Synyster Graves

Synyster’s Top 7 Reasons why FIFA games aren’t as good as everyone says they are

by on Feb.29, 2012, under The Top 7 of Everything

I’ve defected from Pro Evolution Soccer to FIFA since FIFA 07/08 mainly because Pro Evo was starting to irritate me. Players seem to spend half the time on the floor like it’s some kind of Didier Drogba simulation. FIFA at that time was breath of fresh air, seeing that this was the first FIFA I’d played since having FIFA 99 on the Playstation. After having all the FIFA’s up until FIFA12, I’m slowly becoming massively annoyed by FIFA, especially when everyone by default keeps claiming how good it is, when there are so many things wrong with it that EA have become complacent in their delivery of it because there isn’t much decent alternative. So the following list is annoyances from FIFA 07 to FIFA 11.

7. Lesser teams should not equate to slower, more tired players

If you ever fancy a challenge want to play a match as a lower division team (unlike everyone I have played online who only seem to choose Man Utd or Barcelona) you will find that any team more than 1 star rating over you will strip the pants any of your players by just running in a straight line. Personally I can see how bigger clubs may have the best athletes but being a higher division club does not mean that your burly centre back can run faster than a lower division winger. It’s stupid and completely unbalanced, thus almost ensuring that you cannot have any upsets in cup or league matches, which if FIFA is playing on the “realism” factor, then this is total crap. League Two teams have stamina bars which deplete faster than an icecube in a microwave as soon as you brush the sprint button.

6. Free kicks are too difficult

In Pro Evo, free kicks really were an art form. I actually used to practice them for ages but the rewards were great, you could be deadly from a dead ball situation like a virtual Gareth Bale or Rickie Lambert. In FIFA, getting a free kick on TARGET is a feat in itself. I think since 2007, I’ve scored about 15 freekicks in total, mainly in FIFA 09 whereby I could actually hook it into the top corner from a tight position. But my main free kick was if it was on the edge of the penalty box, you could drill the freekick by holding the LB button. By FIFA 10 they decided that this should be a perk and you could only have it if you scored x amount of freekicks. How is it a technique to smash a football either side of a wall? Surely everyone can do that? Curling the ball David Beckham style is just non-existent as charging the power bar anywhere near 50% will see it sail over the bar Johnny Wilkinson style. Just when you think you’re getting the hang of them, they go and change it. There’s no need for it to be this hard.

5. The player development is pathetic in Be a Pro and Seasons modes

Be A Pro mode initially was a good idea, you get to develop an individual player and with the EA front end on the internet you can transpose two photographs of yourself to have your own face on a player. However after about 30 games just controlling one player, this can get tedious, especially when you’re a right back, and the other 10 team mates just refuse to pass the ball to you despite you running into really good positions, and then have your match rating hammered for be in the wrong place. What was ten times worse were the accomplishments. Not only do they glitch and not increment, but they are totally the wrong way round. I don’t understand how you get a better longshot stat, by scoring from range on three occasions. Up until you get this accomplishment, it’s a real slog just to get 5 goals to fly in from range. You should have a handful of perks for your character which can be the traits they have and you can improve them by doing, not have nothing from the beginning. Players hardly develop either in Season mode, especially when you have young stars like Jordan Rhodes, Alex Chamberlain and Adam Lallana improving by about 1 or 2 points overall in 5 seasons.

