[BL8001]

I played 5 matches.

Skipped the man city liverpool startup match and went right into the main menu.

Then Kickoff, picked me as Man Utd and went to Villa park.

The game starts by telling me do I want dynamic difficulty? I say why yes of course. Game looks beautiful and the prem stuff is quality.

Game begins and its pretty balanced, definitely different than the demo. RB contain works again and I double teamed the CPU, won the ball, slotted it wide, brought it over the half line, passed inside to Rooney who dumped it off to Di Maria who then passed it wide, crossed in to the box and Di Maria had made a splendid run and nods it in for the 1 nil lead.

Then the game decided oh you think you are pretty good don't you?

Suddenly Villa was faster to every ball and crisper in their tackles. The game completely turned with Villa now dominating and Man U on their heels. I defended tooth and nail for the next 60 minutes and then Villa broke out on the wing, early cross, slot it in near the top of the box, the guy fakes my CB and bangs home the equalizer.

Whoa. CPU has never done that to me before, ever.

Then it gets a little more balanced again and Man U threatens twice but nothing comes of it. Villa is sitting back looking for the draw. The ball stays in their half, but then I had to pass back to my CB because villa was so compressed. There was space so I ran into it and passed out to my RM. He lost his mind and basically ran away from the ball. The CPU LB ran up and got the loose ball and because my CB had not gotten back into position I was exposed. The LB hit the CM who then chucked a perfect through ball out to the ST on the counter. my LB was the closest to the play but chasing. I ran down the ST but not before he unleashed a shot from the top of the box that found the net.

2-1 Villa. Park the bus of course. I pretty much live in their penalty area for the rest of the match and in the 90th I grab the equalizer. Some class moves by Di Maria, pass to Rooney, cracks a shot, keeper parries to the feet of RVP who bangs home the goal. Tie. It asks me what I want to do post 90 minutes and I pick Draw.

The game pops up a screen and suggests I play on Semi Pro. Huh? Ok whatever.

So the next game I go in as me, Stuttgart vs Werder.

Diff camera angle and rain. This is how you make a game EA. Vary the conditions constantly. So far so good.

I take the CPU's heed and allow the change to Semi Pro. Game was fun and the CPU still had some bite but it wasn't the same as PRO. I won 1-0 on a really nice looking goal. The game just looks tremendous. Problem with that match is the CPU had 0 shots. So CPU you are wrong, Semi Pro is not my level.

Then it occurred to me. The Beginner difficulty level addition has made a huge change to this game.
15 Beginner is 14 Am
15 Am is 14 Semi Pro
15 Semi Pro is 14 Pro
15 Pro is 14 World Class
and so on.
It really works out more to be like difficulty .5. So Pro this year is really Pro.5

Some cool things;
CPU will allow the ball to bounce. This is pretty monumental. Both in the box and more importantly when the ball is cleared from the CPU D the player it is kicked towards will not just cleanly trap it and start the counter every time. Now he judges the bounce or over plays it and then collects it. A HUGE CHANGE.

The CPU will pass errantly, pass accurately, shoot wildly, shoot deadly, tackle strong, slide tackle, kick it out of bounds, kick it up in the air, lose the ball out of bounds, etc

The CPU plays the most human it ever has. So hats off to EA for that.

One example. I was applying pressure as Monaco vs Nantes. It had been in their end for awhile (very un-fifa like) and they finally half heartedly cleared it. Their CM tried to control it and it popped straight up, I ran in to challenge for the aerial "loose" ball and the CM got to it first, but headed it straight up again. I jumped and won the next one and headed it over to one of my players who headed it forward. The CPU intercepted it with another header and then I challenged the ball as it was dropping and was called for a foul.

I have never seen that ever in a FIFA game. Never, never ever. The ball stayed up for at least 6 touches. Never seen that. Never.

The CPU will attack and attack ruthlessly (on Pro)
The CPU will tackle and crumple you to the ground (on Pro)

Saving this and continuing ---





Now for my main five problems with the game:

1. The CPU is faster than you. To everything. While this can be fixed with sliders, FUT may be awful. I am not wasting any of my 6 hours playing FUT so I wont know until I get the full game.

But I am thinking with the right sliders we will have a very nice game this year. CPU will attack and that to me was really the most major flaw in previous fifa's (as a single player gameplay player)

2. The controller feels weird. It didn't feel like this in previous FIFAs or the Demo. It feels sluggish. this is all just my experience so far, you may see different. But to me what I do on the controller and what happens on the screen aren't in sync a lot. Like I hit sprint and it takes just a half second to sprint. I hit pass and it takes a half second to pass. This might not sound like much but this game is very much timing based. If the timing is at all sluggish or offset this becomes problematic. One thing that worked on the demo and previous was you could hold LB to slow dribble and hit A while still holding LB and pass the ball.
Now at least half the time in 15 if I hold LB and hit A to pass nothing happens or it happens like a second later. So I get a lovely animation of my player swinging his leg and missing as the CPU races off with the ball.

This isn't something I will "get better at". I feel like this could be addressed and fixed with the day one patch.

3. My players being weak. Knocked off the ball, fall down, touch each other on a corner kick, fall down. Run into the CPU defender, fall down. Over and over again. The worst thing may be this though. 3 times as Di Maria, and can we all admit Di Maria is pretty much class? Well, 3 times with him I was dribbling and made a move and the ball sort of caught up in his feet and he went into this tripping catching your balance animation and of course just lost control of the ball and the CPU said thanks and went the other direction.
I wasnt doing anything weird on the controller or anything. He just decided to have 2 left feet.
What is this? and why does it happen? and why does it happen to my player only?

4. Shooting. Shooting is an untamed beast. This too is supposed to be patched day 1. So far I am not really a fan of the shooting. It's different than the demo. On Semi pro vs werder I honestly had about 5 break aways and 3 1-1 situations and 4 sitters and didnt convert any of them.
The weight and the power of the shot often being uncontrollable despite your button press and direction held feeling spot on is similar to how the controller just feels wonky controlling your player during the normal run of play.
I mean I get now what the CPU is saying, they aren't suggesting semi pro because I dont know what I am doing. They suggest semi pro because I have 19 shots and 2 on target.

5. The RS pick your target system is broken. I used it about 18 times on corners and FK's. of those times 1 time it went right to the player I chose, twice it went sort of near the player I chose and 15 times it went nowhere near. Now it's ok if it is a little inaccurate sometimes. But look, if I pick a target at the top of the box on a CK and then power it up right and the player at the top makes no run why would the ball go right to the keeper? Uh...no. Wrong.

I won a FK deep in my end when the CPU went offside. My keeper takes the kick. I choose a guy on the left sideline up the pitch. My Keeper kicks it into the center of the pitch. What? No. WRONG.

Every one of the next 13 examples would read just like these. Pick a target and then your player goes daft and hoofs it to the completely wrong location. What is the point of this?