FIFA 09 - Gameplay Review - Part 2
Posted 22-10-2008 at 12:34 AM by bluchampblogger
(RESUMES)
The AI is just superb. Interestingly, the AI plays like human beings now. They make mistakes, they make hard tackles, they make fouls, they get yellow cards and they even get sent off. I simply love this aspect. It gives you a chance against the AI. It makes you look for these things and exploit the AI like you would do to a human opponent. The intelligence of your fellow AI players is already controlled and improved by the custom tactics settings. The intelligence of the AI opponent is top class. There are no cheap AI tricks or cheats as far as I've seen so far. AI simply plays like one hell of a human opponent.
There were some 'bugs' reported by the gamers since the game was released. Luckily for me, I didn't find them or they didn't spoil my fun one bit. Firstly, people were complaining throughballs are the one heavenly way to score and there is now way you can stop if a perfect throughpass is played. I don't think so. I was defending the throughballs very well indeed. It all starts with your positioning - vertical and horizontal - of your defenders, and then how soon they close the gaps, how well you can jockey, nudge, body check and finally tackle, if need be. Or you can even advance the keeper. If the striker still scores, forget it. You can't win every single time.
Then people thought that the ball hits the bar/post too often. That happened to me initially before I learnt to shoot properly. If you haven't figured out the shooting you're bound to go off target. But why should it hit the bar? It is surely unrealistic to see the ball hit the ball half a dozen times in every match. Well, if you hit off target - you could either hit the bar or the ball can fly over the bar. If it flies over the bar, the game should start all over again from a goal kick. EA must have thought that pulling those just above the bar shots to hit the bar would also keep the ball in play and also adds to the excitement and a possible rebound goal. Makes gaming sense. However, since I've started to improve, I don't hit the bar, I only find the keeper :-)
Some were unhappy that crossing is no longer a weapon. I must agree that crossing in FIFA 08 was very easy. Whereas in FIFA 09, crossing is as good as the receiver of the cross. The header/volley by the receiver of the cross depends on the timing of the button press. If you time it perfectly, the header might go in and the cross becomes a good one. I'm perfectly happy with the way crosses work in FIFA 09. We can at least get rid of the 'cut back kings'. The tweaking of crossing alone has cut down on the cheap (low cross by Ronaldinho and cut back by Henry) goals.
Finally, my take on how FIFA 09 has treated Chelsea FC in the game. What hits you first is that the Chelsea kit is all wrong. Chelsea blue is not the same as the blue used by EA for the jersey. And the club logo on the chest is smaller than it should be. The gap between the adidas logo and the sponsor name 'samsung' should be much wider. Even the neck cut is not proper.
Now you might ask me why I bother about these things when the game is so good. Correct, I don't bother. I never bothered when PES5 had only West London FC with a plain blue kit. But it is EA who pride that they have the licenses and hence 'if it's in the game, it's in the game'. When I saw that the FC Inter's jersey is horribly wrong, I thought Chelsea's could have been worse. One big plus is all third kits are readily available. You don't need to unlock the kits with the crazy challenges like score three 30 yard goals with the centre back and all that.
EA have re-created the Stamford Bridge superbly. It gives you real feeling of being in the Bridge with the stadium model, the wave of fans wearing blue, the chants and everything. When you're playing Be A Pro, you'll get a very nice view of the stadium from the player's angle. One gripe is that during the day matches, the pitch at Stamford Bridge still does not look nice. So purposefully, every single time in exhibition mode, I change the condition from 'day' to 'overcast' where it looks very fine indeed.
In terms of how the players are rated, I think most of the ratings are fair. I'm not comparing our ratings with that of players from other top teams. I'm just seeing the ratings vis-a-vis the real life player capabilities. Cech 88, Bosingwa 81, Carvalho 85, Terry 88, Ashley Cole 82. I wonder how Ashley Cole is just 82? That's a mistake. Based on last two seasons' performance, Ashley Cole the left back is a better player than John Terry the centre back. Joe Cole 83, Essien 86, Lampard 84. Now again, Lampard can't just be 84! He is the most consistent player in the premier league over the last 5 seasons! Anelka is rated 83 for which he must call EA personally and thank them. Kalou is 79 and I might just agree. Mikel is only 81 while I would put him at 84 or something. Ballack is 86 and Deco is 85. Deco should have been better. Drogba is 87. Malouda is 83 and thankfully Alex is 82. And you Franco-lovers, he is just 71 but he might add about 10 more points for the next FIFA version.
What I see in FIFA 09 is that the game is lot more open, random and beautiful. You can recreate almost any moment from your Super Sunday. If you need a goal, you need to work for it. It's lovely to see that you can employ various styles of football in FIFA 09. I even tried long passes to target man and it works superbly well. You can sprint through the wings, you cut through the centre, you can play slow build up short passing game, you can play fast build up mixed passing game, you can try out long balls, you can simply do anything you want. It's like a piece of clay, it's up to you to do what you want with it. I'm thoroughly enjoying the game, the best football video game ever. As one reviewer put it, the only negative is that you don't find enough time to play this beautiful game.
