1st NIGHT WITH FIFA 11 - Dazraz's Blog

Dazraz's Blog

1st NIGHT WITH FIFA 11

Posted on October 2, 2010 at 09:22 AM.

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My buddy & me were up until 4 this morning enjoying a marathon session of FIFA 11.

Without doubt the best in the series. FIFA 11 does all the good things that FIFA 10 did but does it all better. From the improved layout of the front end menu to the exquisite player models & stadiums. Visually you cannot fail to be impressed. It's when the game plays out & the subtle player animations seamlessly string together that you get the feeling this game is another solid step forward from last year.

The big notables in gameplay improvements are the improved defensive AI & the much improved goalies. In fact having played through over 20 games of 6 minute halves we didn't come across any silly goalkeeping blunders or traits where they could be exploited. Creating scoring opportunities are tough but when you do put together a successful move the satisfaction is really special. Sometimes the defence does back off a little too much giving you a shooting opportunity but this doesn't happen frequently enough to be a problem.

I can't comment on the career or online modes as all our games were played as 2 player co-op versus the AI offline in tournament mode.

What EA have done a lot better this year is distinguish between top flight teams & lower tier sides. Last year I was consistently capable of beating any team irrespective who I played with as the only real difference seemed to be that the best teams players ran faster than those of the weaker sides. Once you could eliminate getting caught on the break you could nullify the oppositions advantage. This year, largely thanks to Personality+, the top players are distinguished by their abilities to pass accurately, control the ball & create openings. This is very evident, as it should be, when playing with a Premiership team against a League 2 side. I was sceptical that Personality+ might be one of the those EA features with a fancy name but with little impact. I'm glad to say my doubts are put to rest.

The tournament structure has changed in appearance from FIFA 10 & includes news headlines & better presentation although there is still little depth here. When simming a game rather than just getting the result the game sims out at at rate of about a minute a second giving you the match events as they happen as well as keeping you up to date with other scores from the competition. In this last detail I was quite pleased. In previous versions there was very little feedback from what was happening with other teams but this feature improves on that. You even get score updates from around the league whilst playing the game as well as other match scores at Halftime & Fulltime.

The game is, of course, not without it's niggles. The commentary, although initially quite solid, soon starts falling into the same consistent series of incorrect responses. Due to the vast number of teams/leagues within the game it also remains very generic.
Celebrations when winning a Cup are slightly better but not as impressive as on FIFA Road To The World Cup.
Replays at the end of the halves still seem to be randomly assembled & often fail to recall exciting moments of the match.

Probably my biggest pet hate of FIFA 11 is the penalty system. No doubt time taken practising can improve the success rate but I couldn't help feeling that there was quite a random element at work as to whether the shot would be on target.

In summary.

The PROS:-

1.) Yet more gameplay improvements/refinements. Personality+ is awesome.
2.) Improved visuals.
3.) Stat Overlays during games & updates on other games in progress.
4.) Much better goalkeeper AI.
5.) Referee personalities.

The CONS:-

1.) Penalty system feels random.
2.) Commentary is often inaccurate & generic.
3.) Replays at the end of each half are not always representative of the key moments. Replays don't always play back the whole build up play.
4.) Season modes still lack depth.
5.) Tournament celebrations are weak once again.

If anyone has any questions regarding FIFA 11, post them & I will try to answer them all.

Comments

# 1 statum71 @ Oct 2

Can you still only control up to 8 teams in tournamemt mode?

Are all the tournament games still the same? (Day games in same stadium with perfect weather)

# 2 Dazraz @ Oct 2

Quote:


	statum71 @ Oct 2 (10 Minutes Ago) Can you still only control up to 8 teams in tournamemt mode? Are all the tournament games still the same? (Day games in same stadium with perfect weather)

You can control up to 64 teams in any tournament. So basically you can control every team in any competition.
Game time & weather conditions are randomly generated for each game. I've had everything from sun, rain & snow.