So… FIFA09 and its notorious through-ball bug. Ouch—especially for PS3-owners, who seem to have drawn the shortest cross-platform straw (again).

There’s a patch in the offing. It’ll probably arrive in the next few weeks. I’m sure it’ll correct the problem and everything will be rosy. But it grates on me that we ever had to put up with the problem at all. It simply shouldn’t be like this.

What the frack happened in testing? What happened to games being released when they were ready? Let me rephrase that: whatever happened to games developers committing the necessary resources and personnel to a game to get it released BUG-FREE in the time available?

In the era of Internet-connected consoles, downloadable updates and patches, there’s a nasty new trend in the air. Games are pushed onto the shelves laden with the kinds of bugs and glitches that would have caused delays in previous eras. In the old days (not so long ago really) developers had to get it right within a specified timeframe, or they failed. Simple as. And they mostly didn’t fail. Games still appeared with bugs and glitches, of course they did. But nowadays the threshold of what is and isn’t acceptable on release day (Day Zero in developer-speak) is a lot lower. All because of the damn Internet—curse its miserable, virtual hide.

“We are all Beta-testers” has become an online cliche, applied to FIFA09 and to dozens of other games, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

The through-ball bug (also known as the side-shimmy bug, or ‘crab-walking’) in FIFA09 occurs when you play a through-ball to one of your players. (It’s also affected me whilst playing normal passes, but I won’t go there today.) For anyone who needs a refresher on the through-ball bug, here’s a clip of it in action. I’m currently seeing this happen two or three times in every game, often several times per half:

Instead of running smoothly onto the ball, the player inexplicably starts side-shuffling, dancing on the spot, slowing right down. It’s a ball-gathering animation that belongs in another context completely, when a player would be waiting for a slow pass from behind. Here, the player should be running ahead onto a ball in front of him. Hopefully this will be quite easy to fix. I have to say again: how could this have escaped the notice of EA’s playtesters? Perhaps it didn’t escape their attention, but it was too late to fix it so they just went ahead and published anyway, knowing they could rectify things with a patch. We really are just cash cows to the games industry, when it comes right down to it.

Instances of the bug SEEM to be related to the quality of players you choose to play with. Playing with Coventry, I suffer it several times per game; playing with better teams, maybe once per game, or once every other game. Many people report seeing the bug very rarely, or not at all. Xbox360 players seem to be the most fortunate, and I have to say that in my games on the 360 a few weeks ago I rarely saw it either. Some people claim never to see it. It exists, though. Oh yes. It exists.

I don’t think any football game in the history of football games has ever appeared with a bug quite like this one. The nearest comparable bug that springs to mind would be PES5’s ‘auto-stepover’ bug that constantly gave away silly, stupid, infuriating throw-ins. At least that bug never directly affected your goal-scoring efforts.

The FIFA09 through-ball bug penalises your patient build-up play by blowing a fat raspberry in your face. It blatantly robs you of clear goal-scoring opportunities. It smells, and I hate it I hate it I hate it.

I couldn’t blame the bug for my singular lack of progress in my Coventry City Manager Mode career. There are plenty of other ways to craft a goal in this great game (I still think it’s a great game) than the through-ball. My lack of goals is all my own fault. But the through-ball bug seems designed to infuriate struggling players in particlar, who might only create a handful of chances per match.

I’ve played another few games of my career. I managed a draw, but lost three games. A game against Norwich saw the worst-yet manifestation of the through-ball bug. 0-1 down with seconds to go, I somehow fashioned a killer through-ball to set my striker loose for a one-on-one opportunity—but my striker side-shimmied instead of running with the ball, and the defenders got back to smother the chance.

I’m about as resoundingly bottom of the league as it’s possible to be. I’ve had all the warnings from the board. I’ve had the dreaded vote of confidence. I predict that I will be sacked from this career within the next few games.

I didn’t feel like playing PES today. Let me correct that: I didn’t feel like playing PES2008 today. I almost didn’t play it. I had my copy of PES5 in my hands and was about to uncork it (a very fine vintage), when I remembered that I’m only two games short of the mid-season Negotiation Period in my PES2008 Master League career. I might as well get them out of the way.

It never used to be like this. It used to be the case that my PES disc lived in my console for months at a time and saw daily action without me giving it a second thought. PES2008 has a lot to answer for.

To be brutally honest, I think I have almost given up on PES2008. I don’t play it with any kind of enjoyment or involvement. There’s little or none of the sheer joy that’s sustained my Master League play for almost a decade now.

There are lots of reasons for this. I’ve spoken of them ad nauseum over the past few months. The primary reason is the game’s ease after you get some good players. I’m struggling with the default squad, but I know that these struggles are almost worthless. All I have to do is make it to the negotiation period, and then everything will be different. There’s no sense that I’ll have to start playing well or anything.

—————–

In my last two games before the mid-season period, I played Feyenoord and Parma, two teams who presented my Default players with a formidable challenge.

I came into these games on a run of nine consecutive defeats.

Something was different today. Perhaps it was the pervasive bank holiday ambience that is still very much in the air. I was relaxed, and instead of playing with the defaulters as if they are the world-beaters that I will soon (too soon) be playing with, I played very much to their strengths and taking account of their weaknesses.

The first and most important thing with the default players is not to concede goals. You have to defend doggedly, with discipline. This is advice I have singularly failed to heed for most of this season so far. (Largely because I’m just not bothered.)

It is possible to defend well with the likes of Stein, Ceciu, Baumann et al. It’s tough and it’s hair-raising at times, but it is possible. You have to maintain a low attack/defence posture, and ensure that you don’t drag your defenders out of position when chasing a pacy winger or tracking a midfielder running through the centre.

The second most important thing is to keep possession as much as possible. This is easier than it sounds, even with the default stiffs. Post-match possession stats of 65% or so in your favour are easily achievable. One-touch and two-touch passing is the key. Never try to run with the ball, unless there are no CPU players within 10 yards. Lay the ball off as soon as a CPU player comes within 5 yards. You need to lay it off ‘early’ because of the way the default players handle. There can be an appreciable delay between pressing the pass button and the action being carried out; there can also be a loss of passing accuracy with a CPU player very close by.

Using these techniques, and being patient, and being content with 0-0 scorelines if that’s what I had to do, I had two very good games against Feyenoord and Parma. I beat Feyenoord 2-1, and drew 1-1 with Parma. I’ve stopped the rot, and now I’m about to enter the mid-season negotiation period. I decided to save it for tomorrow.