FIFA 11 (PC)
I hope this will help some people decide whether or not to get the game.
Fifa 11 PC – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
Specs in my sig.
OK! So, finally after a long wait which spanned from Fifa '04 to now, we finally have a Fifa game that actually feels like it comes from this era. More than that – it's the much acclaimed 'NG' engine that we've been demanding from EA for years. Now, first off for those not in the know, this isn't exactly the same game as Fifa 11 consoles, it's basically Fifa 10 'NG', with some World Cup 2010 elements thrown in, but it more than measures up to the console version.
Note – none of this review will apply to the on-line game, as I haven't tried it yet.
Now, on to the main review, after owning the game for around two weeks:
The Good....... (Fifa 11's best points)
The Bad........ (the parts which badly let it down)
and
The Ugly........ (those parts which could do with work, but don't actually hurt the game play).
Gunshots and Western music not included, sorry.
The Good:
Let's get it out of the way - was it worth the wait for all these years?
HELL YEAH!
Fifa 11 PC is for me the best football game ever to come out on PC. The game looks nice (especially when you're playing in one of the bigger stadiums – the generic ones seem to be the same old, same old we've had for years – only now they have 'real' names such as 'Ivy Park' instead of 'UK League Two Open Square). After all the years of Fifa on the PC featuring steel cage nets, papier-machet/alien hive (delete as appropriate) crowds and linesmen with flags made of cardboard, the game really feels like a breath of fresh air, with well animated players, a crowd that actually looks like it's watching football and linesmen who wave their flag properly. The usual PC idiosyncrasy of having a pitch that's too small/players that are too big, or a ball the size of a basketball is gone as well. One area where the visuals fall down a little is with the 'damaged' and 'snowy' pitches – they both look like low resolution rubbish.
With most Fifas I've played, you need to go to at least World Class to get any sort of challenge from the AI – in this game even Professional puts up a good challenge (provided you use full manual controls). I haven't tried World Class yet, but Legendary seems to have a much faster pace, the AI ping pong the ball around, and they shoot far too much as well. Legendary isn't my cup of tea, but Professional suits me fine and when Professional is mastered, I'm sure World Class will put up enough of a challenge to keep me going as well.
The game is now much less predictable, this is one of the key reasons why it's so much improved – in older Fifa PC games, since the ball and player weren't separate entities, it was impossible not to have some passages of play that appeared to be scripted somewhat – there were also far too many goals that were very same y, not to mention several methods to ensure a goal – something that hurts the longevity of a football game against the AI, as players will inevitably use such exploits. So far, I haven't come across any 'insta-goal' exploits off-line, at least. The AI has a lot more sense now, in nearly all other football games, including PES, they often try to take on a shot from a daft angle, whereas in this game, if there's a man in a better position, they'll usually pass to him – not always, but that's realistic. The AI is also very good at working your defence and showing patience when needed, with clever little passes in and around the box. Aerial balls are also of use now since they can carve a defence open – a manual aerial ball can be aimed at feet, or ahead of a player, leading to far more attacking possibilities. You now have to work hard to get your goals – for me, that's a major plus – others might disagree. Well, this is my review so, tough.
The ball physics are superb – a player will take a shot that is blocked by a defender and the ball will go up in the air, where it will be battled for via repeated aerial battles – an area where Fifa used to be very weak on the PC; headers seemed to come in only two types – bullet headers and slightly looped ones. Now, aerial battles are very satisfying and add a lot to the game. The one area I'd say is somewhat weak is goal-kicks – they nearly always end with the same result – the ball being headed down and possession being lost. That's strange considering the unpredictability of aerial battles in all other aspects of the game including open play and set pieces. Going back to those defender blocks for a minute, they're now much more committed, with defenders throwing themselves in the way of your shot instead of weakly sticking a leg out, which was the best you got in earlier PC Fifa games.
The flow of the games varies – you can have periods of midfield play and possession and frenetic end to end periods with some heart-stopping goalmouth moments! It's also a testament to the game's realism that you can select ten minutes per half, without ending up with a ridiculous scoreline.
