Be Excellent To Each Other

So yeah, it's nearly that time of year again...

Downloaded the demo earlier and just played a handful of matches, and it's bloody ace.

The tactical defending gubbins, which they brought in last year, appears massively tweaked and improved. In the last game I never truly felt comfortable with this, though I improved over time, but never to the point where I was relaxed (if you know what I mean) when trying to regain possession.

I always think when they introduce a radical new feature like this, the first game it appears in it's generally good and promising, but you know the following year will, or should be, vastly improved, and this certainly feels the case here.

EA have also waffled about making the general attacking play more intelligent and so on, and I do see this, with AI controlled team-mates getting themselves into much better and smarter positions to receive a quick pass to set up a counter attack.

Also, the goalies seem much better. In previous games, when defending, I could make my GK rush out and 90% of the time he'd basically steal the ball off the opposing striker's foot, but now (and again I would put this down to smarter AI attacking play) if I'm doing this, the crafty striker is either chipping me, which frankly serves me right, or making a quick side pass to another striker who calmly slides it into the net.

Graphically, etc, it all appears as lovely as it ever was, and you'd expect this anyway and I doubt there's much more they could do here in any case.

Is there a mode that only has buttons for "pass" and "shoot"?
I tried the last one and (as a newb) found it completely impossible to play.

Yeah two button mode. It's been on them all since the 2010 world cup game, you just have to change the controls.

Sweet!

I would also be interested in newb mode. Too many buttons, man!

I think there may be some restrictions using this if you play online, or at least there used to be. Mind you I don't think I've ever tried playing the game with this anyway, so don't know how easy or restrictive it is.

I agree there are "too many buttons" to learn overall (though isn't this the case with nearly all modern games?), but then again if you ignore all the tricks and such nonsense, Fifa really only has some fairly basic controls.

Gonna grab the demo later. PES is crap again this year.

I rented last year's PES and thought it was a decent game, but overall nowhere good enough to tempt me away from Fifa. I think I say this every year, but Fifa would have to get massively worse for me to move away from it.

Indeed! I'd happily buy both if PES were either a) even a shadow of its former self or b) even a shadow of FIFA. It's neither. It's crap. They've completely lost it.

Indeed. I have FIFA... 11? And I only do run, pass and shoot. And it got Leeds into the Premiership.

Leeds.

I always try to learn and remember some of the trick combos, but it's too hard and in the heat of the moment, I suppose as with real football, you're best making an accurate pass and not trying to be Messi or whoever.

The tricks can be fun, but are probably best left to Fifa Street which is just all about showing off and stuff.

I think the right stick stuff is fairly intuitive anyway. You don't necessarily have to know a combo - the directions you press the stick in generally do tricks in the appropriate direction. I also love FIFA's right stick "ball nudge", which PES simply doesn't do. It gives you so much control and for me is one of the reasons I think PES is inferior these days.

One thing I forgot to say yesterday when waffling about the demo - really looking forward to getting to grips with the new training mode (whatever they're calling it), which should properly teach you how to do free-kicks and such.

I mean, honestly, I've historically been total arse at free-kicks in any football game ever, and will be happy to be 'taught' them and take the time to do so.

have the game now, people in for a game, or may be a be pro beex team together as we did with 9 or 10?

finally got an hd tv, and feel like i'm playing this on a new console, so much detail...

loving the live fixtures mode.. far better than fifa 11 this..

and see my totti goal in the last minture v lazio..

http://www.ea.com/nl/voetbal/filmpjes/ugc/141401732