Is there any way to change the qualification groups in the game? I notice you said you are doing USA and are in the group with Jamaica, El Salvador, and Panama... can you chose to have it generate different groups other than the ones from real life? Or am I always going to have to play against Italy, Scotland, Slovenia, Belarus, and Moldova every time I want to play a campaign with Norway??
so have the controls gotten any better or intuitive? This is what always drives me, as well as others, from EA to Konami so I hope they fix it at some point. FIFA 06 was depressing but I always hold out hope that they will sort it out.
The only controls that have changed are in penalty shootouts. New of course, like in FIFA 06, you have the option of "New Analog Control" which is more like Winning Eleven's setup.
let's see...it goes from being full analog when you dont have the ball to 8-axis control when you have it.
ok good news, players dont rely just on cheap crosses anymore.. bad news, now all they do it's use a through pass through the center due to the dumb defense not knowing how to keep a line to leave the attacker offside
This game is definitely more challenging than FIFA 06. I've lost three straight games...to Mexico, Germany (friendly), and Jamaica Needless to say, I might not make it to the World Cup. Ha! Yeah right.
Target should have it today, or tomorrow. They now have it listed as a pre-order on their website. They always seem to be the last store to get in the new EA Sports games. Also, no one has answered my question. What other official stadiums are in the game? I read that each region will have some of its own stadiums in the game. What does CONCACAF have? Estadio Azteca? Crew Stadium?
Other regions have some generic stadiums, but I'm pretty sure the German stadiums are the only official ones. I'll double check though.
I thought each region was going to have a few real stadiums? UEFA had some of the stadiums located in Italy, England, France, etc.
Just picked it up this morning...still getting used to the resolution compared to FIFA 2006. Haven't explored to see if there are other stadiums one can unlock. I'm sure somebody else will know. I think some of these stadiums are generic or named differently. Here's the list: Curaca Stadium (South America) Capital Stadium (North America) - RFK? Azteca Stadium (North America) Zentralstadion Vilag Stadium (Europe) Umoja Arena (Africa) Tuan Jie Stadium (Asia) Tashi deleh Stadium (Asia) Salam Stadium (Africa) Muluc Stadium (South America) Millennium Stadium (Europe) Maunga Stadium (Oceania) Maluhia Stadium (Oceania) Olympiastadion Kaiserslautern: Fritz-Walter-Stadion Gottlieb-Daimler-Stadion Franken-Stadion FIFA World Cup Stadiums: Munich Hannover Hamburg Gelsenkirchen Frankfurt Dortmund Cologne
So, the first time I played the game it looked weird on my TV, like it was from a Jumbotron or something...but then after turning it off and putting it back on, it looks like FIFA 2006 in terms of resolution to me. So ignore my comment above.
From the soccergaming.tv forums, here's a workaround for the resolution/rendition issue in the PC game: 1. Using notepad, open a new text file. Then put this line and only this line in it: RENDER_RATE_MODE=2 2. Close and save the file with this name: situation.ini 3. Cut and paste that now-configuration file in your main FIFA WC 06 folder. 4. Run the game and see the difference it makes. It's not there all the way yet, because there might be an issue with the game and ATI graphics cards (there was with my ATI Radeon 9800) that a patch would go a long way toward solving, I think.
That said, I always get annoyed at FIFA games and their # of subs. For int'l games, like qualifiers, its 11 starters and 7 subs; for World Cup, it's 11 and 12. FIFA games always insist on giving us 11+5. Just saying
Umm...EA Sports' FIFA World Cup game gives you 7 subs for qualifiers/friendlies and 12 for World Cup games.
Yeh, Since about 2003 EA Sports has done this with FIFA, March Madness, and a few other series. It sucks! They shouldn't woory about making high graphic back grounds on the loading screens. They should keep them simple with big type. I also don't like How they took the energy % in the substitute screen and large red cross away. It's hard to figure out who is tired, or hurt.
