Tuesday, August 03, 2004
Winning Eleven 8 is here! I love Winning Eleven to bits and I've been waiting for this one for a while, so major MAJOR props to Mukund for running out to Sham Shui Po and picking it up for me while I was stuck at work. Quick impressions!
- Feels very different. Players have less "control" over the ball -- first touches can be erratic, harder to keep hold of it in general, etc.
- As noted in previews, you can REALLY tell the difference between players now. Defensive midfielders like Makelele are awesome at breaking up the play, and almost always emerge with the ball when they try to snatch it off a player. On the other hand, wingers like Giggs and Cristiano Ronaldo are almost magnetically attracted to the ball, because even if you tackle them the ball always seems to break their way (like real life, oddly enough). Fast strikers like Owen can nip in and catch slow defenders napping -- I almost scored a goal identical to Owen's strike against United at Old Trafford where he came from miles behind to blow by Pallister and tap the ball past Schmeichel. Strong strikers like Van Nistelrooy can hold off challenges and muscle their way through. And when you have a player who combines all the traits (like Shevchenko in attack or Gerrard in midfield) they're absolute monsters.
- It seems to be easier to foul, since just a tap of X can take out legs and you don't even need to go that far for a foul (pulling a shirt will do), but when playing against the CPU there were less fouls called in general.
- Also seems a lot faster... if not faster, then just zippier in general.
- Part of that is because passes are quicker and more powerful, but on the downside there are far too many passes with the outside of the foot. It looks realistic, sure, just not when 8/10 passes are that way. Also, there's a neat feature with passing where you can hold the X button down for a longer, more powerful and more accurate pass. The cool thing is that you can use it to pick different players out. What I mean is this... let's say you've got a guy running up besides you, and a guy behind him charging up the wing. In past WEs, it was fairly difficult to bypass the guy in front (the easy pass) and get the ball to the guy behind him going up the wing. Now, a tap of X will give it to the nearer player while holding down X will deliver it to the far guy.
- Volleys have been totally re-jigged, which is a disappointment because they were damn-near perfect in WE7. Or maybe I just haven't done it right. There have been quite a few occasions where I've hit the button in anticipation of a thunderous volley only to see the striker lamely head it on.
- Two-person free kicks are AWESOME. You can call a second person to stand over the free kick now, and they can either dummy it, take it themselves, or roll it for a charging player to smack. Brilliant stuff. You can come up with some really clever free-kick routines now.
- Which reminds me: For anyone who's played the Japanese WE7I, corners are fixed. No longer do you charge the bar the full way to get it to go to the middle of the box -- halfway on the bar is, surprise, halfway in the box.
- Looks great, graphically. There's a little sheen to the players now... can't really describe WHAT it is, but it makes them look really good. Love the little details like mud and grass smears on uniforms now.
- Goalkeepers are much better in one-on-one situations.
- Through balls are MUCH more potent now -- it's brilliant, you can sling a little curling ball in that just matches the run of the striker and see them go right through.
- Oh, and though the commentary is in Japanese it seems "smarter" now. For instance, while Cristiano Ronaldo was running up the wing looking to cross the commentator said something about Van Nistelrooy. Either it's totally stupid and broken or it's saying something about Van Nistelrooy being in the box waiting for the cross, which would be pretty cool.
There's probably so much more, but I'm totally exhausted. All I can really say is that this game is awesome.
Posted at 5:56 AM
