I think FIFA 2004 plays a decent game of soccer (I'm on World Class) but I've been playing it less and less since I was able to get a copy of Total Club Manager 2004. There is the Football Fusion mode that allows you to play with your TCM team in FIFA, but that level of difficulty is only challenging if you find a gameplay patch. I liked the Creation Centre (concept) that was released last year more than this year - hopefully they add the ability to create a new league, tournament and teams in the next version. I have both FIFA 2004 and PES 3 as well as TCM 2004 and CM 03/04 and I prefer the EA titles to their competition. The more I played PES, the less I liked it. Easy and bland probably describe it best. Did they ever fix the slowdown bug that occurred in PES 3? Everytime the midfield or penalty boxes filled with players the game would chug down and stutter.
- FIFA 2004 is a lot better than 2003, but still many errors that suck. the ones that I notice the most are - Simulated games have big scores, and upsets are way too easy. It's not uncommon for say Blackburn to beat Arsenal 4-2, or Tottenham to tie Man U 3-3. Also, the top teams, are usually in the middle of the table. Unrealistic. - Keepers are useless outside of their box. When they come out, all they have to do is boot the ball before the striker gets there, instead he does some sorta school boy slide tackle at it, which is useless, he does this again and again until the striker gets there and steals it from the crazy slide tackling keeper, and scores. - Also, the keeper sometimes drops the ball if he picks it up at the top of the box, leaving an easy goal. Or, if you hassle him on his punts sometimes he will drop it half way through the punt, and then you can score. Stupid. - Menus are brutal. I appreciate getting a look at my team before the game, unlike Fifa 2003 which felt 1.5 seconds was good enough to view your starting lineup and the opponet, but why couldn't they include the forwards? For a lot of people, forwards are their favorite position. To view your forwards, you have to scroll down and then back up. It would have been so much easier to get rid of the big border at the top and bottom and just let me see my whole team. Also, the table is brutal. All you can see is the team, games played, wins, and ties. Why couldn't you include loses, GF, GA, pts etc? It's soooo easy, and so much better. Every year, it's 1 step forward, 2 steps backwards
I think your review is written by someone who is blinded by their love of FIFA soccer and can't read English. He did not say that he wants pass and through buttons to be the same. He said that the pass button always passes the ball directly to the feet and not "in stride" with a moving player which slows down the action. And he said that the through ball is a total waste of time because it NEVER works. Both of these statements are absolutely correct. He rightfully looks at these as blemishes on the gameplay, you refuse to acknowledge the truth of these statements which makes you an idiot! So please read something correctly before you comment. Yes I do play baseball (HIGH HEAT) and football (MADDEN). I've played seasons in both and the stats are comparable to real-life (unlike FIFA with outrageously high number of goals and random upsets and great teams being relegated). He didn't say that it is too difficult to make runs. He said it doesn't happen...period. YOU say it's possible because of your love for the worst addition to a video game in history, the "off the ball runs". Sorry, but I'm a damn good video game player and have played over 80 games with FIFA and this feature totally sucks. It's also even less useful when playing vs human opponents. As for the corners, it feels horrible for a couple of reasons. 1)On defense YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHERE THE BALL IS GOING EVERY SINGLE TIME!!! Are you stupid enough to tell me that you've ever seen a real-life game or played in one where you knew exactly where the corner was going? 2)On both defense and offense, the corner kick ALWAYS GOES EXACTLY TO THE SPOT IT WAS INTENDED. Even in the wettest dreams of Maradona and Platini, they didn't imaging having this particular talent! 3) There are only 6-8 total players in the box during the kick. In real life almost every player is massed in there hoping for the ball. In other words, it just doesn't feel right. As for the stains on this guys WE game. I have a feeling that if EA included a bottle of KY and told you to shove the entire controller up your ass (wire and all) you would tell us how incredly life like this game was and how true soccer always gives you the feeling of being banged in the butt, but I digress.
I don't have this game although I did rent it a few months ago. I did go to gamefaqs.com and one of the faqs in there is a list of teams and ratings. It does not appear to me that there are any Finnish or Russian club teams although both are represented in the national teams. There is a list of "Rest of the World" clubs but it doesn't appear to have any Finnish or Russian club teams there.
Re: - Most of the simulated games in my current career have realistic scores. Sometimes there are big scores, just as in real life. I have also found that the better teams are near the top of the tables with some exceptions, just like in real life. I have never seen either of these I wouldn't exactly say it is a pain to scroll down, I mean you click a button or move a stick a few times, big deal! You can see losses,GF,GA and points in the table, you just have to scroll to the side. So far my only gripes are that there is no creation center and that when you select teams for a tourney, it is only a league table type, not a group tourney.
When you click on the "player bio" what does the green bar next to the blue ratings bar mean? It would have been nice if EA had decided to explain this.
