Davinche
International Player
I work for an estate agent business, near Regents Street for my summer holidays so during my lunch break I normally check out the high street stores, and play games on the pre installed booths in places like GAME.
Anyways, I normally always check out HMV so today I got a surprise as I walked into the HMV store in Oxford Street. I went to the games section to find that fifa 07 was available for customers to try out in those pods. I should say that it was for PS2, so I don’t know how it’s like for the xbox 360.
Only 2 Teams were available to choose from which was Manchester United and Barcelona. I selected Manchester United for 2 games and Barcelona for the next 2.
Firstly I will start at the graphics. No lie. I actually think it’s got worse. Even If you’re a fan of the FIFA style graphics and player modeling, the actual game play models of players look detached to the stadium pitch as you play. It may be the pitch, but it looks worse then FIFA 2006 world cup edition, or at least the demo version which used to be here. The scenes of when a player scores are the same as ever, and the character modeling looks as good (or if you’re a fan of the PES style, like me, worse) then ever. I scored a goal with saha to find Gary Neville polish his feet, which was a nice touch, however with recent talk of them changing the game engine I haven’t noticed any graphical tweaks in these areas.
Interesting, to shoot is now the square button such as with PES, unlike previously with the circle button. It now crosses as with PES. (Unless someone changed the controls?)
It’s got nice tweaks in the character animations, players in good space will put up their hands wanting to receive a pass, when they don’t get the ball they stamp on the ground and point to the floor just before them. Tugging on shirts looks more realistic then PES, as does the way the players who shirts are being tugged, try to free themselves, fight and squirm their way out, those few graphical/animation tweaks look quite good.
Crowd chanting is as good ever, I actually hear some famous/popular old Trafford chants, and ofcourse, they are actually there!. In one game I left Rooney out as a sub, just to find that when I brought him on the crowd starts chanting his name and there is an explosion of whistles and shouting, again lovely touches accustomed to FIFA games.
Commentary is as good as ever with the commentators bringing up useful information about the teams, and players, I heard some tidbit about Ronaldinho but didn’t pay to much attention. I did hear a phrase a few times, so it did get repetitive but I did play about 4 games. However it’s a section where fifa has the edge on pro evolution.
So let’s get to the game play, and for those people hearing reviews about how they actually liked FIFA 07 this time, and how they were changing things, I am sorry but this is not the case, at least with the ps2 version. The game feels as stiff and scripted as before. Player movements are stiff and predictable, the ball movement does not seem free at all, and it still seems to have these ‘sweet spots’ (If I shoot here I WILL score) the game seems not to have changed much at all from the world cup edition. The skills on the right analogue stick seem less effective against players, and don’t seem to have a purpose but to look good. Even with Ronaldinho I didn’t find it much helpful and so was unable to perform any of the supposed new moves from the adverts I seen. It didn’t play terrible, but it did seem higly scripted, as if something was bound to happen. Ball movement is slightly freer, but nothing compared to the scope of possibilities with PES. Fifa 07 however is not going to be the new definitive game, unless the 360 version plays much better, or they are still developing the title.
Its just a brief review of the game from the demo, comments welcome!
Anyways, I normally always check out HMV so today I got a surprise as I walked into the HMV store in Oxford Street. I went to the games section to find that fifa 07 was available for customers to try out in those pods. I should say that it was for PS2, so I don’t know how it’s like for the xbox 360.
Only 2 Teams were available to choose from which was Manchester United and Barcelona. I selected Manchester United for 2 games and Barcelona for the next 2.
Firstly I will start at the graphics. No lie. I actually think it’s got worse. Even If you’re a fan of the FIFA style graphics and player modeling, the actual game play models of players look detached to the stadium pitch as you play. It may be the pitch, but it looks worse then FIFA 2006 world cup edition, or at least the demo version which used to be here. The scenes of when a player scores are the same as ever, and the character modeling looks as good (or if you’re a fan of the PES style, like me, worse) then ever. I scored a goal with saha to find Gary Neville polish his feet, which was a nice touch, however with recent talk of them changing the game engine I haven’t noticed any graphical tweaks in these areas.
Interesting, to shoot is now the square button such as with PES, unlike previously with the circle button. It now crosses as with PES. (Unless someone changed the controls?)
It’s got nice tweaks in the character animations, players in good space will put up their hands wanting to receive a pass, when they don’t get the ball they stamp on the ground and point to the floor just before them. Tugging on shirts looks more realistic then PES, as does the way the players who shirts are being tugged, try to free themselves, fight and squirm their way out, those few graphical/animation tweaks look quite good.
Crowd chanting is as good ever, I actually hear some famous/popular old Trafford chants, and ofcourse, they are actually there!. In one game I left Rooney out as a sub, just to find that when I brought him on the crowd starts chanting his name and there is an explosion of whistles and shouting, again lovely touches accustomed to FIFA games.
Commentary is as good as ever with the commentators bringing up useful information about the teams, and players, I heard some tidbit about Ronaldinho but didn’t pay to much attention. I did hear a phrase a few times, so it did get repetitive but I did play about 4 games. However it’s a section where fifa has the edge on pro evolution.
So let’s get to the game play, and for those people hearing reviews about how they actually liked FIFA 07 this time, and how they were changing things, I am sorry but this is not the case, at least with the ps2 version. The game feels as stiff and scripted as before. Player movements are stiff and predictable, the ball movement does not seem free at all, and it still seems to have these ‘sweet spots’ (If I shoot here I WILL score) the game seems not to have changed much at all from the world cup edition. The skills on the right analogue stick seem less effective against players, and don’t seem to have a purpose but to look good. Even with Ronaldinho I didn’t find it much helpful and so was unable to perform any of the supposed new moves from the adverts I seen. It didn’t play terrible, but it did seem higly scripted, as if something was bound to happen. Ball movement is slightly freer, but nothing compared to the scope of possibilities with PES. Fifa 07 however is not going to be the new definitive game, unless the 360 version plays much better, or they are still developing the title.
Its just a brief review of the game from the demo, comments welcome!
