FIFA 11

Fifa 10 is so much better and more solid!
The AI is awful when playing virtual pro. team mates just run into oposition or kick the ball straight to them its ridiculous. Also the game crashes all the time. I love Fifa and was looking forward to this so much and this is the first time I hvae been genuinley angry with the game!

I thought i would leave my review until a week after playing the demo to put my true opinion of the game in my review rather than something hasty. Fifa 11 definately is harder to play than Fifa 10, but i remember saying that when playing the Fifa 10 demo when Fifa 09 was finishing. The player personality definately makes a huge difference now, as each player can perform certain moves/passes/shots in different ways. All of the old easy goals from Fifa 10 seem to be non-existant and some of the silly long throw ins off the bar and RB + Shoot always in from long range have gone etc.

The passing seems to be alot better now, you have to be accurate with passes and balance comes into this alot, like it does in real life. Shooting seemed hard to start with but you just need to keep at it. The main thing is to not think you are playing Fifa 10 and nearly start your game play from scratch.

I also think when you do manage to score a goal on expierienced level it is very rewarding as there arnt many opportunities to score easy goals any more. "We say that but within a week of playing the real Fifa 11, we will know the easy goals"

Overall i believe with the new manager mode, new in play upgrades etc will be best ever Fifa and will blow PES out of the water!

What happens when a game focuses much on becoming more realistic that it looses all it's enjoyability? Fifa 11 is the answer to this question. Sure it looks beautiful, and is still the forefront in football animation, visuals, player likeness and licenses. However this is where the positives end.
Fifa 11 aims to introduce more "realistic" passing, but all this seems to have done is restrict opportunities to create fluid, seamless football, realism sure is fun eh?
AI defending is so overpowered it's ridiculous. Rarely (if at all!) do they give away fouls, they can shrug any attacker off the ball with ease, and execute perfect 40 yard clearances directly to a fellow striker in the heat of play.
Opposition players will more often that not finish a game with a 100% passing rate, 100% tackling success, but will test your goalkeeper, tragically ironic given EA's new found obsession with "realism". AI attack is too weak and the defence is too strong, resulting in extremely unbalanced and frustrating matches.
Loose balls will almost always run favourably into the path of the opposition, often resulting in 3 or 4 tackles to finally successfully regain possession. Your own players will comically trip over each other, flying in all directions in a tragically farcical affair.
That's just some of the many issues and problems with Fifa 11, I haven't even started on the online glitches, mid-game freezing, non-existent player growth in Manager Mode and hilarious displaced commentary.
It may not happen in domestic week to week football, but I want to create 4 or 5 world class, defence cutting moves in a match, that's what I find fun. The only way you can score goals is through boring, repetitive moves that with leave you with no satisfaction The Fifa franchise has lost nearly all it's enjoyability, and I can no longer enjoy playing the beautiful game, because it's become pretty damn ugly.

Firstly - this review is based on the demo...

When I first played the demo I was left very underwhelmed (graphics and sound aside)... I couldn't pass, I couldn't shoot, and I couldn't get into it at all...

I kept at it and then realised I should stop playing it like Fifa 10! The more I played it the more I loved it... The through passes arn't as easy as FIFA 10 and there are a couple of small niggles with it being a Demo, however, I must have played 30 or so games not and I can honestly say it's the best football game I have played thus far... Once you get into it you realise just how good it is... You need to think about what you do and who you pass too - it really is the most realistic game I have played to date!

Passing - The passing is excellent and it really depends who you are (player wise) as to how accurate and easy it is to pass. No more 1st time 30 yard passes without looking by a carthorse center half! Takes a while to get used too but once you do it's fantastic...

Shooting - At last you can rattle them in and hit low shots with real power. Like passing it takes a while to let used too but once you do the shooting system becomes second nature.

Player dynamics - Strength and power do come in to play along with skill... Players like Puyol can bounce lesser forwards out the way while skill players like Ronaldo perform dribbles and close control with the left stick (without the skill button pressed and with it pressed for additional skill moves) to glide past players... I really do see a difference with the personality pro with player attributes as well as passing and shooting...

Over all, a couple of demo niggles aside, I think this will be a must buy for any serious footy fan...

Don't follow the crowd in saying it's either boring or no different because they clearly played it for 10 minutes and have a very biased opinion either due to thier lack of skill or because they can not play this game as easy as they can play fifa 10. you simply can not ping pong pass, shoot from the halfway line and try to sprint past every player, because IT WON'T WORK!!!

You must pass the ball about like they do in a real football match and create a chance by using your brain instead of selling the copy after 10 minutes. You must give it a chance, and give yourself a chance to be good at the game, not just decided it's boring after a 6 minute a half match on career mode. try out everything new and everything old that has been improved, play as the goalkeeper, try out some of the newer features, explore the controls in order to better yourself and enjoy the game more as a result. so if you have this game and havn't played it much give it some extra time, if you don't have the game then you should at least rent it and see what you think but try and enjoy it and don't just say it's the same as the others because you need to give the game a chance!