Brondbyfan
Senior Squad
I was a FIFA fan from when I first played World Cup 2002. I bought FIFA 2003-06, and World Cup 2006. As the owner of a Gamecube and a crappy computer, Winning Eleven was not an option. But once I got a better computer I picked up a copy of WE9, and I loved it. The gameplay, the animations, the ability to edit everything, I was blown away. But I was ready to give FIFA 07 a try until I read one sentence.
Rosters current as of August 27, 2006.
FIFA 06 was a good game, but it had a lot of flaws, and the one that really ticked me off was the fact that rosters were not current up to the deadline. For a game which prides itself on extensive licenses (arguably its strongest selling point), it was just obscene to have Michael Owen at Real Madrid. Sure, you could move him, but who wants to do that for every transfer down to League 2? And what about players like Dario Silva who simply didn't exist as far as FIFA was concerned? You could create them, but it was a pain and all of your created players looked like axe murderers.
I'm no game designer, but it strikes me that the absolute easiest part of creating a soccer game is having current rosters. Give me twenty minutes and I'll get you complete rosters for the entire EPL. They get paid to give us a realistic experience, not make us do the damned work. We're supposed to be playing matches, not moving Ashley Cole to Chelsea or creating Teymourian for Bolton because they also don't have Iran (again).
You may say, if it's a fun game, then the rosters are secondary. You might think I'm nuts, seeing as I bought WE9 in April, when the rosters were long out of date. But to me this is the canary in the coal mine. Lots of people were pissed off about the rosters last year. If they couldn't even make this easy fix, what other problems did they ignore? Can I still score one-on-ones at will? Does career mode still generate a few dozen Wayne Rooney-caliber kids every year? Do my players still move like zombies? Is it still riddled with bugs? Are the goalkeepers still sub-morons? Maybe not. But I don't think it's worth $40.00 to find out.
Bottom line, I've spent a lot of money on FIFA only to see the same problems year in, year out. I've found another way to get my soccer fix, and I'm sticking to it.
Rosters current as of August 27, 2006.
FIFA 06 was a good game, but it had a lot of flaws, and the one that really ticked me off was the fact that rosters were not current up to the deadline. For a game which prides itself on extensive licenses (arguably its strongest selling point), it was just obscene to have Michael Owen at Real Madrid. Sure, you could move him, but who wants to do that for every transfer down to League 2? And what about players like Dario Silva who simply didn't exist as far as FIFA was concerned? You could create them, but it was a pain and all of your created players looked like axe murderers.
I'm no game designer, but it strikes me that the absolute easiest part of creating a soccer game is having current rosters. Give me twenty minutes and I'll get you complete rosters for the entire EPL. They get paid to give us a realistic experience, not make us do the damned work. We're supposed to be playing matches, not moving Ashley Cole to Chelsea or creating Teymourian for Bolton because they also don't have Iran (again).
You may say, if it's a fun game, then the rosters are secondary. You might think I'm nuts, seeing as I bought WE9 in April, when the rosters were long out of date. But to me this is the canary in the coal mine. Lots of people were pissed off about the rosters last year. If they couldn't even make this easy fix, what other problems did they ignore? Can I still score one-on-ones at will? Does career mode still generate a few dozen Wayne Rooney-caliber kids every year? Do my players still move like zombies? Is it still riddled with bugs? Are the goalkeepers still sub-morons? Maybe not. But I don't think it's worth $40.00 to find out.
Bottom line, I've spent a lot of money on FIFA only to see the same problems year in, year out. I've found another way to get my soccer fix, and I'm sticking to it.