Going back to 'manual controls' for a minute – if you were one of the many who disliked 'ping pong passing', manual controls eliminates this both for yourself and the AI – apart from Legendary mode, where the AI does ping the ball around too easily. Note: it's best to have a game pad for this game, especially if you're going to play with manual controls. A keyboard simply isn't designed for this amount of freedom. I strongly recommend playing with Manual controls – it's so much more satisfying when a ball is pinged 50 yards across field, cutting the defence wide open and landing just ahead of your man, when you know you did that yourself without any help from the computer.
All in all, there's not a huge deal more that needs be written about Fifa 11 PC's good points, because so much about the game just feels 'right', so you hardly notice it, yet it all adds to the game's overall excellence.
The Bad
It seems that, despite the engine being optimised across two years of development, many people are suffering lag/stuttering issues, despite having powerful high end, or at least midrange systems. This issue seems mostly predominant with Windows 7 64bit, but some users of Windows XP have also complained of this problem. Another problem is the game seems to crash far too much, usually after Management mode games – again, many people are experiencing this regardless of O/S. Also, despite the keyboard being an outdated control method for sports games, EA have treated those who use them somewhat shabbily here – working out the correct key based on the Xbox 360 icons must be incredibly frustrating.
The goalkeepers in this game need work – they're fine at pulling off amazing saves, but when it comes to holding a ball that is trickling across their path, they can't do it – they're far more likely to parry such a ball into the path of an advancing striker.
Management Mode seems to have a lot of bugs left over from Fifa 10 'NG', despite EA assuring us that sixty or so of them have been dealt with. The worst one I've come across so far was an occasion where I was playing as Charlton in League One and Leeds won the league (yes, Leeds are still in League One in this game). Leeds were not shown as promoted to the Championship, despite the game recognising them as Champions and there now seem to be two Leeds in the League Cup, along with two Gillingham s in League One(!) Sadly, Fifa 09 PC (the last Fifa I played before this one – due to Fifa 10 PC being a rehash of it) also suffered from such strange bugs and it's a real shame to see some of the bugs from that game resurface in this brave new world of Fifa on the PC.
The Ugly
Management mode itself. It's not very deep; you can't schedule your own pre-season tours, or even your own friendlies, as well as not being able to schedule actual training sessions for your players. The new 'Arena' mode seems to feature some training features, but it's not tied into your Management Mode, so this training isn't carried over to your players, giving them XP.
Other issues with MM concern transfers. You can't scout a player you're interested in, neither can you compare them against a player you already have. You can't decide exactly how much of a price tag you want to put on your star striker to ward off (or fleece) the Real Madrid and Man City s of this world and you can't do a cash+player swap. The only options are to loan, or buy. Another aspect of MM I don't like is there's no sense of negotiation. Either a player/club will accept or refuse your offer – there's no coming back with an improved offer, no sense of two clubs trying to haggle a price down (or up) – your only choice is to start completely fresh negotiations. Following on from this, whether or not a player comes to you seems to be wholly down to him and not his club! I haven't had one occasion where a club comes back and says something like 'we do not agree on your valuation of this player'. Nope, it's always down to Mr A. Football Star whether he wants to play for your club or not. That's rather unrealistic. Note – all of this could be made academic if Fifa Manager 11 features some kind of player/manager mode in Fifa 11's engine – and if you are prepared to shell out for a new game's features that should've been in Fifa 11 PC to start with.
The Assistant Manager is hopeless – I strongly recommend turning him off, as he is adept at playing players out of position and other such gaffes. Were he in this role for a real, he'd be fired very quickly.
Other 'ugly' stuff? The cut scenes overall, and for celebrations in particular. The scenes seem 'canned' as they did in earlier Fifa games; whereas the consoles seem to have finally embraced PES' superior method of zooming into the action after a goal, and allowing the celebration to proceed in an organic and flowing fashion, the PC version still features a scene showing a player celebrating miles away from where the goal was actually scored, or miles away from where you'd run with him using the new Manual Celebrations. This is a fun little idea, enabling you to run around after scoring a goal (the way we all did as children) and perform various celebrations, such as dives, somersaults, knee slides and so on – different celebrations can also be chained together. It sounds like a great idea, but in reality, it's somewhat stilted, robotic and unrealistic – while your player is running and doing his knee slide, the team mates will stop a distance behind him, instead of joining in the celebration. This is one of many examples.
