Good sneak peak into what Fifa 11 can bring and loads of national squads to play with.
My first thought before buying Fifa World Cup 2010 was "Is this going to be any better than Fifa 10?"
I bought it and the first match I tried out was versus a friend.
First of all it has a lot of national squads, almost every squad that went through the qualification process which makes this game feature in the wish list of players from all those countries.
The graphics are wonderful with the famous players distinguished by distance and their animations are closer to their reality than in Fifa 10.
The new stadiums in South Africa are outstanding with a view from the fans who paint their nation's flag on their faces and get happy or sad according to how their team is playing, although it's always the same 4 fans featured, it is a nice addition. Another nice addition to the game was Managers. If I'm not mistaken all the managers from the 32 finalist teams are featured in the game, which gives a more realistic feel when substitutions take place.
On to the gameplay, I was in love since the beginning, the gameplay was smoother and the collisions were more real, with new player animations to different situations and new ways of scoring goals. Me and my friend were delighted and we surely thought that Fifa World Cup 2010 would keep us busy while we waited for Fifa 11.
The real problem I saw in this game was the AI. I'm a Fifa player since Fifa came to the market and although there are some differences from Fifa 10 the AI has improved to make it more challenging but it has improved to the wrong side.
Playing in World Class difficulty was a walk in the park, when switching to Legendary I could feel the BIG difference it was between the two difficulties, it was far more challenging and it gave you more of a fight that the first 2 games I played was extremely enthusiastic yelling out to every goal I scored, but the problems came afterwards.
I realized that the AI in this game didn't improve much on the gameplay but more on the cheating effect. Somehow if I am alone with the keeper and the AI slides me from the back, not always the AI gets a red card, sometimes not even a yellow which gets pretty frustrating since AI can score some goals which due to their defensive AI are almost impossible for a human player to score, so when you outplay the AI, it kills you from the back, but don't think it's the referee who isn't rigorous enough, cause you do a less dangerous foul on the midfield and you can see a yellow card in a blink or even a red.
Plus I've noticed some passing issues, which I tried with 4 different controllers and they seem to happen only when playing vs the computer, the player passes the ball to a different direction or the AI guesses just far too often where the pass is going to go even if you are looking the opposite side the AI is running on a perpendicular line towards you and you pass it back, the AI makes an interception that way.
I love challenging games and I love those games where the AI is simply outplaying me with class, and I can say we fought til the last minute, but I hate the feeling I get from almost every match I play now that the result could have been a lot better if the AI didn't cheat in order to be better than you.
I've seen Kenya's strikers running faster than Maicon which stats say otherwise, and it wasn't just once.
Other improvements I hope to see on the AI are the team I'm playing with, regarding their movement off the ball, the players seem dumber off of it and totally outplayed by the opponents team AI, running into offside when you made a first touch pass to that player. And when you try to use offside trap, the second you press twice up they make a pass to that player and he is not offside.
All included Fifa World Cup 2010 is still a great game which captures the feel of this amazing Cup that happens every 4 years. Despite it's A.I. problems it can be a lot of fun, specially playing vs human players.