I DL'd it and played it this morning and the first you thing you notice is how responsive the players move. The default setting for '09 is the Euro speed so it's a little faster than '08 but the responsiveness opens the game up so much more.
Just some quick things I noticed:
- The passing bar lets you really get a good gauge on how hard you need to press the button to put certain amounts of speed on your passes. Manual passing should be a little bit easier to fool around with.
- Goal Kicks default to the end to end view. You can now see if the cheeser you're playing is charging forward trying to steal a lazy pass from your keeper without using the radar.
- The speed really lets you get out of those animations in '08 where you would get stuck. You can also do a quick counter throw from your keeper now.
- I went into penalty shots. Moving the keeper is mapped to the Left Analog, the right analog stick makes your keeper jump on his tippy toes and do a jumping jack.
- In however long the demo was I saw Real get 3 yellows and multiple advantages on plays where the foul was obvious. Robben got one for arguing. This should delight all of us.
- I saw some nice sliding passes where my player couldnt control the pass so he slid and tapped the ball to a teammate without me hitting the slide tackle button. I also saw a few errant passes on my behalf that went astray.
- Before the match while the game is loading your Arena player changes and when the game loads and prompts you to press start it transforms you into the Arena. It looks pretty cool. Also, I dont if this was in '08 but the Stadium Announcer now announces the starting 11.
I can't wait to get home and play some more. Visually, they nailed Drogba's player perfectly. Oh yeh, before the match while the players were still in the tunnell Ruud turned to the camera and gave it a mean stare. Never nice seeing his ulgy mug at 6:45AM.