Through ball works fine for me, so the statement is not correct. That is the button you use to pass it to someone in stride, it is the attacking button. The pass button is for posession passing. Too hard to figure out? He clearly implies that he wishes the pass button did the same thing the through ball button already does, thus, he wants them to be one in the same. I'll remember that the next time I rush for 1,500 yards and pass for 4,000 in the same season with Michael Vick. Or the next time I am playing NCAA Football, and San Diego State is my opponent in the national title game. I score a good amount of goals using this, whether the marked guy scores, or knocks it down for another player. It's even better for making sure your player receives the ball onside. 1) You may know where the corner is supposed to go (and it doesn't always go there), but that doesn't mean you always stop it 2)I have sent many corners that either miss my players head, swerve all the way through the box to the touchline, and get grabbed out of the air by the keeper. 3)I will go back and count, but I usually see 5 attacking players in the box, 1 on the corner, 2 just outside the 18, and a few back on defense...I am not an expert on corner tactics, but it seems like you would want something like this to avoid a a a counter. My conclusion is, after reading your post, that you just aren't very good at this game (or Madden), and it pisses you off. There's nothing wrong with that, we all get video-game rage. Don't blame the game, though, it's your own shortcomings. Also, I am sorry if I hurt your feelings by ripping your friends shoddy review. I hope it doesn't hurt his budding career as a low-rent video game reviewer.
That is the level of training the player has at that skill. For example, lets say a player with a 73 in passing has a near full green bar next to his passing skill (signifying that you have been training that skill). If you train him in that skill for another week, the bar will fill all the way. Train it for another week and and his passing goes up to a 74. The green bar will now be empty and ready for you to start the process all over again. I wish someone could have explained this to me, seeing as how I kept filling my player's bars half way without realizing that it was doing nothing. It's really the only way that I'm aware of to raise a player's overall rating.
FIFA 2004 Training I'm not sure I understand how FIFA 2004 training works. Can someone please answer these two questions: What's the negative effects of spending $200 on weekly Team training as opposed to $100? When training individual players, what's the difference between the blue and green bars? Do the green bars have to reach capacity (be totaly full) before it starts improving the players skills (that is, the blue bar begins to increase)? Thanks!
Re: FIFA 2004 Training I don't use team training if the fatigue level of my players are too high or if I have two matches in one week ... does anyone know if skipping team training allows for faster recovery?
That's not the point at ALL. The point is that the normal pass button (X) always send the ball to a player's feet, regardless of what they're doing. So if a player is making a run in any direction, the (X) pass goes to where the player was when the pass was initiated, not where the player should be. A pass doesn't have to be directly to feet to be a possession pass. If there is tons of space in front of someone in the backfield, you should always push the ball a little in front of the player so they can run onto it and get a bit of a headstart. By sending it directly to feet, the receiver has to wait for the ball to come to him, thus giving a defender time to catch up to the receiver. Just giving the option of either directly to feet or pushed far ahead (through-ball) isn't good. There are tons of passes where the best thing is to slightly lead the runner in a specific direction, and FIFA doesn't allow this (unless you are a master at stick control and judging weight of the through ball). Games in the WE series do. I'm definitely NOT saying that I want the through pass and normal pass to be the same button. What I've said (and it's clear from the review) is that a normal pass should involve more than passing directly to the spot where the player was when the pass was initiated. It ruins the fluidity of the game. That's fine. BUT this involves a lot of unnecessary stuff (press R2, then this, then that) that should be in the AI of your teammates ALREADY. An AI teammate should know to run to space...and without invoking off the ball play, he doesn't. And even if you think you should control this, it could be implemented better (for instance, a simple right analog stick push a la Playmaker control in Madden). 1) Pinpoint accuracy on corners is unrealistic, plain and simple. Especially since this accuracy is there with the best players in the world AND players in lower divisions. True, you don't always stop it. But isn't that a problem? If a defender knows exactly where the corner comes, he should stop it 99% of the time (the only exception being a perfect corner kick). 2) Those things don't have to do with the ball not arriving at the correct spot. Those have to do with if your player misses it (which can happen if the defender and striker are "wrestling" for position when the corner comes in) or if you position the corner close to the keeper. 3) The # of people in the box depends on the corner strategy. Sometimes you'll have a few, sometimes a lot. One of the major problems with corners (and FIFA in general) is that it's the same general outcome (one defender vs. one striker in a battle for position) on every corner. Whereas in real life, corners are varied, with tons of possible outcomes. Soccer is a sport with infinite outcomes and things. People don't like soccer games where the play seems the same every single game because that's not the way soccer is. Goals, passing, corners should be varied and creative, and FIFA restricts you to a limited set of things you can do. Well, I have no idea who this person is who defended my review, so he's not my "friend" (but thanks for the defense ctruppi...I appreciate it). The problem with FIFA is not that people aren't good at it. I've played it online and was very good (ranked in the top 500 online before I got bored with it). The problem is that the gameplay is poor, and games like Winning Eleven really capture what soccer is like. I'm no WE fanboy. I've been reviewing since 1998, and wrote that World Cup 98 (at the time) was the best soccer video game ever then. (By the way, six years of reviewing soccer games does not make it a "budding career". And if you can find a better review of FIFA 2004 on the net, post it. I doubt you'll find one.) But FIFA has really declined, while Winning Eleven has gotten substantially better. I would LOVE if FIFA improved in the gameplay department. They've still got the best sound, graphics, and licenses galore. But gameplay is what makes a game, and that's where FIFA falters.
No problem with the defense of your article. It was well-written and hit the technical gameplay mecahnics problems on the head. My brother's wife finally broke down and bought him a PS2 for Xmas and I was overe there the other day. He had bought a copy of WE6 on my recommendation and has only played sparingly. I brought over my FIFA 04 and we tried both. I hadn't played WE6 for several months and was amazed at how much better it is than FIFA gameplay-wise when you look at the 2 back-to-back. Besides the issues you brought up are the team management frustrations I have with FIFA. In WE6 you literally have infinite control over your team tactics and strategies. In FIFA, not so. You can pick general strategies, but it's just not the same. Anyway, keep writing great reviews.