[umd]

Big shock on that article. Pasta is an EA shill. Talk about homers.

I've been able to play a few 5 on 5 games (when the server is actually up) and it's a ton of fun. If they can get things working - supposedly by the "end of the week" (whatever that means) it should be a feature I'll use long term.

My gripes w/ online so far for 5 on 5:

*Static team matchups are going to suck pretty soon. They should either completely randomize the matchups or add in a ton of more even matchups w/ multiple options.

*lag is there for me about every 3rd game and I've played about 10-12 games online so far. Even played about half 5v5 or 4v4 w/ minimal lag - maybe just dumb luck or being PST? Servers down a bit too much for my taste though.

*there needs to be a quicker kick mechanism for laggers. This 30 sec stuff is one of the problems probably.

*there needs to be a kick for idling players or auto control option for someone who needs to "pause" for 2-3 mins. Twice I've had a player just stop playing - once it was Chris Paul and once it was T-Mac so we were stuck with a "dead man". When it's the PG and your C is a cpu player it's 8 secs after 8 secs in the backcourt.

*While I like the teamwork grade concept, ranked 5 on 5 ers should have some kind of option of grading their teamates factored in as well.

*shooting percentages are a bit on the high side, but I guess that's a tradeoff for game length.

*some sort of pregame or lobby chat would be nice for teams before the game.

Overall, it is a pretty fun mode to play with a lot of potential if the lag/problems get ironed out reasonably quickly.