4. The transfer system is total nob nuts

I’m not expecting to have a GUI akin to Championship Manager, but the transfer system is completely rubbish. No one ever buys your players and you can’t even set an asking price for them. Players take eons getting back to you only to turn you down for completely stupid and unrealistic reasons, for example I had Championship players turning me down when I was Real Betis saying that the club was not prestigious enough, yet I was above Real Madrid and Barcelona in Liga BBVA. Work that one out. The transfer listed players are never actually the listed price because you offer the amount asked for only for the greedy clubs to turn around and demand more. You have players moving between arch-rivals on a very frequent basis which at first is amusing, before you get about 40 Carlos Tevez transfers per window. The window is completely merciless, shutting on you without any extra time for negotiation plus if a contract offer isn’t completed a good 3 days before the window shuts, the move breaks down every time. Then there’s the valuation of the players. Certain players are completely overpriced and you find fringe players who should be available for cut price deals still demanding exceesive transfer fees and you have to pay over the odds in wages just to attract them. Like I said, I’m not expecting a Championship Manager style transfer window, but a playable one would actually be nice.

3. The Man Utd player stats are totally embellished

Since FIFA is really playing on the “realism” factor in these games, then why on earth are the stats for Manchester United players so superior to everyone else? True they are a good team, but they’re not THAT good. For a start Dimitar Berbatov has a Balance rating of 91. Everyone else knows he goes down faster than lead weight in a swimming pool. Their goalkeepers NEVER make any howlers no matter who is in the sticks (bearing in mind Man Utd have had Massimo Taibi, Mark Bosnich and Roy Carroll in goal for them) and even 5 seasons in, aging Rio Ferdinand can match stride for stride with Theo Walcott. And worst of all is the superhuman abilities of Wayne Rooney. Sure that turnip has been on the front cover since FIFA09 but does that mean he’s untackleable? It’s insane, you just cannot get the ball off him, and if you do execute an inch perfect tackle, it always conveniently goes to another player in a red shirt. Rooney is good, but he’s no Lionel Messi. I suppose it is realistic in the fact that Man utd can do what they want, on and off the field.

2. The AI attacking runs and completely retarded

While I suppose this lends greater emphasis on 11 a side, play as one player interactions, the runs of your teammates is total nonsense. Several times when you’re bursting down the wing and need bodies in the box to aim a cross at, your centre forward will run ahead of you down the flank. Not only does this limit the amount of penalty box targets to aim for, but they’re usually offside and not helping in the slightest. Even if you set you team mentality to attacking or ultra attacking you have gaping holes in midfield when following up from a corner as all of them push up so much, you have no midfield players lurking just outside the penalty box to smash a rebound back in from a defended corner. But it’s nnot just the AI which is rubbish, the intelligence of the player switching is crap, usually selecting totally inappropriate players for the situation, for example opting to choose a player chasing back when you’re defending a break as opposed to the stalwart defender in front of the attacker. The choice between volleying or headering an airbourne pass always seems to favour a header, when a 30 yard header at goal may severly lack the venom a volley would. They also have a habit of blindly colliding with each other, making most of your attempts to clear the ball from the highlight reel of the Keystone Cops. Perhaps the worst of all being the “conga” line which seems to form when trying to tackle a player, leaving your controlled and auxillary players both queuing up in an orderly fashion behind the opposition player with the ball in a ridiculous snake formation.

1. The refereeing decisions are total biased horseshit

Like in real life, they often get offsides wrong and chalk of perfectly legitimate goals. In FIFA games, the offisdes are regularly total crap completely disrupt the flow of the game, especially when they’re totally wrong, which is quite common. The replays are completely doctored mainly for a) the lines they draw for the last defender and the striker sometimes aren’t even correct for an offside call, and b) you see the replay where your player is offside by miles yet if you look at the instant replay option, they’re not even offside! But the referees are even worse by being grossly inconsistent. Quite often you will pick up a yellow card for a block/standing tackle yet the CPU controlled team have to two foot slide up-end you to get the same punishment. The referee is all too quick to send one of your players off, yet the CPU I think have had only 5 red cards since I started playing FIFA. It’s complete double standards that all you have to is sneeze in the direction on one of your players to get you booked, yet they need to perform a St. Valentine’s Day Massacre on one of your players to get the same punishment. The sheer and overwhelming majority of decisions going the CPU teams way is just frustrating and pointless.

I think I may buy Pro Evolution Soccer from now on….

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