Soccer Gaming Catch-All

That's actually rather lame, thinking about it.

FM 2010 demo is due to be released on Oct 16th.

I didn't think much of their promo video this year, but nothing measures up to the FM 'IF' video http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=tF1Fov...

And FM's demo is out already at dailymirror's site.

Honestly, after the demo, the last two paragraphs are a surprise. Guess i'll have to see for myself in November.

Regarding the Pes2010 demo. There have been two different releases of the demo. A EU version, which is a months old build and a JAP version which resembles the final code quite well. I don't know which version was released in the US.

I have not tested the japanese version but thought the EU version was absolute crap. I'm considering not buying pes this year (And I've got them all bar 1 since Pes1).

The videos I've seen on the final code are disappointing. You'll see five defenders chasing one man. Or check out the defending in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvaBq...

Its just mindboggling that someone could program a defender to act this way. I will give PES a two thumbs up for incorporating the UEFA CL and Europa League eye-candy and implementring those tourneys in the ML this year. But thats just flash and not gameplay.

I haven't played FIFA since '98, but I've given the demo for Fifa10 a chance. And it actually plays like Pes used to (which means: It's good). Have Konami and EA switched developer teams?

I might have to go with fifa this year. But im waiting for the final verdict on pes. It's given me so much joy in previous versions (if you forget about the horrible 2009 version) that I have to give it a chance before bailing on it this year.

That movie you've linked looks like it's played on easy. I had much objections after playing demo initially on normal difficulty, but on higher levels CPU defended much better.

Regarding the Pes2010 demo. There have been two different releases of the demo. A EU version, which is a months old build and a JAP version which resembles the final code quite well. I don't know which version was released in the US.

Same as in Europe.

Well, FIFA 10 will be out here in North America by Wednesday, maybe, i'll do a quickie review. As I noted from the demo, my first early gripe is almost assuredly going to be teams playing to the difficulty level you have it set to, and not their strategies/abilities.

Anyone spent time with the FM demo yet? I'm thinking about skipping FM this year, at the moment it kind of looks like paying for a roster update, if I'm wrong please tell me, but I'm just not sold. This'll be be first FM I've skipped.

Prozac wrote:

Anyone spent time with the FM demo yet? I'm thinking about skipping FM this year, at the moment it kind of looks like paying for a roster update, if I'm wrong please tell me, but I'm just not sold. This'll be be first FM I've skipped.

I'm considering the same thing. The changes don't seem huge enough to really warrant the purchase, even if it's only $40. Factor in that the average FM game recently has needed between 2-4 patches to be "finished", and i'm reticient. That said, if some of my niggles about FM 10 are fixed (it's an odd thing to gripe about, I know, but FM seems completely incapable of representing the average goalscoring numbers Golden Boot winners around the world get. Not only doesn't it allow for seasons like the ones Cristiano Ronaldo and Thierry Henry have put up, the rare but astonishing year of quality, but in several years of play, i've never seen anyone break 20 goals in a season in the Eredivisie, when the last time that happened in real life was 1988-89, with several 30+ goal years inbetween. The total team goals for/against numbers are spot-on, just never the players themselves), I may have to change my tune if I have the cash sitting around.

Prederick wrote:

I'm considering the same thing. The changes don't seem huge enough to really warrant the purchase, even if it's only $40.

Try $70 US in Australia, so about $80 Australian. Gah.

I put about 30 minutes into the FM demo, and I'll probably buy it, if only for the roster update. I should load up an MLS game to see if the trading has been improved upon, and if it has, it's a definite purchase even though I'm not a big MLS fan. If SI could find a way to take the trading from NHL:EHM 2007 and have the AI value draft picks a bit more, it would be terrific. I could never figure out how to have multi-asset for multi-asset trades in FM09, or 08. That's probably just my being stupid, or impatient, or both.

The new interface is pretty slick, although an interface is not something you buy a game for. I figure that for the amount of time I'll put in playing FM, the money spent is worth it, even if it's mostly a roster update.

Tips were good this week, which means the copy of FIFA 10 is now in my hands. If you haven't seen it, please, please seek out the North American cover with Frankie Lampard, Crazy Mr. Blanco, and Sacha Kljestan. I only mention this because someone's really got to tell Sacha that he's got a astonishing case of "To Catch A Predator" mustache going on, and he's got to do something about it. Some men can rock the mustache Sacha, and some men look like they have a not-particularly-well-hidden folder of pictures on their hard drive that would get them arrested. You fall into category II.

