Lincolnista the guide to Lincoln, UK.

FIFA 11: Reviewed

Saturday, 2nd October 2010 Written by: Tenacious T

Pro Evo Who?

In that beautiful game we call football a successful team isn’t the ones who spend 200 million on a whole new squad of superstars, it’s the ones who have that core seven or eight players and builds by signing a few new top quality players who blend in well with the rest of the squad. In a way this is what FIFA 11 has done taking the great FIFA 10 and simply fine tuning it and leaving long time rival Pro Evo eating its dust.

Take the new personality plus feature for example. Let’s say you pick Chelsea vs. Lincoln. Chelsea players will be able to pass more directly, shoot more accurately, turn quicker, run faster where as Lincoln will have less control, poorer accuracy on crossing and a wider turning circle. Each and every player really will feel different. Players known for their strength will have the ability to hold on to the ball where as fast players can run up the wings.

The major difference this feature gives you is it makes it seem much more natural to play. Possibly for the first time ever in a football game you are playing as you would on the pitch. FIFA 10 had a very rigid style. No matter who you were passes and control were pretty much the same but with personality plus it gives a much more realistic playing experience in this instalment of the series you can hit a pass to hard so it bounces of the player or completely misses them completely on the other hand it’s possible to under hit it sending a pea roller towards them which gets easily intercepted by the opposing team.

For those of you who have been playing FIFA 10 religiously since its release goals at least to start will be hard to come by. The new system will take some getting used to but once you become accustomed to the new tweaks added to the game you should be hitting the back of the net fairly regularly. The key to victory in FIFA 11 however is knowing how each player plays in real life and taking advantage of their individual strengths and of course opposing player weaknesses.

You will find its not end to end stuff anymore unless you are particularly good at the counter attack and you will find yourself having a lot of midfield battles which more often than not peter out to nothing but you will find yourself immersed in what is as good as a real football game and most likely you will end up appreciating those last minute winners against your mates even more as you battle your way to victory.

Be a pro mode has a very interesting new addition. For the first time you can play as the Goal Keeper and it is really fun. It’s basically following a marker on the ground but again you feel like you are playing as the goalie as he dives left and right tipping saves off the post.

It’s not all sunshine and rainbows however. As immersive as the game play is EA sure do know how to pull you right back out of it. Referees with different levels of leniency have been included in the game which is all good and everything but the commentators will not shut up about it. The commentary team of Tyler and Gray constantly goes on about the ref Hayden Pennyweather being lenient or Benoit (no second name) not liking handballs just to name a couple.

The commentary team is not great. A prime example of this was when I was playing as Stevenage and picked up a solid 4-0 win over Wycombe to which Andy Gray said the victory would “raise eyebrows around the world”. Keep your eyes peeled on the front page of the Sun when Stevenage win their next league 2 game and I highly doubt that they will have made the front page or even the back.  Apart from these minor things though there really is very little wrong with FIFA 11 the new features have blended with the old to create what in my opinion is by far the best football game I have ever played. Perfection in a game is pretty hard to come by but this is pretty damn close.

Pros:
• Personality plus mode gives a more realistic feel to the game
• Most realistic looking FIFA game ever
• Can play as the keeper’ for the first time ever

Cons:
• Commentary is not great
• Quite easy to end up with a 0-0 score line for beginners
• Your life will come to a temporary stop for a period of 3-4 weeks

Graphics:  9.4
Game play:  10
Soundtrack:  7.6
Overall:    9/10

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