I just came back from a pretty lengthy session of the FIFA10 demo, so I thought I should write up my thoughts on it.

I'm a pretty big FIFA fan, but I have not bought FIFA09. I've decided to buy a footy game every two years, so that the additions to those games aren't too small. With two years between both games, there are quite a few differences.

First off, the controls feel much, much tighter. Instead of being constrained to eight directions of dribbling when you're running with the ball at your feet, 360 degree dribbling is now present. It seems like a minor addition at first, but when you've played a couple of matches (of 3 minutes per half, which is acceptable for a demo) with this new freedom to movement, going back to the older versions feels quite a bit worse.

The ball physics have been cleaned up as well, and the result is a passing system that feels more real and quite a bit more responsive. Crosses and corners feel like they're more skill than luck now, which could not be said for 08. Free kicks are still difficult to take, but the keepers now seem prepared for a straight lob with the "long ball" button, an exploit that made scoring free kicks far too easy in previous installments. I tried it, and the keeper had no trouble simply picking up the ball. I've yet to actually score a free kick though, like in any footy game, scoring those requires some familiarity with their respective systems and rules. Free kicks are different in every game. I still feel that FIFA07 on the PS2 had the best system for free kicks and such.

The new-and-improved passing system is a blessing, because the action on the pitch is much more oriented on passing. The right-stick commands for tricks have been streamlined, making it easier to do step-overs and such, but dribbling is difficult, very difficult here. The players' weight and size make a big difference now. I played most of my matches with Barça, so I tried to dribble quite a bit as Messi, naturally. It's very difficult. Not because Messi's not quick or good with tricks and such, because he is. It's just that he's absolutely tiny. I played against the stocky Bayern München defenders, and they had a real easy time taking the ball away from me simply by slightly leaning against me with their big bodies. I think that this is all for the better. Dribbling exploits like speed-running are now no longer possible, which should make for more realistic, and more fun matches online. 
 
There are a lot of nice new animations, and some new tricks too, though like in previous FIFA games, only two or three of the tricks here are actually useful in a match. There are less cutscenes, because of the inclusion of quick free kicks. When a card's being given, the game tends to simply leave the camera on the gameplay-perspective, much like PES does. It looks nice. The menus are still pretty much the same, which means they're still god-awful, but hey, it's not that big a deal.

I really like this demo. I think that most of the previous games' problems have been fixed--although new ones will quickly surface in this edition, of course. FIFA10 plays a great game of soccer, and if you like soccer games, like me, you should really check it out.

I love writing reviews. I've picked up the habit of writing a review for a game after completing it for the first time. I don't think I'll ever turn into a professional review writer (though the Giantbomb crew makes it look as though it's really fun) but I still want my reviews to have some quality to them. The point of this blog; I want to find others who like writing user reviews. If you're interested, leave a link to your review page so that I can read and comment on them. In return, I'd like you to tell me what you think of my reviews as well. The goal is to improve our reviews. :)
 
Here's my review page, and for good measure, here's Sunking's, someone I've been trading comments on reviews with and who writes truly excellent reviews. Check him out as well if you like.

My friend just told me who Persona 4's killer is.

I can't decide which of these games to pick up. Both would cost me the same amount of money, and both seem to have really fun gameplay. But picking up both would seem like serious overkill, so I need to choose one. Problem is, I can't. So I'd like you to do it for me. Please tell me which of these you prefer. I have played a lot of FIFA games, but the only experience I have with PES games is the PES2009 demo. Please help me out here.

So I just wrote up a pretty nice Dead Space review, if I do say so myself. It was all finished up, and I was editing in the screenshots with captions. However, just as I click on the last pic to caption it, Firefox randomly decides to crash. No biggie, I thought to myself, as I restored my previous session. I'd had this happen before, and I had the text copied incase something would go wrong. However, when I rightclick, I notice the fucking paste option is grayed out. Look, I know nobody cares about user reviews, and I'm just whining, but I spent quite a bit of time on that review trying to make it into something that has quality to it. And now I've lost it. Yet again, as the review editor this site has tends to fuck me over a lot. Anyway, I've lost my frustration now. But damn man.