FIFA 11

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94tQ4LJaGhk

Demo details

Xbox 360 / PS3

Content: One full offline kick-off match, three-minute halves. You’ll be able to upload replay videos to easportsfootball.com (which will be launching with a whole new design on 2nd September).

Release Dates:

SCEA / SCE Asia, Tuesday September 14

SCEE, Wednesday September 15

Xbox, Wednesday September 15

Teams:

Barcelona, Real Madrid, Juventus, Chelsea, Bayer Leverkusen, Lyon

Arena:

Player: Kaka

Goalkeeper: Petr Cech

Stadium:

Arena – South Africa

Game – Santiago Bernabeu

PC

Content: one full kick-off match, four-minute halves. You’ll be able to purchase the game digitally within the demo for the first time (you know, if you like it).

Languages: English language version will include text and audio. French, Italian, German and Spanish will also have the English audio, if people want it. Polish, Hungarian, Russian and Czech will have text only.

Release Date:

Thursday 16th September

Teams:

Barcelona, Real Madrid, Juventus, Chelsea, Bayer Leverkusen, Lyon

Stadium:

Santiago Bernabeu

The demo will be available via digital download. We’ll have links to that up on easportsfootball.com when it goes live.

full game - looks very solid

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kz22WLE9uZY

Are people actually going to be playing 22-player online matches? Because that is so nuts and amazing.

looks good. I've been playing PES2010 for a change up and it just isn't up to snuff. Very excited to go back to FIFA.

Are people actually going to be playing 22-player online matches? Because that is so nuts and amazing.

― Gravel Puzzleworth, Wednesday, September 1, 2010 7:09 PM (51 minutes ago) Bookmark

I've never even tried the 10 v 10, which I hear is a real clusterfuck for the most part. We should try an ilx ps3 club this year though?

I've been playing PES2010 for a change up and it just isn't up to snuff

never mind as a change, as a dedicated PES stan 2010 is a piece of shit.

Yeah, it pretty much is. I just needed a break after FIFA 10 and the World Cup game; but then the season started and I had an itch so figured a few months of PES2010 would be refreshing, but the AI is all janked.

I just wish FIFA 11 ps3/360 was getting the 5 vs 5 indoor & street mode that the wii version is getting - would make for a fun change of pace. I guess they have to save something for next year. A stadium editor would be nice too (this year's PES is getting one & EA even put one in Madden).

stadium editor would allow you put put tiger pits around the foul lines like in gladiator yn?

ps3 demo is up in North America, 1.5GB

Tried a few games - I like the improvements. Ball is weightier, so you can get decent dip on long shots, and passes need more oomph. I've sprayed some passes into the opposition by trying one touch with the likes of Puyol which is definitely a plus as well.

One negative: in the demo you can still cheese pretty hard with the X button on d to pressure the ball and often win it; I hope the stamina hit that causes in a longer game makes it really detrimental.

I'm so used to playing Be A Pro mode that I'm having a hell of a time - I'm not used to building the whole attack nor switching defenders. I'll probably get used to it by the time the game releases and I never play that way again.

Played a couple games... seems unsurprisingly solid. Passing felt the same... still easy to ping pong the ball along (at least with Real Madrid). Defense felt slightly better w/ additional jockeying for possession animations... maybe minor improvements to the computer A.I. when they're on offense? Menus seemed faster and cleaner - will see if that carries over to the final game. I didn't like the factoids popping up on screen during the match - kind of distracting. The only "major" difference I noticed was with throw-ins and goal kicks, they've gone back to a magic circle that you can't move your player into, like in old PES - an improvement to the weird jerky animation that was going on there in the last few games, I guess.

Can't wait till they drop the PC demo on Thursday to see how that engine works and if the graphics are better, particularly if the PC version cut scenes run at 60 FPS instead of the 15-20 FPS (or whatever) on console.

just seems the same as 10 to me

PES is rubbish on the 360 pad ;_;

I want to buy FIFA 11 but I can't think of any reason why. what have I become

Kind of hard to keep the ball with this new 360 jostling thing - seems like anyone who gets close to my guy gets the ball. Are they trying to make it like real modern football where no-one dribbles any more?

