/5Fun: 4/5Difficulty: 3/5Learning Curve: 4.5/5Computer intelligence: 2.5/5Physics: 4/5Appearance: 4/5Manager mode: 4/5Extras: 3/5Now by topic - Fun (4/5): The gameplay has kept its charm for me after about half a year, even though I'm winning 95% of the matches I play at this point. Shots aren't nearly as hard as they should be - if a defender is hit in the head with a driven shot, say, from the top of the box, he has no problem directing it more or less where he wants it to go.Appearance (4/5): Again, for a PS2 game, it looks pretty good.
Players muscle one another off the ball, smaller ones are punished more in collisions and the players' balance on and off the ball is relatively realistic. It's impossible, for instance, to sim more than one game at once, and if you sign free agents and immediately sell them, you can make Barnsley's budget look like Manchester United's very quickly. Other than this, there are pretty standard extras - 3rd kits, different balls, stadiums.you get the picture.I'm pretty happy with this game overall. There are 11 in-game tactical options a player can turn on. That said, it's important to note that there's a high learning curve.Learning Curve (4/5): It took me about a month and a half to get good enough to beat the computer comfortably, consistently and on the highest difficulty level.
This mode has kept me entertained and has high replay value.Extras (3/5): The most important unlockable extra is the 6th and highest difficulty level - this takes shockingly long to unlock - I unlocked it after about 4 months of steady play. Learning when and how to use which one is key.Computer Intelligence (2.5/5): This is the game's real weak spot - the thing that makes me most likely to yell four-letter words at the screen. On breakaways, supporting attackers will sprint ahead of the dribbler, leaving them offside if you try, for instance, to pass around the keeper for a one-time shot. There are some nice features in this mode, though, like scouting, stadium improvements, medical staff, etc. But playing it on a nicer system seems like it would make a huge difference.
I hate the new controls for this game the ones from fifa 07 were betterits much harder to control the ball in this game it makes it feel more realgraphics arent very impressive compared to ps3 or xbox 360
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