A kick up the Barca
I’ve settled into FIFA09′s Manager Mode a little better now, after feeling pretty fed-up with it yesterday. I still have grave misgivings, and I seriously doubt the mode’s long-term staying power. But, for now, I’m hip-deep again in my Atletico Madrid career.
I’m doing great in the League—top of the table and undefeated after 17 games. Granted, I’m ‘only’ playing on Professional difficulty. It’s the middle of 5 difficulty levels in FIFA09, and a fairly easy one after you get used to the game. Combine it with a juicy enough array of semi-manual and manual control settings, though, and you have a pretty tough game nevertheless.
I played my last season with these settings. It was a disappointment, with numerous niggly defeats that left me a miserable 6th in the table. I’m allowing myself to finish this season using the same settings, and then I have to go up to World Class and stay there.
I have suffered one notable defeat. It came in the first leg of a Spanish Cup tie. I met Barcelona at home and went into a 1-0 lead early in the second half. It was a satisfying breakaway goal. I finished it off from just outside the box, a bread and butter strike past the keeper. Who says you can’t score regular kinds of goals from outside the box in FIFA09?
That’s the new YouTube for you: all widescreen and stuff. Shame about not being able to see the damn ball after a while. I still haven’t found a satisfactory home for my FIFA09 goals. Something’s happened to LiveLeak, which used to be pretty good. Their upload routine has gone all weird for some reason. At least YouTube has now started accepted .flv files directly, but the quality is pretty awful, as seen above. The quest continues.
1-0 up against Barcelona at home in FIFA09 is a pretty good place to be. The same kind of scripting that would ensure a comeback in PES2009 under the same circumstances never really happens in FIFA09. It does have its own kind of scripting, but it’s a bit more subtle.
When the Barcelona fightback came I barely noticed it until I was 1-2 down. That’s when I started getting annoyed. The one scripting element that PES2009 and FIFA09 have in common is the drugging of your defenders when the CPU wants to exert pressure and/or score a goal. They all suddenly start moving in slow motion and reacting seconds too late to your input. Even spring-heeled youngsters fresh off the bench.
1-2 was the final score. With two away goals against me I’ll have it all to do in the return leg.
I’m not sure if its your method of uploading but some of the other videos of FIFA on youtube are pretty good. One poped up at the end of your clip called “I don’t want to be a FIFA09 keeper” or something to that likening and it looked alot better quality than your goal one.
I haven’t noticed any scripting in FIFA09 yet, perhaps I need to up the difficulity as on Professional they’re lucky to get more than 2 shots at goal in the entire match. I’m struggling with corners at the moment though, sometimes as it feels like I’m not able to get ahold of a player in the right position to defender the corner. Perhaps thats just how it should be though, sometimes players get away from defenders..
My mates PS3 broke last week and thus haven’t been able to get on it since. That also means I lost my MM game save too, looks like when I visit home for christmas I’ll have to start all over again
Paww – YouTube have only just started accepting .flv files directly and I uploaded the same .flv file to them that I used to upload to LiveLeak. I think those other clips are probably older, and were converted to AVI or WMV before being uploaded. I could do something like that but I’d prefer to upload directly. LiveLeak was just about perfect but it’s gone all strange, like I said (and they never liked hosting game clips anyway). I’ll have to look into this some more and find a good, stable home for all my clips. There are a few sites out there. A work in progress, this.
Shame about your MM save. Whenever I hear of PS3s breaking down I resolve to back up all my saved games to USB at least twice a week, but I do it once and then forget.
Scripting in FIFA09 usually manifests itself as a spell of CPU pressure that you’re mysteriously unable to break out of due to your players being mysteriously sedated—yes, just like PES, except it feels ‘fairer’ than PES’s equivalent for some reason.
Nice strike there!!
I have just started my 1st season on FIFA Manager Mode with MK Dons, after wining just about everything with Liverpool, I left and opted to start lower down.
Lost my 1st game 1-0 and won the 2nd 4-1 on Professional, if results keep on that path I will switch up to World Class.
Have you tried http://www.dailymotion.com/gb ?
They accept flv files too.
Paul – thanks, it’s not the greatest goal ever (far from it) but it is a bread and butter goal from outside the box, fired past the keeper at a regular height – something that’s actually pretty tricky in FIFA09 at times.
Thanks for the Dailymotion tip – how could I forget them!
And re. the difficulty level, are you still playing on Assisted control settings? If so then you would indeed find Professional very easy after a short time.
not-greg
I´m not reffering to this type of long range goals, as i see it in you goal you just take the ball from the deffence (pretty easy that in proffesional level and a not very satisfying way of building up the attack imo) and just shot with no obstacle between you and the goalkeeper. long range goals that i´m reffering to are thoss with the defence in it´s own penalty area and a bunch of my atackers too. You need to be playing with manchester barca or some bigteam and on professional level and with assisted shooting to see tose type of goals (most of them using the r2 button to bend the ball, so it works better with rooney, ronaldinho, ronaldo…).
