It's not too long until FIFA 09 reaches the market. You are curious how the new game will be? I am happy to tell you some information about the game. Yes I have played the game for about 2 hours at the EA Studios in Cologne, Germany. Before you continue reading, always keep in mind that I have played an early version of FIFA 09. This means, even though the game is fully playable and looks finished, it isnt. FIFA 09 will enter the bugfixing phase after the worldwide community event 28th/29th July in Vancouver Canada to get again some feedback from the community to fix/change parts of the game. Also, hopefully, some of our suggestions will be added too. As some of you know, EA has made a great effort since releasing FIFA 08. EA appointed some Community Managers to keep in touch with the FIFA Community and since then we are sharing wishes and feedbacks. The second patch, which made FIFA 08 finally playable for the online community was a product of this collaboration. And it does not end there, no we have now tested FIFA 09 and gave them our feedback. So be prepared for a new era enjoying and playing FIFA 09
The graphics:
Current Generation or Next Generation? Many FIFA players have hoped FIFA 09 will change to next gen graphics and game play. Its almost there. EA has put some effort to make the graphics really nice and you will see a big step up from FIFA 08 to 09. So if you have a nice computer system you can enjoy the new graphics. For those who are now worried the game won't run on their old systems, do not worry! If you lose low details it is like FIFA 08 and therefore playable for you.
The controls:
Remember the old times, where you could play FIFA with your mouse? Forget that and try the brand new Mouse+Keyboard feature that allows you to map your individual setting. Yes, you can move your players with the WASD keys and your mouse controls a pointer (that looks like a crosshair) that you can aim with. Passes and Crosses with the mouse are pretty accurate, the ball gets there where you want him, right on the spot. If you can master this, it looks like a powerful method to play if there wasnt the shooting problem. We haven't figured our how to shoot, it looked like random if the ball goes low or high. But we had only two hours, maybe there is a way for this too. Keyboard only and gamepad controls are of course still possible. The minor bug where you can't use two or more of the same controllers (e.g. 2x XBOX 360 gamepad) with different configurations was still there, but we are not sure this will be fixed, to finally play with your friends offline without using the same configurations/controller. Also the controller menu looks really nice now and there is no classic/new configuration anymore. You can assign each function to any button, giving you total freedom for your configuration. 360 degree control is still missing, it might be useful if the mouse/keyboard combo proves to be a strong combo. The teams:
We haven't gone through all teams, because we wanted to test the engine and the new mouse feature, but nevertheless we looked into the most played team for the past two years. It looked like FC Barcelona isn't the best team anymore, they have been succeeded by Manchester United. No wonder, given the performance of Barca last year compared to ManU. The best player? Cristiano Ronaldo, of course. So will this be a ManU season? Probably not, because the teams are more closer than ever. You can play with Bayern Munich or Germany and you are not that much handicapped like in previous versions.
The gameplay:
It's similar to Euro 08. It's faster than FIFA 08. The game play felt smooth and the players respond better. Goalkeeper control is still possible. The AI will probably be improved, although I can't say the CPU controlled players are dumb, they did a good job, but there is always ways to improve something, especially for the goalkeeper who is now smarter than in FIFA 08.
The bugs:
Considering this is a pre alpha versions, bugs are to be expected. But surprisingly the game ran well, we did not encounter any crashes. Just some minor configuration or game play bugs (Crossbar-Corners, diagonal Cross-shot), for this we made demos and hopefully EA will fix this. Throw-ins ****? Well, it looks like EA solved the Throw-ins, you can't throw them really far anymore, throwing inside the goalkeeper area is impossible. You have to find new ways to score a goal
The online mode:
The thing we want the most is still not included. FIFA 09 still misses a real server modus like CS. But you can still play online or via network. You can still play with up to eight players in network and 2 players in direct ip and matchmaker.
Conclusion:
The PC version this year is not a simple copy of the PS2 version. The game play was designed for PC and EA really put some efforts into the game. Not only have they improved the graphics alot, they also did some finetuning to the game play. Again, keep in mind that the game is not final yet: some things that are currently missing could be added in the game. We gave EA a list of wishes, improvements, but we dont know if and when EA will add these. EA is happy for our feedback and they are really listening and adding some of your wishes/features in the game. So lets hope they will add some nice features to FIFA 09 to surprise us. But one thing is for sure: FIFA is now on the right track, FIFA 09 seems like a really nice game. And we are looking forward to continuing working with EA.
Ha játszani akarsz a neten:: #fifahungary @ Quakenet
