Well, after a lot of weeks of listening any kind of positive and negative comments.... ultra positive fanboy reviews.... and ultra exxagerated negatives too... ill do my sincere opinion,, from a guy that have played the "both" games and know them.
Ill try to be the most specific, and ill focus on gameplay.
*Gameplay:
-OK, its true, its kind of slow... and the option of changhin the speed was definitely missing. The new animations are cool, and overall it have improved.
-The main problem i think is the attacking mode. The players have bad control when receiving the balll making the defenders to steal the ball too easy.
-The Tackling system have improved considerably...making it the most entertaining part of the game. You can Jostle with the freestyle stick,,, you can push the player, you can tackle him...and the ball will take any direction in most of the time. Slide tackles sometimes are very good... but in other times they doesnt do a thing..leaving your defender in the floor and the striker still with the ball and running. You can have a lot of fun tackling and jostling in this game. I just think that the referee is some kind of "SOFT" with some tackles, and in others.. its too strict. For example. When an striker is reaching my area... and tackle him with the last defender,,and sometimes i dont get even yellow card.... but sometimes i do very good conservative tackles inside the area,,,and the ref said that its a penalty!!!.
-The freestyle is very cool when playing against an human, but against the AI, the "walking + freestyle" moves are useless,because they know what you will do, and it gets frustrating.
-The shots are good..... and most of them are well saved,,, but there are still some shots that left you thinking like "mmmm i think the keeper could have done more than that
".
-The "off the ball" is a good idea, but its very difficult to use and some of the time you get offside because of the "offside trap".
-The freekicks were well improved. The keepers are more aware in this FKs... and i liked that.
Something that REALLY dissapointed me is that there is no overheads or scissors kicks, what a shame.
-Again.. i think that the lack of ball dominion from the players and the lack of quick response when the time to dribble comes is what this fifa 2004 really missed... as it seems too difficult to react to even the easiest maneuvers.
Others:
-Its cool to see the AI making changes while playing against them in career mode. Some people said that they dont do changes.... but in fact they do.
-You really see the difference when playing with second and third division teams... in comparison with the great champions of each league. The players in this teams have even worse ball dominion.. they dont shoot well, they pass very bad most of the time. The good thing is that with time.. you can train them and increase their stats.
-I dont understand why the stadiums looks so DARK. I tried to configure my TV,.. but the problem is with the game itself. I have heard that the game crashes a lot,,, and in fact it have crashed once for me. The Framerate is not the best, and i think even the 2003 had better framerate.
-Replays. OK, the free cam is very very cool..... but the reaplays are too short in it. The Instant replays after each play are shorter, and usually it shows very xtrange cameras and angles.... they sometime even dont show a thing!!
IN Overalll, the game is not bad and is much better than 2003 in gameplay.. taking in consideration the lot of bash it got, BUT.... it have a very considerable amount of Bugs... plus the lack of some modes, plus the lack of control of the players i listed above. This things i think are the main problem of the game... and seriusly takes a big Piece of the cake when the time comes to enjoy it.
Seriously the game is not bad.. and have very great ideas that could be enhanced for better... but EA must take in consideration all this bugs and wrong things for the next game. Anyways, im having fun with it.
And playing against an human is much better and funnier than against the PC
Ill try to be the most specific, and ill focus on gameplay.
*Gameplay:
-OK, its true, its kind of slow... and the option of changhin the speed was definitely missing. The new animations are cool, and overall it have improved.
-The main problem i think is the attacking mode. The players have bad control when receiving the balll making the defenders to steal the ball too easy.
-The Tackling system have improved considerably...making it the most entertaining part of the game. You can Jostle with the freestyle stick,,, you can push the player, you can tackle him...and the ball will take any direction in most of the time. Slide tackles sometimes are very good... but in other times they doesnt do a thing..leaving your defender in the floor and the striker still with the ball and running. You can have a lot of fun tackling and jostling in this game. I just think that the referee is some kind of "SOFT" with some tackles, and in others.. its too strict. For example. When an striker is reaching my area... and tackle him with the last defender,,and sometimes i dont get even yellow card.... but sometimes i do very good conservative tackles inside the area,,,and the ref said that its a penalty!!!.
-The freestyle is very cool when playing against an human, but against the AI, the "walking + freestyle" moves are useless,because they know what you will do, and it gets frustrating.
-The shots are good..... and most of them are well saved,,, but there are still some shots that left you thinking like "mmmm i think the keeper could have done more than that
".-The "off the ball" is a good idea, but its very difficult to use and some of the time you get offside because of the "offside trap".
-The freekicks were well improved. The keepers are more aware in this FKs... and i liked that.
Something that REALLY dissapointed me is that there is no overheads or scissors kicks, what a shame.
-Again.. i think that the lack of ball dominion from the players and the lack of quick response when the time to dribble comes is what this fifa 2004 really missed... as it seems too difficult to react to even the easiest maneuvers.
Others:
-Its cool to see the AI making changes while playing against them in career mode. Some people said that they dont do changes.... but in fact they do.
-You really see the difference when playing with second and third division teams... in comparison with the great champions of each league. The players in this teams have even worse ball dominion.. they dont shoot well, they pass very bad most of the time. The good thing is that with time.. you can train them and increase their stats.
-I dont understand why the stadiums looks so DARK. I tried to configure my TV,.. but the problem is with the game itself. I have heard that the game crashes a lot,,, and in fact it have crashed once for me. The Framerate is not the best, and i think even the 2003 had better framerate.
-Replays. OK, the free cam is very very cool..... but the reaplays are too short in it. The Instant replays after each play are shorter, and usually it shows very xtrange cameras and angles.... they sometime even dont show a thing!!
IN Overalll, the game is not bad and is much better than 2003 in gameplay.. taking in consideration the lot of bash it got, BUT.... it have a very considerable amount of Bugs... plus the lack of some modes, plus the lack of control of the players i listed above. This things i think are the main problem of the game... and seriusly takes a big Piece of the cake when the time comes to enjoy it.
Seriously the game is not bad.. and have very great ideas that could be enhanced for better... but EA must take in consideration all this bugs and wrong things for the next game. Anyways, im having fun with it.
And playing against an human is much better and funnier than against the PC