Long range goal is deffinetly broken in Fifa, and playin manual doesn´t help at all, even in manual shooting you are helpless when the cpu decide to use the keeper as the hidden encripted arm. Tha keepers would stop anything you shoot and suddenly would be plainly stupid letting you score or allowing the cpu score easily. Fifa is great in two quarter of the pith, but the last quarter is mine with encripted situation that will slow your players, superfasten cpu defenders and attackers, and make the keeper awesome or poor depending the score the cpu decides its the appropriate for every MM game.
it´s been a long month playing fifa and i think that i just don´t trust the game when playin against the cpu (i Had i comeback in the last 5 minutes of a game scoring twice in full manual and i just felt like it was not me but the cpu guiding my passes to the goal (yes, i´m starting to doubt manual passes are totally free and the encripted is still there,))
Yes, i think i´m onto fifa fatigue at its peak and only playing now and then, enjoyin the first three quarter of the pitch and then, entering in the last quarter, loosing the control of the game and becoming an spectator with a little feeling of being (as fifa claim not without reason) in the game.
it´s a little mess all i write but forgive me, you know, FIFA fatigue is all over my mind.
fjmarlop – I wasn’t presenting the goal in the clip as a long-range goal, just as a bread-and-butter, bog-standard kind of goal from outside the box. (And the ease with which you can rob defenders is one of the poorest thngs about Professional, yes.)
Like you I’m puzzled about the lack of long-rangers (true long-rangers) in FIFA09. They DO come along, I’ve found, but all-too-rarely. I think it’s still too early to level this as a final criticism at FIFA09. For all the attention I’ve lavished on this game, I still think it has unlumpbed depths to show me.
While I totally agree with you that fifa 09 has the better gameplay, it still behind pes when it comes to shooting. Shootin in fifa doesnt feel right, its too floaty and the ball hasnt go the weight. It sometimes feels like you are playing in outer space with all the lightweight and floaty physics.
Although the shooting in FIFA isn’t quite perfect I still think it’s 1000 times etter than PES shooting. Not for how it feels but for how much control you have over it. It really has taken FIFA’s semi/manual shooting to show us just how little control you have over the shooting in PES, and that alot of it really is assisted.
I finally received mycopy of FM09 yesterday, not had the chance to get onto it yet, only installing it and downloading the patch thismorning, im away for the weekend also so I can’t see myself getting a whole lot of time but I am looking forward to it (although as I’ve said before it’s no 3D for me as my laptop wont run it. But from the little I’ve seen of it with my brother playing it on my old PC it’s not something i’ll miss?)
Nice goal not-Greg. I don’t know if I like you hosting on YouTube better than on EAs website. Now that I think of it, it makes no difference (though the quality suffers a little). All I’m hoping for is longer replays. For that I suppose you would need a camera. I’m proud of you doing so well with Atletico (10 W, 7 D, 0 D). Not bad at all.
If I understand difficulty level on Fifa 09, it seems that Professional allows you to regain possession with tackling far too easily, whereas World Class allow the other team to be able to dominate you. Also the quality of your side has a lot to do with how difficult the game can be for you. I think Atletico are a good side and could realistically make it to the top with a decent manager.
You are probably playing on difficult enough settings (with manual / semi-manual controls on). Notwithstanding, the silly transfer market, you probably need to consider how likely you want to be able to succeed before stepping-up. I really hope you don’t go on a long winless streak next as result of the step up.
shamv - as stinger remarks below you, one big reason why FIFA09 is a better all-round game is the sheer amount of control it lets you have over what happens on the pitch. Having said that, I know what you mean. I can still fire rockets in PES2009 (it’s hard to sometimes, but possible) and it just gives me that notorious ‘special feeling’ I’ve been used to getting over the past 10 years. FIFA09 is still the new kid on the block in this respect.
stinger - by the time get my gaming PC and FM2009, they’d better have fixed the 3D match. I’m definitely no CM/FM purist, and I love the whole idea of the 3D match, and would only get FM2009 if I can use it and there’s a point to using it. But right now I hear it’s buggy as hell and plagued with too many long shots and passages of play where the players just stand around.
steph_wheeler – the problem with simply linking to the replays on the EA website is that I’d never be able to overwrite that save ever again. They only give you 6 slots to save to. For the purposes of posting on the blog, there’s no alternative to downloading the replay file and uploading it myself somewhere else.
Professional is too easy on FIFA09, even with semi/manual settings. I’d always recommend it as a good ‘staging’ area, though. It’s ideal to learn semi shooting in particular, I’ve found.
I will be going up to World Class soon – but when…? As today’s (Thursday’s) post shows, I’ve decided to hell with it, I want to play Master League so I’m going to play Master League.