Expect a full, spittle-and-frustration filled review by the weekend. Good times!

EDIT: EA still hasn't taken the hint and still doesn't allow you to edit players as you see fit. Utterly inexplicable.

Looking forward to your thoughts Pred. I haven't picked up a soccer game since ISS 64 and I think it's time I do so again.

Prederick wrote:

EDIT: EA still hasn't taken the hint and still doesn't allow you to edit players as you see fit. Utterly inexplicable.

I think you've just killed it for me before I even got interested.

I might buy a copy of PES 2010 tommorow and in that case I'll make sure to share my delusions of how great game it is with all of you.

Prederick wrote:

Tips were good this week

Ah, I see that you're pursuing one of many glamorous career paths that English Major enables ;]

UCRC wrote:
Prederick wrote:

EDIT: EA still hasn't taken the hint and still doesn't allow you to edit players as you see fit. Utterly inexplicable.

I think you've just killed it for me before I even got interested.

I'm almost sure it's something to do with their "Live Season" form updates and changes, which is semi-defensible now that I look at it, because you can finally create a player and make him however good as you want. But established players already in the game can essentially only have their attributes redistributed (i.e. - If a dude has a 85 Finishing and a 80 Shot Power, you can give him a 83/82, etc).

So, I put in a bunch of matches today. Let me be frank before I start this early review. I have become an increasingly curmudgeonly and exacting sports gamer who believes that, in some areas sports games have been atrociously stagnant and need to be seriously improved if they even want to aspire to the "Sim" title.

That said, let's be frank. If you're a "Sim" fan these days, the "Simulation" experience for the single-player game is essentially limited to "niche" titles like Out of the Park Baseball/Football Manager/Front Office Football/Eastside Hockey Manager. Games where players have input over the every action and move of the players on the field can occasionally approach sim status, but rarely do.

FIFA 10 approaches Soccer in the same way Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 approaches the "Tactical Shooter" genre, or Ace Combat approaches the Flight game genre. Either you'll read that as being a good thing, or a bad thing, and that'll probably be your reaction to FIFA 10.

Gameplay: As I write this, i'm watching the AI play itself, with Chelsea taking on Barcelona (hooray for random team selection). Last night, I watched Inter play Juventus. I've done this since a much earlier version of WE/PES, and began using that as a good opening litmus test for the AI and the way the game plays. Sure, it's not perfect, but it puts the AI in an ideal setting, against an opponent who isn't going to try to dribble through the entire opposition with their goalie to score, or eschew regular tackles altogether in favor of slide tackling anyone that moves. And there are good things to see here. With the game speed turned down to "Slow", Barcelona is working the ball through their midfield with short passes, playing it to their front trio who are trying to make incisive runs.

The single-player experience doesn't quite reflect this however, and for one reason I feel. No game, in the history of soccer games that I can remember, has made an honest effort at accurately modeling defense. And they are all much less for it. FIFA 10 continues the proud tradition of the AI defending from the front, closing you down all over the pitch with little visible issues for its players. Fouls, while significantly increased, can still dissapear in a haze of snappy tackles, as heretofore lead-footed centerbacks will still come charging head-first at you to nick the ball away just as you try to pass with an inch-perfect tackle. This goes as much for Nemanja Vidic as it does for Will Haining. The game exudes an old problem in single-player, which is that you are still not playing a team primarily, you're playing a difficulty level, the team is secondary (perhaps even tertiary). Cruel reality of gaming or not, it's kind of frustrating to have Huddersfield Town play ManU the same way Inter Milan does. For some, that's just how games are, for me, that's a near-controller-throwing frustration.

Moreover, even with the game speed set to slow, there is no "thinking time" in FIFA. Never will you see Andrea Pirlo step on the ball in midfield, look around, give his teammates a chance to move upfield, and then deliver a pass. Everything about this game is done with the sprint button, save for the skill moves, which i'm going to have to take people's word on, as I've been trying to use them for two full years now and perhaps pulled them off effectively four times. Their use seems to be highly like a puzzle-game, that they are built for a specific situation and timing, rather than organic and built into the flow of play, which I find a bit disappointing. You should have to do some thumb flexibility exercise to buy a yard with a skilled winger, something as simple as a feint or a change of pace should be enough to throw off a defender. To EA's credit, this does work this year without requiring PES's mathematic frame-measuring precision, but rarely still.