The other problem with 'manual celebrations' is the AI never do them, so whenever they score, you have to endure the same few repetitive canned cut scenes. Following on from celebrations, there's no differentiation between a goal scored in the last minute of injury time, or a goal scored in the first five minutes of a match – I haven't seen one occasion where the whole team jump on the scorer to celebrate an especially important goal. Trophy celebrations are similarly soulless, featuring a few players celebrating – without a trophy in sight. Going back to cut scenes for a moment, some of them are just plain broken – for example when the losing side on a penalty shoot-out celebrate(!)
The cut scenes on the consoles are also generally speaking more polished and they also have cool stats that pop up during the match, giving the commentators something helpful to talk about – they range from a team's overall possession to how many passes a particular player is made. I'm bewildered about why this wasn't included in the PC version, along with the improved celebrations and cut scenes.
The physical element of the game is overplayed and could do with some toning down. It's far too easy to get the ball off the AI (and the same applies to them getting the ball off you) – the levels of pressure are slightly ridiculous. This can be helped by judicious use of the shielding button, and seems to be improved on 'slow' settings, but it's still by far the worst aspect of the game play
The AI, while generally excellent, have no idea how to form a defensive line. It's nearly always far too high up the pitch, leading to many balls over the top resulting in shots at goal. The game is a real stiff challenge, if this aspect was fixed, it would be even more so and goals would be even more satisfying when you do actually manage to bulge the ol' onion net.
The crowd sound overall and especially their reaction to the matches could really do with some work. Granted, there are many chants in the game, but they're all far too quiet – you can hardly hear them – something that could so easily have been remedied and may yet be by EA, who knows (if not, the modders will do something eventually). There's no surge of excitement from the crowd as a winger sprints down the pitch, or when a last minute corner is earned to a trailing home team, no applause for a successful long ball or no screams for justice when their man is fallen inside the box and the referee hasn't given a penalty. The cheer for a goal is satisfying, but after it's been scored, the crowd return to their previous malaise – it's as though they couldn't care less about what's going on and someone's stuck a sign up when a goal goes in saying 'CHEER!' This, along with the passionless cut scenes, hurts the atmosphere of the game somewhat. Again, maybe the modders will be able to do something with this, we'll have to wait and see.
The commentary is all over the place. While the script itself and the delivery is OK, the lines so often have nothing in common with what's going on down there on the pitch! A few examples: the keeper pulls off a blinding save – 'no trouble for the keeper at all there'. Keeper catches a regulation ball? 'Great save by the keeper!' Samples for strikers and defenders seem to be frequently mixed up, and the commentary's attempt to show a living football world by tracking your progress falls flat on its face far too often. I went on an unbeaten run of thirteen games, with only two draws, and upon coming out for the fourteenth game, the commentary said that my team 'had lost the previous game and were lacking in some confidence(!) There have been several other examples of this as well. It's also really annoying the way they keep making excuses for the players based on the weather! Striker botches an open goal? 'Maybe the snow got in his eyes, it's very bad weather out there' (without a hint of sarcasm I might add). No, Andy. He missed an open bloody goal, that my grandma could've scored when she was still with us! Nothing to do with the snow.
Speaking of the weather, EA seem to think that the sun never comes out in England. I went an entire season without one sunny day match. Far too many matches happen at night (apart from those that should, such as League Cup matches/some FA Cup matches, midweek league matches, Champions League and European League matches). EA also retain their nonsensical idea that only certain stadiums can have certain times of day/weather and to add to that, we still have a white ball for snowy matches.
Offsides are so predictable!! EA, please take a look at how PES does this. You never know if you've scored or not, as the game will continue as though you have scored, only to put the boot in with the linesman's late flag. Of course, if it was a blatantly obvious offside, you'd see an early flag and that would be an end to it.
Now to sum up, having said all of that, the game's positives far outweigh its negatives – I've only gone into such detail on the downside here so the EA team can see what needs the most work. As you've probably noticed, most of the 'negatives' were to be found in the 'Ugly' section - most of them would come under Presentation and/or Cosmetic niggles.
As I said already if so much about the game feels right, then it's not a helpful review to spend the entire time singing the game's praises. This game is worth every penny of the £24.99, I'm positive it'll keep most people happy until Fifa 12 PC comes along, which with any luck will be exactly the same game as the console so to avoid any confusion as to each game's merits or otherwise.
