I know we didn't need another review, but i just had to get some stuff off my chest.
First impressions.... the intro is nice! Much like a cool Nike commercial, it's 10x better than last years. Unfortunately we get to the menu....
INTERFACE --------------------
The menu is terrible unintuitive. First off, when you select play now, the way you select your team is more trouble than it should be. First the league name is written sideways so it's not easy to read. Then the team name arrows are in another place so you have to move the mouse over there. All in all very badly designed.
When you do career mode, instead of all the options being laid out for you, there's an option called "more options" ... basically making you having to navigate through a ton of menus to do one task repeatedly. Furthermore, since the resolution very low, you have to scroll endlessly to see all the stats (this is a problem with most EA SPORTS games).
If you think that's bad, try doing some team management. It took me like 6 clicks to swap out Solari for Zidane. 1) again you have to scroll all the way down to look at the reserves/resting players because the resolution is low and the names don't fit on one page. 2) Swapping wasn't automatic for me, so I had to go back up, select Solari, scroll down, select Zidane, etc. Very frustating.
One more thing... there's a nice option to view bio... you can look at any player in the league and see his stats (shows the model of the face too). However, once you click on a player and view his bio, when you go back - the menu reverts to YOUR team and the default scroll setting. I.e. if you are Arsenal and you are looking at ManU, you have to click all the way to manU EVERYTIME you look at a ManU player. Annoying beyond belief.
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OPTIONS/MODES
Career mode is nice, but WHY remove championship league or league mode? This type of backwards thinking really aggravates me. What about the people who don't want the hassle of managing a team (like me)? Unfortunately EA saw fit to remove modes for whatever reason.
WHERE is the option to configure control keys? There are almost no reference to the controls in the game at all. If I didn't have a manual I wouldn't know how to do off-the-ball stuff or freestyle moves.
Visual options are extremely limited. I feel sorry for those who have a less than capable machine. Madden 2004 had a plethora of options that could be tweaked for performance, I see almost nil here.
I'm a big fan of Creation Center, but I'd be a bigger fan if it were implemented in the game itself. I assume it's not because the interface right now is piss poor and a seperate program is probably much more managable (hope the new one doesn't wipe out the saved settings every time tho
). However if EA could revamp the menu interface for 2005 it would be cool to see it in-game. Tiger Woods 2004 has a nice player creation center, nba live has lots of customizable options for players, why not FIFA?
Alright enough ranting on the interface and options, lets talk gameplay.
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GAMEPLAY/GRAPHICS
During my first few hours of play, I was sorely disappointed.... "This game sucks!" I kept saying to myself. However it got better and better the more I played on. Of course this could be attributed to me figuring out how the gameplay works and how to exploit it.
It doesn't matter if you are Henry/Ronaldo/Ronaldinho/GOD, you will almost never dribble past another defender. I even switched it to AMATURE difficulty and could not zoom past defenders in the way of say World Cup 2002. While that may be better in terms of the AI being more difficult to break down, I still say that Henry or Ronaldo should be able to get past a defender one-on-one more than 1% of the time. Quite honestly, the defence will knock back any attempt to charge past then solo, unless....
One bug in the AI I found was to use a defender like Roberto Carlos and run all the way down the field. If you get past the striker/forwards, the rest of the defenders will concentrate on marking their opponents. This allows you to race down near the box and take a good shot.
The necessity to use SHIFT+C to perform freestyle moves doesn't work well IMO. First of all it is much more complex, AND since C is the "walk" button, you won't always get the desired move. Second it virtually removes the possibility to do freestyle moves on the run. You CAN do it, but you'll have to 1) accelerate with E, 2) press SHIFT+C, 3) toggle the direction keys. Simple huh? Only 4-5 button presses to get that out. FIFA2003 was much easier to manage, and cooler since players had player-specific moves.
Futhermore, it is usually futile to try this on a defender because they are more apt to tackle the ball away while you are flailing on the SHIFT+C+direction. Especially on higher difficulty settings. In my experience, since it is almost impossible to dribble by someone even using the best freestyle moves, why bother. You'll just be tackled and look foolish. So I don't bother with them at all. This really sucks, why play Ronaldo or Henry if you can't blow by defenders.
The good thing about not being to dribble by defenders is more emphasis on passing and crosses. The ball physics are more realistic here, and if a player is near the path of a pass, he'll more than likely intercept it. Perfect passes are a must. You might be able to put someone through on occasion, but I find that the easiest way to score is to pass to someone near the box and try to punch it in from there. Defenders really clog up the backfield in this version so one-on-one opportunities with the goalie are hard to get.
Alright this is getting too long so I'll try to wrap up. I'm still confused by the corner situation.... although I gotten a lot of goals in from corners. It's not very intuitive. Same with the free kicks... although easy to use once you figure it out, you use to marker on the ball to mark how the ball spins once you kick it, not where your foot will kick it to generate the spin. A bit trivial but something to be noted. For the most part AI is improved, although a few times i did see players standing around while a lazy pass is nearby.
Graphics are incredible, the face textures are much more detailed. No NIKE or adidas boot license, they should take a cue from NBA LIVE series and add real boots. Animations are great, the fans look terrible
Change up some of the goal animations though, Ronaldo doesn't celebrate the same way everytime in real life. I also would like a longer replay time, usually it replays a few seconds before the goal is scored, ignoring the passing that led to the goal.
Overall I would rate the graphics a 9.5/10, menu/interface 2/10, gameplay 7.5/10, AI 7/10.
I think FIFA fans are so loyal because each year we see such promise in the game. Also because most of the clubs are represented and the graphics are always superb. However, things like the interface and problems with the gameplay ruin the experience. If I was a conspiracy theorist, I'd say they are leaving out gameplay features and options just to make us buy FIFA2005 ....