All of that said, a lot of the new changes are fantastic. EA is actually quite close to fully implementing full 360-degree control (something that, based on the Demo, Konami is still only dimly aware of), although it takes a great deal of getting used to (there will be a lot of running out of bounds, I assure you). The ability for defenders to more effectively muscle forwards off the ball is a very nice addition as well, although the mechanic seems to play only strength against strength and doesn't take into account the quickness of feet that allows the more slight players to still have a huge impact on games.

Goalies are much improved. They will make good saves, they will blow easy ones, they'll almost make the save and watch in despair as it trickles into the net. And shooting feels much nicer as well, although setting the level of assistance to "Semi" or "Manual" (for me) still feels like i've strapped on Luca Toni's/Mario Gomez's boots circa Euro '08. Crossing, while improved, still feels a little stilted, as if the ball just isn't whipped into the box with enough pace. Passing is a joy however, although players actually seem to make less intelligent runs than last year (or perhaps the defending is better, who knows).

There are other niggles. EA has done so much to make the ball feel disengaged from the players, which results in a fair number of goalmouth scrambles and kicked shins whenever there's a loose ball, and at the same time, in certain animations the ball feels utterly locked into the player. As noted with the AI's super-snappy tackling, it is entirely possible for it (or the player) to judge exactly when to challenge a player sprinting with the ball and nick it away every time, no matter the quality of the defender or the dribbler, because of the particular length of the dribbling animation for sprinting. The same goes for the skill moves, which, if not used in the (apparently) EA-sanctioned window of opportunity, won't even cause a moment's hesitation from the defender before he knocks the ball away.

The sum total of all of this is that scoring and shots are down, fouls are up, and the game does play a bit more like soccer. But, as I noted, it's in the same way Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 represented Counter-Terrorist operations or Call of Duty has ever represented "war".

Graphics/Features: The game is gorgeous. I mean gorgeous. I mean gorgeous. The stadiums, the players (I'm interested to see what the finished version of PES will be because EA has ironed out all of the "soccer Zombie" problems they had in 08 and 09 and just done an astonishing job. Like, curb-stomping the competition astonishing.), everything. They have ever single little scar on Tevez's poor excuse for a neck, and not a hair on Iker Casillas' face is off. And they emote, react, smile, curse... Huddersfield Town's Nathan Clarke looks like Nathan Clarke, and i'll wager 9/10ths of the people playing this game don't even know Huddersfield exists. There are a litany of contextual animations, tons of little flicks that players do, reactions from goalies, from players, from the referee. Even the grass looks fantastic. My only gripe, if I have one, is that the crowd are still a bunch of pixel-blocks of color.

Sheer volume of features has always been EA's strong suit, and they're doing the business again here. A revamped and tweaked Manager mode, an improved "Be A Pro" mode (now branching out into "Virtual Pro"), a even deeper and more engaging "Live Season" mode, and, lo and behold, the much awaited arrival of an actual practice mode. "Be A Pro" is still a smidgen hit or miss (you're still penalized for a mis-hit pass if your cross doesn't find a friendly player, no matter how badly it may stretch the defense or if it forces a corner).

The features lead into Multiplayer, and I have to say, in the few games of "Virtual Pro" I played, I had a blast, even with teams full of gibbering idiots. With the Pro Club Championship (or whatever they call it), people can now match-up with 11 friends (or random f*cknozzles) and take on another 11 random idiots. And while the game doesn't look like anything even vaguely resembling soccer then, that's largely because of your idiot teammates who think that it's always a good idea to try and do a 360-turn past a onrushing striker with the Center Back. But I played a 3-2 thriller and had a good time. Which brings me back to my original point.

FIFA 10 is a game very much designed, I think, to be played against other people. It can be played against the AI, but in all honesty, the game's pretty weak in that area, with a litany of issues that EA either A.) Had to do to keep the game challenging for players or B.) Are too lazy/don't have the time to fix or do anything about.

Being someone who'd still like to be able to play a game of realistic football without spending 10 minutes worrying about the minutiae of my tactics and opposition instructions, i'm hoping PES will come good this year, although I do fully agree with many of the points raised in Eurogamer's review (As I noted last year, I believe, PES is still, essentially, a PS2 game that's been given a nice coat of paint and ported to the next-gen systems. The old battleship is starting to show a lot of wear and tear.), when I played it, it felt a bit better than EA's own breakneck version of the sport. And that's what you're in for with FIFA 10. While scoring may be down, this is still very much a soccer game that's about the offense, although now it is about good passing and taking your chances smartly, rather than slaloming past the entire opposition and scoring a screamer from 45 yards. The AI even seems to have a plan on offense now that is more detailed than last year's (Last Year's Plan: 10 CHEAT | 20 GOTO 10), although you're not going to see quite as much individuality from teams as i'd like.