The AI is just superb. Interestingly, the AI plays like human beings now. They make mistakes, they make hard tackles, they make fouls, they get yellow cards and they even get sent off. I simply love this aspect. It gives you a chance against the AI. It makes you look for these things and exploit the AI like you would do to a human opponent. The intelligence of your fellow AI players is already controlled and improved by the custom tactics settings. The intelligence of the AI opponent is top class. There are no cheap AI tricks or cheats as far as I've seen so far. AI simply plays like one hell of a human opponent.
There were some 'bugs' reported by the gamers since the game was released. Luckily for me, I didn't find them or they didn't spoil my fun one bit. Firstly, people were complaining throughballs are the one heavenly way to score and there is now way you can stop if a perfect throughpass is played. I don't think so. I was defending the throughballs very well indeed. It all starts with your positioning - vertical and horizontal - of your defenders, and then how soon they close the gaps, how well you can jockey, nudge, body check and finally tackle, if need be. Or you can even advance the keeper. If the striker still scores, forget it. You can't win every single time.
Then people thought that the ball hits the bar/post too often. That happened to me initially before I learnt to shoot properly. If you haven't figured out the shooting you're bound to go off target. But why should it hit the bar? It is surely unrealistic to see the ball hit the ball half a dozen times in every match. Well, if you hit off target - you could either hit the bar or the ball can fly over the bar. If it flies over the bar, the game should start all over again from a goal kick. EA must have thought that pulling those just above the bar shots to hit the bar would also keep the ball in play and also adds to the excitement and a possible rebound goal. Makes gaming sense. However, since I've started to improve, I don't hit the bar, I only find the keeper :-)
Some were unhappy that crossing is no longer a weapon. I must agree that crossing in FIFA 08 was very easy. Whereas in FIFA 09, crossing is as good as the receiver of the cross. The header/volley by the receiver of the cross depends on the timing of the button press. If you time it perfectly, the header might go in and the cross becomes a good one. I'm perfectly happy with the way crosses work in FIFA 09. We can at least get rid of the 'cut back kings'. The tweaking of crossing alone has cut down on the cheap (low cross by Ronaldinho and cut back by Henry) goals.
Finally, my take on how FIFA 09 has treated Chelsea FC in the game. What hits you first is that the Chelsea kit is all wrong. Chelsea blue is not the same as the blue used by EA for the jersey. And the club logo on the chest is smaller than it should be. The gap between the adidas logo and the sponsor name 'samsung' should be much wider. Even the neck cut is not proper.
Now you might ask me why I bother about these things when the game is so good. Correct, I don't bother. I never bothered when PES5 had only West London FC with a plain blue kit. But it is EA who pride that they have the licenses and hence 'if it's in the game, it's in the game'. When I saw that the FC Inter's jersey is horribly wrong, I thought Chelsea's could have been worse. One big plus is all third kits are readily available. You don't need to unlock the kits with the crazy challenges like score three 30 yard goals with the centre back and all that.
EA have re-created the Stamford Bridge superbly. It gives you real feeling of being in the Bridge with the stadium model, the wave of fans wearing blue, the chants and everything. When you're playing Be A Pro, you'll get a very nice view of the stadium from the player's angle. One gripe is that during the day matches, the pitch at Stamford Bridge still does not look nice. So purposefully, every single time in exhibition mode, I change the condition from 'day' to 'overcast' where it looks very fine indeed.
In terms of how the players are rated, I think most of the ratings are fair. I'm not comparing our ratings with that of players from other top teams. I'm just seeing the ratings vis-a-vis the real life player capabilities. Cech 88, Bosingwa 81, Carvalho 85, Terry 88, Ashley Cole 82. I wonder how Ashley Cole is just 82? That's a mistake. Based on last two seasons' performance, Ashley Cole the left back is a better player than John Terry the centre back. Joe Cole 83, Essien 86, Lampard 84. Now again, Lampard can't just be 84! He is the most consistent player in the premier league over the last 5 seasons! Anelka is rated 83 for which he must call EA personally and thank them. Kalou is 79 and I might just agree. Mikel is only 81 while I would put him at 84 or something. Ballack is 86 and Deco is 85. Deco should have been better. Drogba is 87. Malouda is 83 and thankfully Alex is 82. And you Franco-lovers, he is just 71 but he might add about 10 more points for the next FIFA version.
What I see in FIFA 09 is that the game is lot more open, random and beautiful. You can recreate almost any moment from your Super Sunday. If you need a goal, you need to work for it. It's lovely to see that you can employ various styles of football in FIFA 09. I even tried long passes to target man and it works superbly well. You can sprint through the wings, you cut through the centre, you can play slow build up short passing game, you can play fast build up mixed passing game, you can try out long balls, you can simply do anything you want. It's like a piece of clay, it's up to you to do what you want with it. I'm thoroughly enjoying the game, the best football video game ever. As one reviewer put it, the only negative is that you don't find enough time to play this beautiful game.
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