Lots of free kicks for sliding tackles that don't look like fouls to me as I don't support Arsenal.

Shooting feels different and I can't quite explain how yet but too many of my postage stamp corner curlers ended up middle of the goal.

Had two penalty shoot-outs vs Leverkusen and they missed the target with every single penalty.

did you try the PES demo? I'm thinking about picking that up if I can get it cheap on launch day and if I can get a PS2 pad adaptor for the 360

I'll get the PES one tonight - took me over two hours to download FIFA 11 :(

Had two penalty shoot-outs vs Leverkusen and they missed the target with every single penalty.

This is a glitch in the demo, pretty LOL, but will be fixed in the final game obvs.

seems like anyone who gets close to my guy gets the ball

Felt like this was slightly improved from last year, as you can now dribble around them a little easier, but yeah, if you see a guy coming towards you holding X, it's best to pass pass pass. It's sort of the FIFA style. Defensive player gains the ball 90% of the time, but this evens out, since it's the same for you when you're on defense?

ok played this last night - ball dynamic feels very different, seemed very (too) easy to steal the ball (altho I might have just been playing at an easier level than I'm used to). I might be projecting here but the personality thing actually seemed noticable (eg. Barca playing in a Barca style)

Played the demo last night too, still waiting on the PES 2011 to download. Think this will be another year I don't bother with a football game. Pressuring a player with x gives away a soft free kick 90% of the time, just like Fifa 10, and I just didn't have any fun playing it at all. I'll give it another few goes, but niggly things like soft free kicks will just enrage me (like when they added hand balls to PES and they happend at least once a game when you have no control over it).

Did I make it up or did an old PES or FIFA once have a dive button (R1/RB?)? I think the same one had a serious foul button where you could just punch someone off the ball and get sent off. Also running in and taking the keeper out with a brutal two-footer just because you could...

lol denilson dance is in
http://www.easportsfootball.co.uk/media/play/video/36109703

as is hand ball urgh
http://www.easports.com/media/play/video/36473295

Reportedly, hand ball you can toggle on/off completely, or just toggle on/off in the box. I'm sure it happens too much (first year implementation by EA of these sort of things leans toward egregious or overpowered), but I'm not against the idea, especially if you can turn it off inside the penalty area.

yeah, if EA devise some bullshit for FIFA they are WAY more interested in showing it off by shoving it in your face all the time than in whether it makes the game more or less fun to play e.g. ball hitting the ref, defenders stopping and raising their arm instead of pursuing a through ball OMG IT'S SO REALISTIC I AM DELIGHTED THAT HAPPENED WHAT FUN I AM HAVING NOW

lol - altho where's the fun if you can't have handballs in the box?

PES3 handballs were a total pita, it's a cute idea but it's very very annoying in practice

cannot for the life of me decide betw. FIFA and PES this year. FIFA feels like it's stayed absolutely the same since last year, barring some nice new animations and an almost imperceptible dip in speed. PES is much improved and is actually quite fun to play but it still feels a bit stiff animation wise and the ball physics feel off. plus the 360 pad is awful for PES. FIFA's a great game and you can play some beautiful football but the manager mode was all sorts of buggy last year and I find games can get very shapeless very quickly and bogged down, muddled and messy in the midfield. plus all the goals feel pretty samey. PES has personality but is still lacking a little.

can't rutter and seabass just combine forces already? guh

will probably just come down to the launch day price tbqfh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSbuJzuqiHI&feature=player_embedded#!

xp - or you know sit out this year's releases...?

UNPOSSIBLE

I sold FIFA10 pretty quickly, so essentially sat out last year's batch. will probably end up sitting these out too actually. stick to PES4 most probably. why don't konami just upscale and reskin PES4 and upload it to XBLA/PSN I ask you

If you wan't classic PES play it on the Wii and ignore the playmaker controls.