So yeah, returning to my original point. FIFA 10:Soccer::Rainbow Six: Vegas 2/Call of Duty:Counter-Terrorism/War. Either that floats your boat, or, like me, you're left feeling a little disappointed.

Good review. Can we expect one for PES as well? I hope so!

Yes, because I'm more than dumb enough to buy both games. Hey, at least FM 2010's out!

Let me know how FM 10 is, Pred - I just haven't summoned up the enthusiasm to buy it yet...

Bought FM 10 today and it is taking me time to get used to the interface. First thing on the docket is to go out and find a skin that doesn't give me eye strain, both the dark and light default skins don't work for me.

davet010 wrote:

Let me know how FM 10 is, Pred - I just haven't summoned up the enthusiasm to buy it yet...

An early word on FM 2010.

1.) Nicer match-graphics.

Most importantly, I feel, is that they took a great deal of advice from the tactical gurus of the FM-scene, mille and wwfan. To say it's made a HUGE difference would be an understatement. They've really tried to allow you to create Barca's Champions League-winning tactics of 2008-09, or the all-conquering swashbucklers of Brazil '70. I am impressed, and already happy with the $40 outlay (even though I was really JUST coming to grips with FM 09's tactics).

I still can't believe that this is US$70 through steam in Australia, in stores it'd be about US$100. One of the major reasons I'm holding out for more peer reviews and a patch or two.

Prederick wrote:

Most importantly, I feel, is that they took a great deal of advice from the tactical gurus of the FM-scene, mille and wwfan. To say it's made a HUGE difference would be an understatement. They've really tried to allow you to create Barca's Champions League-winning tactics of 2008-09, or the all-conquering swashbucklers of Brazil '70

Did they? It's just a new interface, underlying mechanics are exactly the same, except for 'Wide play' option for wingers.
I'm bitter because I've felt really comfortable with FM 09 tactics interface and now main feature of the game is something I don't really need.
But that's just experimenting with interface. What is more worrying is that they're basically restricting 95% of players to using TTF systems. And their scope, just as every other system is limited. And if everyone use TTF model then there's no real incentive for devs to develop match engine that would allow simulation of more peculiar systems.

As for other features, they're bigger leap than FM 08 -> FM 09. Interface, backroom advice and tactical analysis look really hot.

As for PES: I'll try to upload some of the goals I've scored while playing my first season of ML with Toulouse. I've thought that it might give you a better idea how gameplay has improved. And improved it did. Games are challenging, have proper tempo and tension to them, tactical decisions have huge impact on course of game.

What's TTF ?

Tactical Theorems & Frameworks, the name of WWFAN and millie's tactical think-tank on FM-britain.

But that's just experimenting with interface. What is more worrying is that they're basically restricting 95% of players to using TTF systems.

There is a "revert to classic" button y'know.

And their scope, just as every other system is limited.

Well... yeah. FM 09's system was incredibly limited, but I still think that this has grown further flexibility from that.

I've thought that it might give you a better idea how gameplay has improved. And improved it did. Games are challenging, have proper tempo and tension to them, tactical decisions have huge impact on course of game.

But does it actually look/play like soccer, or is it more "IT'S HARD BECAUSE WE SAID SO" crap from years past?

Well, I just remembered that I'd downloaded the demo, so I've had a quick month or so with City.....and I like what I'm seeing (with the game, not City). The matches did look good, the extra analysis tools are useful, and navigation is a little more intuitive. I did get a little narked trying to scout certain teams (like Inter) for players, then realised that the Serie A marker at the top menu would most likely be missing because the demo is an England quickstart.

Bah - now I have to pick it up on Monday

I've only just scratched the surface, so i'm not going to pretend it's a revolution or anything. I do think it's significant change in the right direction though, and that it'll allow for a little more flexibility (as, like I said, I found FM 09 very, very, VERY tactically rigid).

Thanks for the in-depth review, Prederick. Put me off buying it for the moment with so much out there, i'll try the demo a few more times.