I dont understand honestly. I feel like Im getting lied to with all these positive high scores this game has gotten, I dont understand how its supposed to be the same game that I have played. I wrote a review a year or two ago really, but I never made it public cause this game pissed me off so much I ended up ranting and just swearing a lot, even though I had a lot of points for why. But since I decided I had enough and have calmed down since then. Figure I write a more calm and collected review, even though yes, its gonna piss me off thinking on it again, lol.
Anyway.. First of, the referee alone completely destroys this game. I never in my life experienced so much plain an simple bullshit. He always favor the computer, ALWAYS. You will see more an more how sucky the refree is by the higher difficulty you play.
Examples:
Your opponent can run into your character who posses the ball and he will be given free kick. I still remember how my opponent ran into me, kicked me in the stomach pretty much trying to get the ball, my guy fell over twisting and turning in pain and he was given a yellow card for being kicked in the stomach. In reality (If their is such a thing) I think, maybe. That my opponent tripped on my guy who had fallen down after he beat up and was given a free kick cause the referee saw it as a tackle when my guy was squriming in pain on the ground?, I dont know. I seriously dont get it. Another one too is I remember I had a good chance to score a goal, only had to get passed this one guy, but what happen? the last defender ran straight into me and I was given a yellow card. I had the ball dammit!!. Just few examples, but stuff like this is gonna happen all the time on higher difficulties, the higher it is the more unfair, unreasonable and unrealistic the referee will be. It completely destroy all fun you can have with the game. On the easiest settings + "normal" I think hes kinda okay at least, but nonsense like this will still happen, just not as much or frequent.
They will also call off offsides wrongfully too.
Their is just so much wrong with this game, they get a few thingies right sure, and ultimate team can be fun, at least it was for me, but since the majority of my time with this game was negative and since in my opinion the bad things with this game is not highlighted enough, I will be mostly focusing on the negative, since that was my experience anyway.
The passing system is completely broken, the game does not care one single bit where you point with the direction, all it cares about is the strength of your pass. If a guy is running infront of you, if you decide to hold down the pass button for a little bit, thinking of a running pass for example. You can just forget that idea all together, clearly you mean to pass to defense a mile away. It is without question its main priority, the strength of the pass, and im not even sure if it really cares about direction? unless it kinda matches the strength of the location of someone. But it no doubt should be direction first, and then should strength matter, but this is not the case at all. While you can master this given time, its still such a stupid trait with the game. You might as well be given a lottery ticket, cause you cant really control the outcome.
Are some things, I cant quite put my finger on. Like its almost as your opponent know what you push on your controller before in-game wise it shows any reaction to what you pressed button wise, so it will always "feel" like the computer is very psycic. Which in a sense he will be, if he register what you press and act according to that, rather that what actually unfolds or show in the game. Like you know, in the real world you act according to what happens on the field, you can try an predict things sure, but this happens so much with the game, particularly again on higher difficulties it just feel so pointless and frustrating. I feel and think that they wanted to make the game "more realistic" but in reality, they made it more unrealistic than any soccer game I have ever played. Like how also last 10min of the game all hell seem to break lost, goals left and right. Its like the game itself decide the winner upfront at say the 70-80min mark somewhere, so like almost no matter the score is at that point, the winenr will win and the loser will lose. Sometimes this can be in your favor, but it just seem so rigged and staged, like again you dont really have any control of the game. It will just do whatever the hell it wants.
I also experienced my save files to be randomly deleted for no reason also, twice!. I like to make custom characters for one, it deleted my entire team I made twice. God how annoying that is, this have also happen with every soccer game I played the last 5 years, I dont get it. Fifa 15, 14, 12, 10, 08. Their is no excuse in my opinion to why that should happen in the first place, but twice even. That really pissed me off.
Okay, I could go on all night and day the more I think about it all about what makes this game bad. I would never be done with the review. I just dont understand again personally how this game can get above 5, even if you were super biased. This game is gonna be a pain to play the more you play it. But sure, maybe some people dont experience this cause only play on easiest setting and perhaps win 10-0 every game. Cause if so, then no, you will not have a bad time beside perhaps being bored as hell eventually. Few games I would recommend to never buy, but this is one of them. On the surface it may seem harmless, but I cant help but wonder if this is the standard thats gonna be set for future games, or soccer games. It makes me curious if people even tried with this game, did they copy everything they done from the previous game with just a few tweaks (for the worse) and called it effort?.
If anyone have truly played this game, like given it a good amount of hours and still think it deserve a score above 5. Well then I want that game, cause that is not the same game that I have been playing.