Experience enhanced control and strategic play with 360-degree dribbling
Experience enhanced control and strategic play with 360-degree dribbling
Pros
- 360 dribbling makes it easier to make goal scoring chances
- More realistic scorelines in manager mode
- Recognisable player faces in bigger teams
Cons
- Not different enough to FIFA 2009 to be worth buying outright
- Still hard to score from long range
- Smaller number of international teams than in previous editions
Full dribbling control and a managerial overhaul.
FIFA 2010 is the 17th version of the game from EA Sports and the first to be released after the seminal FIFA 2009 which won over 20 international gaming awards. From a graphics point of view, FIFA 2010 isn't that much different, but there were some significant changes that made it worth gamers shelling out on a new programme.
New Features to FIFA 2010
The main changes came "under the hood" of the game, meaning that the controls feel very different to any other version of FIFA previously, and laid the bedrock for a lot of the current gameplay in recent years. Features that were introduced for the first time in FIFA 2010 include:
• 360 degree dribbling - amazingly, in all previous versions of FIFA, you could only make your player run in one of the eight orthogonal directions. The introduction of 360 degree dribbling allows players to make all sorts of interesting runs, truly exploiting holes in the defence or moving past opponents on the wings more easily.
• Player animation - for the first time, the graphics engine driving the game was of high enough quality for the game designers to accurately portray dozens of well known footballers. A close look at Wayne Rooney or Ronaldinho, for example, will show their distinctive features in more detail.
• Intelligent team-mates - one of the biggest complaints from gamers about the previous editions was a lack of intelligent play from team-mates who didn't make appropriate moves or track obvious runs from opposition forwards. They act much more naturally and you can set their mindsets ahead of the game to be more offensive or defensive as the game requires.
• Improved managerial game - whilst there is little difference in the feel of the manager mode, you can switch on the Total Football Experience, where you'll get updates on player activity around the world as well as much more realistic scorelines based on the strength of each team and their likely rotations based on fatigue and opposition ratings.
• Players are "ambitious" - in the managerial game, all players now have a hidden ambition rating. This will dictate how hard they will play in key games, how likely they are to want to move to a bigger club and how likely you are to attract them lower down the leagues. They'll also look at the make up of your team, so if you've already got a well established goalkeeper or a large number of strikers, players with a high ambition rating are less likely to join.
Pros
- 360 dribbling makes it easier to make goal scoring chances
- More realistic scorelines in manager mode
- Recognisable player faces in bigger teams
Cons
- Not different enough to FIFA 2009 to be worth buying outright
- Still hard to score from long range
- Smaller number of international teams than in previous editions
Pros
- More intelligent AI in the players
- Faster keepers
- 360 degree control
- Improves on an already legendary game FIFA 09
Cons
- The game is outdated compared to FIFA 16
- No online gameplay in the demo
Arguably, FIFA 09 was the king of all soccer games, and it represented a pinnacle point in the series with all the newest innovations into soccer gaming. With that said, how does FIFA 10 stack up to FIFA 09? First, a lot of gamers probably have some big expectations of FIFA 10 because of how good FIFA 09 was. On visual basis, FIFA looks great, and it is not far removed from its predecessor.
When you play the demo on the PC, you do see a lot of changes that have improved the game further. The biggest change relates to how the game designers introduced 360 degree control. That means that you can move your players in more than eight directions, and it gives the gameplay a more subtle appeal. You have more chances for creative play and more flexibility than ever before.
When we look at the player animation, there has been a complete redesign of how it takes place. You can move with your characters, and the ball dribbling looks fantastic. Along with those upgrades, FIFA 10 raised the intelligence of the players so that they act more naturally. As a result, they may not do what you want, but it gives the game a more realistic appeal.
Game designers also upgraded the management. Perhaps they made improvements in response to Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer, which has always been known as the better game series for soccer. With FIFA 10, game designers added a new feature called "Ambition." This affects the decisions of the computer players, and if you have a team full of defenders, it can be tough to convince another to join. This is because most players do not consider this worth their time in furthering their soccer career.
FIFA 09 got a lot right with the game, but FIFA 10 has a cleaner and more subtle design than 09. It had some big shoes to fill, but FIFA 10 has made a step in the right direction with a more realistic game of football. Unfortunately, the PC version lags behind the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions. While the PC version is by no means a bad game, the developers could have done a better job at putting the PC specs together. To start, almost none of the interesting physical interactions can be seen in the players. The PC version of FIFA 10 would have had no problem with the physics that the consoles used, but the developers made no effort to leverage the hardware. On the other hand, the action looks great, and the animations worked well for the time. The players jostle each other, and there is increased clarity in the PC version than in the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions.
Pros
- More intelligent AI in the players
- Faster keepers
- 360 degree control
- Improves on an already legendary game FIFA 09
Cons
- The game is outdated compared to FIFA 16
- No online gameplay in the demo