You know, if they included playmaker controls in the PS3 version I'd buy a damn Move. Best way to play football I've yet found, but it looks pretty damn awful on an hd set.

omfg is the pk shootout horrible in this or what? otherwise it feels exactly the same as 10 after two games, a bit slower maybe

yeah missed every single PK last night

PK shootout is the same as in the World Cup game. I prefer it to just pressing shoot and hoping - the developers admitted that the old system was a behind the scenes dice roll to see if the keeper got it or not, no matter where the shot went. At least this isn't that.

and i trust whoever came up with the crossbar sound has been fired

xp: OK, but a system where scoring on a PK becomes pretty difficult seems a bit flawed. Same with the FKs which now seem pretty impossible. Or maybe I should just practice more.

Practice is essential. They had a great practice mode in World Cup for PKs, and I hope they port it over.

PKs are extremely easy - practice for one minute and you will never miss the target again. Not sure if there is a practice mode in the demo(?), but I'm sure it will be in the final game (like in WC). Basically you shoot when the sliding bar moves to the center, the longer you hold down the button the harder you will kick (halfway is usually good), aim left right or center, up or down as you are powering up your shot, but the key thing is just to start pressing that shoot button when the meter is green (i.e. in the middle)... here's a video that explains it too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2DD-VIuEIo

probably end up sitting these out too actually. stick to PES4 most probably.

After playing a bunch of both demos, I'm starting to feel pretty much the same way, but sticking to PES6 PC (for 1080p and widescreen), which is what I've been playing lately anyway.

The penalties seem a lot harder to miss than in the World Cup game, you can hold the direction down almost the entire run up and not put it wide.

Somebody really needs to get all football game makers ever in a room and do a little powerpoint presentation explaining that goalposts do not make a metallic clang when a ball hits them.

It's obvious that this game is a descendent of FIFA 10 with WC2010's penalty system cut and pasted in, as opposed to it being a year long evolution with WC2010 as the intermediary stage. The WC game felt fun and creative on attack with the 360 dribbling, without being too easy, but this is just back to the same old stressful constant harassment from two AI defenders at all times, regardless of how much energy they've used up snapping at your heels.

It is better on Co-Op cam if you have a decent TV though, because you have more of an idea where your escape routes and unmarked team-mates are.

Also, dunno if anybody's mentioned but if you say you're a novice at the start you get slightly longer halves, and you can bump the difficulty and controls up in the options anyway.

this is actually amazing to me, for use in the game:
http://www.4shared.com/dir/u5SQpiCd/sharing.html#

^^^blowing my mind, hope they're high enough in the mix. celtic chants are fields of athenry, soldier song, you'll never walk alone, this land is your land, hate the rangers...

The final product (with the 1.02 patch) is such a huge improvement over the demo it's surprising that the demo was allowed out as is. I agree with Sarge up there - the demo was all high pressure and too fast to boot. However, normal speed seems fine this year (I played last year on slow), and the defensive AI is much choosier about when to pressure and to stick in foot in. Personality+ actually does differentiate the players in both move sets, speed, aggression and the like and stars play like stars.

So far (5 or 6 games in) I'm pretty impressed. It improves on the last iteration in almost every area. I say almost because I haven't played around with franchise mode yet and that had some serious problems last year. Very happy with my day one purchase, at least on the morning of day two.

feelin this, definitely agree with EZ that post-patch the pressing is less of an issue

recalled aquilani from loan, brought in mata and carrick, offloaded kuyt and some others; just beat man u 3-1 at old trafford

\m/

euch I'm addicted; they've done a great job of making fatigue and stamina meaningful this year and the star players definitely play like stars... doesn't quite have the ~soul~ or individuality of PES' quite down but it's getting there

don't think mata is adapting too well to the english game : /

Yeah, pleasantly surprised by how much better this is than the demo.

Midfield battle/use of space really satisfying, there's an ebb and flow to the game and if you're having to constantly press to deal with Man utd your players are realistically heavy legged by the 80th minute. Fast strikers as substitutes can have a real impact.

Seems so far like the commentary's really pretty good for what/who it is, as well?