I finally got ahold of this game today. Got it for $30 at Gamestop. I had time to play 3 matches. First thing I did was set the controller to WE buttons (I think it's the 2nd one from the top of the list of 4 they give you) and that helped a lot because I was able to play the game decent without reading any instructions or practicing any. I went into the qualifying campaign right away to make sure you could change the groups (because it'd get old real fast for me if you couldn't) and was pleased to see that not only can you change them, you can personally set the groups to what you want, you can do a complete random draw (where any team can end up anywhere, like a USA-MEX-CRC-HON group), or just re-do the draw based on the seeds they used in real life qualifying. I also tested the sub in a team feature and put in Nicaragua for Canada. I decided to play as Nicaragua for some reason, so I did the random draw (with seeds) and got a group with Mexico, Honduras, and Panama. The first thing that happened was it came up and told me I needed to schedule a friendly... but it only gave me three choices: Poland, Italy, and someone else (Portugal I think). I picked Poland because they were rated the lowest of the 3. I hadn't adjusted the settings yet, so it was still on 6 minute halves on semi-pro. I was the home team and kicked off first (just like WE, home team kicks off and goes left-right). I was scared of Poland [since I was Nicaragua] so I was afraid to go forward and just passed the ball backwards to my defense and then was careful to avoid giving the ball away at all costs while figuring out the controls. Poland finally got the ball away from me about 5 minutes into the game and then, just as I feared, scored in the 7th minute. I thought it was going to be an absolute route, but that turned out to be the only goal of the game. Something I didn't like was the celebration afterwards. This is just a friendly match... Poland vs Nicaragua... in Nicaragua (I assumed)... yet after the Polish goal there was this eleborate celebration with tons of red & white confetti on the screen and whatnot. I was like "come on, this doesn't even count for anything... and this is the road team... if they do this every single goal in every game it's going to get annoying fast". Thankfully that never happened again, in either of the other games I played, so I am guessing that it only happened because it was the first goal ever in my game/campaign so EA wanted it to be a spectacular celebration for some reason. Anyways, I managed to hold them mostly thanks to a few lucky saves by my keeper and the fact that the clock was going by so fast (due to 6 min halves) that it took several minutes to get the ball from one end of the field to the other so they didn't have a lot of time to attack. But what really helped keep the Polish in check was the defensive system. I immidiately liked it better than WE's defense. I just felt like I had more control over my players than I do in WE... hard to explain. But either way I was better able to defend passing and whatnot. And there was a lot of defending to do. After the match it said that I only had possession for 30% of the time... Poland had it the other 70%! So the friendly ended as a 1-0 loss and then the next match was a real qualifier, against Panama. For this I upped it to 10 minute halves. Again I started cautious, because afterall I was using Nicaragua (again, I don't know why I picked them), but after I held them in check for the first several minutes I felt I could actually play with them and tried to attack more. The game went back and forth for a while before Panama scored on somewhat of a fluke shot from one of the Dely brothers "beat" my keeper in first half stoppage time. What happened was he got the ball facing away from the net and just swiveled around and shot it right at my keeper who basically tried to punch it over the crossbar, but didn't get the angle right and punched it into the net. I responded in the second half with a goal when I stole the ball from the central defender with my only forward (Nicaragua runs a 4-5-1) and then slipped it past the keeper. The game ended 1-1. During the game it updated 3 times about the Mexico-Honduras game. Once, early on, it randomly updated to show it was still 0-0. I thought that was cool and hoped it would show more scored more often. Then later on I was attacking down the wing (near the bottom of the screen) when it popped up to show Mexico was up 1-0. This time I wished it wouldn't pop up again, since it popped up right over where I was trying to dribble the ball, so I couldn't see my player, and by the time the box went away they had stolen the ball from me. It came up again one more time at the end to show that Mexico was up 2-0 (which is what they ended up winning by)... so