First impressions.... the intro is nice! Much like a cool Nike commercial, it's 10x better than last years. Unfortunately we get to the menu....
INTERFACE --------------------
The menu is terrible unintuitive. First off, when you select play now, the way you select your team is more trouble than it should be. First the league name is written sideways so it's not easy to read. Then the team name arrows are in another place so you have to move the mouse over there. All in all very badly designed.
When you do career mode, instead of all the options being laid out for you, there's an option called "more options" ... basically making you having to navigate through a ton of menus to do one task repeatedly. Furthermore, since the resolution very low, you have to scroll endlessly to see all the stats (this is a problem with most EA SPORTS games).
If you think that's bad, try doing some team management. It took me like 6 clicks to swap out Solari for Zidane. 1) again you have to scroll all the way down to look at the reserves/resting players because the resolution is low and the names don't fit on one page. 2) Swapping wasn't automatic for me, so I had to go back up, select Solari, scroll down, select Zidane, etc. Very frustating.
One more thing... there's a nice option to view bio... you can look at any player in the league and see his stats (shows the model of the face too). However, once you click on a player and view his bio, when you go back - the menu reverts to YOUR team and the default scroll setting. I.e. if you are Arsenal and you are looking at ManU, you have to click all the way to manU EVERYTIME you look at a ManU player. Annoying beyond belief.
-------------------------
OPTIONS/MODES
Career mode is nice, but WHY remove championship league or league mode? This type of backwards thinking really aggravates me. What about the people who don't want the hassle of managing a team (like me)? Unfortunately EA saw fit to remove modes for whatever reason.
WHERE is the option to configure control keys? There are almost no reference to the controls in the game at all. If I didn't have a manual I wouldn't know how to do off-the-ball stuff or freestyle moves.
Visual options are extremely limited. I feel sorry for those who have a less than capable machine. Madden 2004 had a plethora of options that could be tweaked for performance, I see almost nil here.
I'm a big fan of Creation Center, but I'd be a bigger fan if it were implemented in the game itself. I assume it's not because the interface right now is piss poor and a seperate program is probably much more managable (hope the new one doesn't wipe out the saved settings every time tho
). However if EA could revamp the menu interface for 2005 it would be cool to see it in-game. Tiger Woods 2004 has a nice player creation center, nba live has lots of customizable options for players, why not FIFA? Alright enough ranting on the interface and options, lets talk gameplay.
--------------------------------------
GAMEPLAY/GRAPHICS
During my first few hours of play, I was sorely disappointed.... "This game sucks!" I kept saying to myself. However it got better and better the more I played on. Of course this could be attributed to me figuring out how the gameplay works and how to exploit it.
It doesn't matter if you are Henry/Ronaldo/Ronaldinho/GOD, you will almost never dribble past another defender. I even switched it to AMATURE difficulty and could not zoom past defenders in the way of say World Cup 2002. While that may be better in terms of the AI being more difficult to break down, I still say that Henry or Ronaldo should be able to get past a defender one-on-one more than 1% of the time. Quite honestly, the defence will knock back any attempt to charge past then solo, unless....
One bug in the AI I found was to use a defender like Roberto Carlos and run all the way down the field. If you get past the striker/forwards, the rest of the defenders will concentrate on marking their opponents. This allows you to race down near the box and take a good shot.
The necessity to use SHIFT+C to perform freestyle moves doesn't work well IMO. First of all it is much more complex, AND since C is the "walk" button, you won't always get the desired move. Second it virtually removes the possibility to do freestyle moves on the run. You CAN do it, but you'll have to 1) accelerate with E, 2) press SHIFT+C, 3) toggle the direction keys. Simple huh? Only 4-5 button presses to get that out. FIFA2003 was much easier to manage, and cooler since players had player-specific moves.
Futhermore, it is usually futile to try this on a defender because they are more apt to tackle the ball away while you are flailing on the SHIFT+C+direction. Especially on higher difficulty settings. In my experience, since it is almost impossible to dribble by someone even using the best freestyle moves, why bother. You'll just be tackled and look foolish. So I don't bother with them at all. This really sucks, why play Ronaldo or Henry if you can't blow by defenders.
The good thing about not being to dribble by defenders is more emphasis on passing and crosses. The ball physics are more realistic here, and if a player is near the path of a pass, he'll more than likely intercept it. Perfect passes are a must. You might be able to put someone through on occasion, but I find that the easiest way to score is to pass to someone near the box and try to punch it in from there. Defenders really clog up the backfield in this version so one-on-one opportunities with the goalie are hard to get.
Alright this is getting too long so I'll try to wrap up. I'm still confused by the corner situation.... although I gotten a lot of goals in from corners.
It's not very intuitive. Same with the free kicks... although easy to use once you figure it out, you use to marker on the ball to mark how the ball spins once you kick it, not where your foot will kick it to generate the spin. A bit trivial but something to be noted. For the most part AI is improved, although a few times i did see players standing around while a lazy pass is nearby. Graphics are incredible, the face textures are much more detailed. No NIKE or adidas boot license, they should take a cue from NBA LIVE series and add real boots. Animations are great, the fans look terrible
Change up some of the goal animations though, Ronaldo doesn't celebrate the same way everytime in real life. I also would like a longer replay time, usually it replays a few seconds before the goal is scored, ignoring the passing that led to the goal.Overall I would rate the graphics a 9.5/10, menu/interface 2/10, gameplay 7.5/10, AI 7/10.
I think FIFA fans are so loyal because each year we see such promise in the game. Also because most of the clubs are represented and the graphics are always superb. However, things like the interface and problems with the gameplay ruin the experience. If I was a conspiracy theorist, I'd say they are leaving out gameplay features and options just to make us buy FIFA2005 ....