Not sure about the career mode just yet. On my first month, Spurs lost Ledley to One Of His Injuries and signed Alex on loan to cover him, which was reasonably logical I guess, but then when I played them they had Glen Johnson at right back. It's not entirely dumb to imagine Spurs hoovering up Liverpool's players with their Champions League status but I feel like maybe nothing should happen in the first transfer window of the game so you get to play a season with things as they actually are before it all goes mental and Drogba fires West Brom to the 2013 title or whatever.

OK so it plays a good game of football but it randomly freezes, you get the same teams in cup draws every year and the online is unusable. It's week two of an EA game release again, folks!

Okay, just got this for PC after not playing a football game for years, and am struggling to beat Accrington Stanley with Arsenal. I can't figure out how to:
a) challenge for headers (the dude highlighted seems to do his own thing whether I press anything or not)
b) make any kind of tackle without getting a yellow card - or any kind of defending at all actually, I run after the opposition guy, but he passes to a team-mate and screws me up. We're still talking about AS here!
c) Shots are always either too limp if I just tap shoot, or go whizzing over the bar if I hold it down for a fraction longer. WTF?

will gareth bale be on next year's cover: y/n

n.

Sold this, bought PES, am happier man.

PES is sick this year

so like I was a huge fan of this series on the XBOX, so I got this, and like...I'm frustrated with my lack of offensive prowess. Maybe it's because I'm playing as Man U with Rooney injured, but no matter how many arrays of precise passes or crosses I do, every time my striker dribbles he gets overtaken.

I'm playing against Leeds United and getting shut out, and won my last two matches against shit opponents 1-0 each time. I have read the instructions on fancy dribbling tricks but like they're too hard to set up frequently.

how do you all generate your offense? I remember on the old XBOX the FIFA World Cup game was ridiculously easy, but the regular FIFA game was really hard!

The AI pressures you ridiculously down the middle, but not so much on the wing, where you actually have a chance of using pace to get clear.

The controls are a bit too syrupy and require too much anticipation to make it feel really easy or worthwhile to use stepovers and shit against opponents who are pressuring you relentlessly - the drag back/heel flick Ronaldo-y one where you press forward then back on RS can be quite good for getting clear of an opponent you're running parallel to

When you're trying to change direction with the ball in the centre you've got to hold down L2/LT to use close control, and steer as clear of the defender as possible as they can basically shunt you off the ball if they can get within two feet of you

The World Cup 2010 game is basically this game with less features but more open and fun matches

yea i often try the wing and try to lob in a cross. i seem to remember i was quite good on the older games with crossing into the box and heading in a goal but i can't ever seem to get a head on the ball, and when i do it goes straight at the goalie.

guess I just need a lil more practice.

the practice mode is quite good cos you can just play for like 20 minutes straight and try and develop the basic possession-retaining habits through repetition

also you can just foul the opposition if they get the ball

Practice is the key - it's very difficult to run at defences, other than down the wings, but quick, clever passing does pay dividends. I tend to defend deep and attack on the break. It seemed incredibly hard at first, particularly in comparison to the World Cup edition, but gets much easier as you learn to anticipate where players are going to move into space.

yea this is frustrating. i jsut went down 2-0 to leeds united and angrily turned off the game before i destroyed my controller.

how the hell does a club with a below 70 defensive rating play stickling defense, even when I'm touch passing and weaving beautifully.

What formation are you using? I play with two up front and a diamond in midfield which means i've got someone just behind the strikers to supply through-balls. A flat 4-4-2 seems harder to work with and 4-3-3 often leaves the central striker isolated.

to be honest, I didn't even mess around with it and used the team's default. I think 4-4-2 is what I was using.

is there an actual practice mode on this game, i couldn't find one when I last tried.

i think i'll try 4-3-3. i'm generally pretty ok at defense but when I get frustrated at the offensive end i tend to play too aggressive defensively and do stupid things.

Worth playing a few games online as well, if you can. The ranking system means you're never out of your depth and human opposition is often easier to break down defensively.

