incredibly flawed diamond
Let´s start with the positive:
Fifa 11 for pc has some great features, and they are the best in the series up to this point:
- great, natural feel of the passing system. The players pass the ball fluently, and, for the most part, realistically.
- great graphics and animations, the best in the series yet.
Than the bad:
- physical strenght (or the lack thereof in possession) is made too important: when in possession, you lose the ball too quickly. Attackers (with ball) nearly always lose their battles against defenders. This makes ´dueling´ a very one-sided affair: the defender nearly always comes up on top, and nearly always without any real effort. This is unrealistic: big(ger) attackers should be able to win duels and at least be able to shield the ball while moving, right? Of course you have a ´shield´ button, but this seems only to work well in stationary positions. O, and when a defender is in possesion, he all of a sudden seems to lose strenght, since then... all of a sudden... the attacker can easily take the ball from him....
- making headers is way too difficult and often seems random: strikers very often seem to be able to horribly miss headers even a few metres from goal, with no immediate hinderance by defenders. This is extremely frustrating and leads to the next point:
- the ability to play effective wingplay is nearly extinct: because of the difficulty to execute a succesfull header, and the fact that defenders are so strong in duels; it is almost not done to capitalize on a cross. The result is: nearly everyone (in online play) plays through the middle and corners are highly ineffective.
- scoring goals is not intuitive and often feels out of the players control: when you dribble to goal, and you see a giant space left to the opponent´s keeper, you want to shoot it there, right? Executing the same sequence of button presses however, results in a somewhat different outcome each time. Most of the times you score the way you mend it, sometimes you hit the keeper, sometimes you mis the goal etc. This seems to be (for a big part) subject to the qualities of the player your controlling, and is only partly about YOUR qualities with the controller. It all seems too random. The same goes for shots from distance in general.
- ´strange stuff´: frequently, rather weird stuff happens which can seriously influence the outcome of an (online) game. For example: (ai-controlled) defenders collide into each other (this happens often, too often), ´making room´ for the opposing striker to have a free shot at goal; a keeper misses an seemingly easy grab, allowing the opponent to score; your striker , while in a apparently good position, seems all of sudden devoid of power, producing a pitiful ´strike´; the referee is in the way and makes no attempt to evade the ball (this too, happens often) etc.
- ´good´ play is often not rewarded in online play: you can have 70 percent ball possession, make great combinations, but still lose 3-0 to a ´lesser opponent´ who counters and goes only for the ´through pass´. Of course, you can argue that this is ´realistic´ and indeed it kinda is (remember Inter Milan last year in the Champions League?), but it is not exactly rewarding in a soccergame. In my opinion, the attacking, creative players should get rewarded more. Added to this is the fact that attacking and creative players are severely hindered by the inability to play effective wing play, forcing them to go through the middle. THIS is not at all realistic and makes a very defensive, counter style of play too rewarding.
I focused mainly on the bad points, but this game is still very much worth the bargain buy. Just don´t expect too much. Under it´s very shiny exterior some rather incomprensible flaws will become apparent.
On a side note: these flaws seem, for the most part, reserved for the pc version. The console version is (by far) superior. Why EA makes different (and inferior) versions for different platforms is, honestly, beyond me...