New video: FULL MATCH Birmingham City vs Blackburn Rovers!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=e-fBBwJ-cH4

Where did First Touch Control go???
Has it been toned down, Tom??

a kind of off topic comment but would like to contribute here:
I think FIFA has developed too far to the point where one system couldn’t compensate for all it’s game modes.

As things go now, there are 2 major schools of thought on the direction which the game should take are:
a) keep it “realistic” by going with manual controls, so that player(real person) has full control of how the team plays the ball. all mistakes will be down to the players’(real person) dexterity on the controller.

b) keep it “realistic” by putting into account football IQ while the footballers in the team keep’s their personality with stats. player(real person) will determine the execution of the strategy. i.e. when and how to pass or shoot. mistakes will be down to players’(real person) choice of tactics and the footballers’ abilities combined. dexterity on the controller is kept to a minimal.

a)approach will feel much more like a versus fighting or an FPS, where both the immediate decision and the execution of it on the controller needs to be trained to precision. It will make the game much more competitive, but will definitely retract the footballers’ and football club’s personality away from the game.( i.e. you can play as Accrington and beat Real Madrid because you are the better player, regardless of the club’s difference of level in real life.)

b) approach feels much more like a Real-time Strategy, where the immediate response is boiled down to something simple to execute on the controller. winning with the Accrington against Real Madrid will definitely be much tougher due to the footballer’s difference. And it will require the AI to be significantly dumber to make several tactical mistakes for the player to win in such circumstances.

right now, FIFA is definitely a mix of both. But i really wonder if it’s a good mix just yet. while a I feel the dribbling part inevitably has to be more a) like, the general gameplay, especially when and how to pass/shoot should be more b) like.

the new one touch is definitely a step towards b) more so than a). But i wonder if this is how the game should take it’s direction.

Infact I think the two approaches i mentioned are still not well welded together in FIFA because of the framework of the game.

what I mean by framework is specifically how the game read’s player stats. I think there needs to be some sort of a major overhaul in what stats to include and how these stats affects the way the player’s play.

there also needs to be more transparency of what the stats are describing.

does a 99 short pass player mean he’ll 99% of the time give an accurate pass? or does it mean it is 99% accurate with every ball he passes? to clarify, 1st one mean there will be 1 out of 100 that is a wayward pass, the 2nd meant that he can only be 99% accurate with the pass regardless of tries.

what exactly does the vision stat describe? and how about positioning? or the whole set of mental stats for that matter? are they only describing the players’ mentality without my control? or does bad vision mean passing is also affected and the player won’t be able to make trickier passes? does bad positioning also affect the angle of sliding and standing tackles?

right now the physical player’s stats are easily understood, and also seem to dominate the gameplay, which is why pace and strength seemed to be everything, as well as why AI defending is still very bad.
However, the technical and mental stats don’t seem to affect players enough to differentiate between a skilled player with a physical player. This also makes tactical application limited in the game.
AI barcalona doesn’t feel like the real one with it’s limited creativity, and honestly any player with good fooball IQ can play ANY team into Barcalona in more or less degree.

SO, What does EA want the game to be? A simulator or a competitive footballing game? Or do you actually want it to be THE competitive football simulation?

I think this is really the biggest problem of FIFA ; identifying what the game actually is. If EA get’s this solved, it will REALLY be THE best football gaming experience.

I like the idea of first touch, the unpredictable element it adds will hopefully add lots of variety to gameplay.
I just hope it’s not to much of a handicap to defenders, ie…if I know I’m going to struggle to make a clean first touch with a defender, I will still be able to thump it into row z as a safe option.

@jibber

Good points.

lol 90 min goal in the video, not quality control just another handicapped goal… whats funny is that any other time during the game the player wouldnt be able to control that ball