Some good advice here. Online play is def more open and imo fun than vs AI

thanks for the advice, guys, I took a lot of it (including the 4-3-3), and now my mojo's back. have scored 7 goals in the last two games, almost posted two clean sheets in a row except for a fluke goalie clearance that somehow got deflected back in the goal.

forgot how tough the game is, you really have to have your reaction time up or you can't even complete a series of passes. I've become a master at the head-in goal from the wing now too.

the only maddening thing is when you're in the goal box, and are marked, and have another player coming alongside, and you try to dish it to him, but the idiot passes it forward instead.

Won promotion with Cardiff City, got less transfer money than I did in the Championship and lost half my starters because they were loaners.

Playing with Liverpool next time.

so it's that time of the year - FIFA 12 looms on the horizon - anyone heard anything about it?

I hear they're updating Rooney's hairline on a daily basis.

Better player physics, apparently. More sense of momentum and impact.

Not expecting a massive overhaul but the demo should be out the second week of September.

yeah, just read EA's press release and no matter how many times the word revolutionary popped up, it def. felt like a minor revisions. Although, who am I kidding, I'll be getting this on the week of release

i threw up a general thread for new fifa and pes etc here:

OMNIBOOT: all new all embracing compendium thread for soccer, soccerball, and association football related videogames excluding management sims

I read something about how the new collision physics on a test demo were hyper sensitive - players going down like they'd been shot after a slight impact [INSERT YOUR OWN JOKE HERE FFS]. Could be annoying, along with the new 'realistic' injuries, because Roberto upthread is OTM:

yeah, if EA devise some bullshit for FIFA they are WAY more interested in showing it off by shoving it in your face all the time than in whether it makes the game more or less fun to play e.g. ball hitting the ref, defenders stopping and raising their arm instead of pursuing a through ball OMG IT'S SO REALISTIC I AM DELIGHTED THAT HAPPENED WHAT FUN I AM HAVING NOW

I'm always a bit wary about the intial demo reports as the shock of the new and lack of time to get to grips with nuances are always going to be a challege. The first ten games of FIFA 11 i played seemed to be disjointed midfield battles that ended 0-0 but things pick up when you relearn how to play it. That said, i'm still not sure it's as much fun as '10 or the World Cup edition.

otm

has anybody tried the 12 demo yet? Downloading

tried to make an all-in-one thread but it's struggling to take:
OMNIBOOT: all new all embracing compendium thread for soccer, soccerball, and association football related videogames excluding management sims

Might be a bit of an Israel/Palestine situation

If I'm gonna spend 80% of the game not having possession and struggling to learn to tackle they shoulda given me a decent length match

The referee's just headed the ball

I think I might hate this more than any game I have ever played

well i am definitely looking forward to trying this now

I might just be cranky from trying to play the demo on the top difficulty with manual controls but the team-mate AI is so thick as fuck when you're trying to get them to make useful runs

Also completely sick of somehow being offside from 50% of crosses, AI's crosses always finding a man and mine being complete shit, cunt AI strikers relentlessly goalhanging on goal kicks and the halftime entertainment being the same three shitty framerate replays from unrealistic camera angles as the last three years

The spending lots of time in defence thing doesn't bother me so much but it is fucking annoying when you wait two minutes without the ball, make a really good slide tackle at the end of it and concede a penalty and a red card as a result

Maybe the FIFA online season ticket rube pass this year entitles me to meet with David Rutter and do the Aphex Twin thing to him until his face melts? I dunno

It seems much easier to score than in Fifa 11. I can see a lot of online games ending 8-7 if the full version is the same.

i've never played the FIFA games but PES 2011 is fucking difficult and not a tremendous amount of fun if you don't have unbroken expanses of hours to memorize button combinations

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmOuegK-6Gw

dsp is going to be playing a fifa playthrough, should be fuckin hilarious.

did not get on with the FIFA demo this year

PES 4 lyfe

Hometown: Canada

Disappointingly, there's no Turkish or Czech leagues this year. From what i've read, the online matching system is going to be way better, though.