Fifa 11

[toblix]

I'm astounded. I've never played a football game before – or football – so I didn't really know what to expect. One thing I was certain of, though, was that this was a game for the masses. This was supposed to be pick-up-and-playable, and with this being the 11th in the series, they'd have to have absolutely perfected the art of easing newcomers into the action. There'd be tutorials, training stuff, probably a whole football school thing where you learn everything from basic controls and techniques to the advanced dribbling tactics of whoever is the best football player currently. Basically, I was expecting a football Chessmaster.

New paragraph, because this is where it turns out I was completely wrong. It's actually looking more like you're supposed to start at Fifa 1, and by the time you get to 11 you're more or less a pro at everything. This has to be the most ridiculously inapproachable game ever. There's basically two options: Play football or look at a huge fucking list of button combinations for stuff I have never heard about. Seriously, this makes the most ridiculously complex PC flight sim look like a Facebook game. There's no introductory mode where the game compliments you on getting simple stuff right, like being able to keep the ball for five seconds. There's just the deep end with celebrity commentator Martin Tyler berates you for being "booked". It's fun, but it appears to require a huge initial time investment.

[Patters]

Start with the be a pro mode, all you have to worry about is your dude. Turn it to beginner, all assists on; the game will tell you where you are supposed to be. Playing with a less good team (yes Kansas City Wizards, 2 stars) helped I think, I'm not playing catch up to the AI all the time. Your character (assuming you built one) will improve his abilities as you progress, so you can go from rookie to pro. It's a solid experience.

Once you have become confident with one player, I would suggest you play some exhibition matches. I'm not great, but I've gotten better in the time I've played it.

[Nappi]

...with this being the 11th in the series...

The only FIFA game I have played extensively was FIFA 99. It was easy enough to get into and the mechanics were pretty simple and intuitive. Seems that in ten years they have done the exact opposite of what all the other developers have been trying to do with their games. Lack of tutorials sounds fucking ridiculous. Maybe they removed it so they could put it back next year as a new, revolutionary feature?

[juv3nal]

There's basically two options: Play football or look at a huge fucking list of button combinations for stuff I have never heard about.

I used to play a lot of winning eleven/pro evo soccer in the PS2 days, and have only had a look at demos/trials for current gen console versions, but it's not that rough if you turn the difficulty down to the lowest. Many of those obscure button combinations are completely unnecessary to win a game at the easier difficulties.

There's basically:

short pass, lob pass/cross, shoot, & sprint when you have the ball

and switch dudes, pressure, & sprint when you don't

There are maybe 4 different types of passes (short ground pass, lobbed pass/cross, pass into space/through ball, & lobbed through ball), but you can get by with only the short, along the ground pass and crosses until you get the hang of things and expand your repertoire as you go.

And on defense, there's slide tackling in addition to pressuring which in my experience just tends to get you carded or concedes a free kick, so I wouldn't even bother with that when defending. Situationally, it can be useful, of course, but I've never mastered it and can win a game at the middling difficulty level without it.