apparently they only show you scores from other games in your group, and not elsewhere. After this I saved the campaign (though I doubt I'm going to continue it, I'm not a big fan of Nicaragua) and played a fairly even match of Faroe Islands vs St. Vincent/Grenadines (both are rated 54 overall). I was the Nordic side and took it to the Caribbean side early and often. I didn't realize the teams had the same rating until I checked afterwards, but I could have sworn during the game Faroe Islands were much better. I was easily dominating the match and taking a lot of chances. I eventually scored on a nice pass as I came in down the sideline and kicked it past the keeper for one of my other players to tap in. St. Vincent/Grenadines got a PK from a terrible tackle I made inside the box, but luckily they kicked it over the bar and missed it. I scored another goal on a breakaway near the end of the game to clinch the win, 2-0. During the game I injured 2 SVG players, and I had also injured someone during my Nicaragua campaign (I think a Polish player), so I was averaging an injury per game. I hope that was just a couple of fluke things and it doesn't actually happen that often. The only concerns I have on gameplay (which was the biggest thing I worried about when I got it, seeing as FIFA is usually a lot worse than WE) are dribbling and attacking on the wings. I wasn't able to dribble around anyone. Granted I wasn't using the best teams, but I wasn't facing the best either. I figure a player on Faroe Islands should be able to take a player from St. Vincent/Grenadines at least once or twice off the dribble during the game, but I couldn't do it. I think I just need to practice that. The other major thing was attacking on the wings. It's nearly impossible. Maybe it was the formations I was using (4-5-1 with NCA, 4-4-2 with FRO) but none of my players were making runs down the wings like I wanted them to do (and like they do in WE). So all of my attacks had to come from the center. I was able to get the throughball through a few times for breakaways, even against Poland, so I am worried once I get used to the game that will be way too easy. The defense did intercept it a few times, but there were others where it was just terrible defending and wide open lanes to pass a throughball into to start a breakaway. Obviously I wasn't facing the best teams in the world (especially SVG and Panama) but when Nicaragua is breaking people through the middle against Poland it's a little concerning. Other than that I thought the game was pretty fun and I'm glad I got it. Hope this post can help anyone who is on the fence decide whether they want to get it or not. I also tried the "global challenge" and did Romania vs Sweden. They had me do a PK shootout and the controls are just like WE for that except you can move the keeper around before the shot is taken, which I liked. I saved Sweden's first shot, but they eventually saved one of mine and it went all the way to the 10th kicker before the match was settled. I won 9-8 on PKs after making a diving save on a shot to the lower left corner on their 10th kicker. I loved the cutscenes inbetween some of the shots to build up the tension. I also didn't like the small font. I couldn't read any of my players names in the starting lineup and I didn't bother trying to make subs because I couldn't read the rosters very well since my TV is kinda small and I usually sit as far away as my controller will reach (which works for WE, I can read that fine). Hopefully there is an option to fix the font or something. I didn't really go through and look.
sure Gameplay: as much as i was expecting some kind of big improvement over past games i was again disappointed, it's still "FIFA" meaning it's still simple and once mastered just gotta find an easy way to score. Just as in past games the easiest way to score was to just keep sending crosses, this year's switches to through passes down the middle, the defense sucks so all you gotta do is wait for the right moment so the defense will mess up leaving a defender way behind the other defenders thus breaking the offside. The through passes are not very precise either if the player is not on a "predictable" position, so forget making any kind of complicated pass, it'll most likely be sent to a different player. The proof of skill not needed to win is me winning my first 5 online games in a row without playing any offline game first, and i skipped RTWC 06. Speed: I thought FIFA 06 was fast, but this one takes the cake, it may be a lil exaggerating but it feels like if the game is being fast forwarded lol...you know this game it's far from reality when it takes you 5 seconds to get across the field. Thank god there's a slow mode option, but it's too bad you can't play ranked games in slow mode.