Jertje

@shindig: You're spot on.

More examples:

1. You're playing at home, it's extra time and you are 1-0 down. You send a pass towards your striker and he's 1 on 1 with the keeper, but he's given off-side. At this point you expect the entire stadium to go apeshit at the referee. Nothing happens; nobody cares.

2. You're playing an away game and have to take a penalty. Crowd doesn't try to take you out of your concentration.

3. In general there just isn't enough negativity in the crowds. There's some cheering and clapping, but they're never offended at anything. They don't care much about decisions made by the referee, they don't react to the opposing fans cheering, they don't whistle when you lose 2-0 when you were expected to win. They're just too nice.

PC player here.

I think it looks and feels great. In my opinion this is the biggest 'upgrade' in quite a while. In terms of gameplay it feels very familiar, but there is a significant amount of polish there. I'm one of the people who love FIFA for what it is, but was never content with the immersion and presentation (still not, but steps have been taken...). Year after year of improving gameplay but identical presentation really left me a bit apathetic towards the game as a series, but it seems they finally worked on making a game 'feel' like a football match, instead of just tweaking the gameplay.

Sure, passes are a bit tighter and the players move more fluidly. I love that and it's the logical progression the series has shown for years and years. It feels like a much bigger improvement than 13 -> 14 did. I'm mostly impressed with the visuals and presentation though. You see shirts deform as players tug them; the pitch changes throughout the game; great highlights and replays; players showing natural emotion; players urging ball boys to hurry up during throw ins on 'attacking'; etc, etc.

The crowds have left me a bit annoyed though, because on the one hand you have these fully modeled individual dudes, but on the other hand they still sit down as a homogeneous group at certain moments --thousands of people sitting down at exactly the same moment... erm, okay. It's also great to hear increased singing and enthousiasm from the crowd after a goal, but it lasts until 5 seconds past kick-off and then it's back to the same generic sounds and noises. It just doesn't grab me; not even 1% as much as a real game does. In real-life the stadium reacts to everything: ball gets cleared by the home defense? Clapping everywhere. Opposing player makes a foul on a home team player? Everyone goes batshit insane. Opposing player makes a foul on a home team player in the last 5 minutes, while the home team is down one goal and the striker was in a promising position? 50.000 people go absolutely apeshit at the referee. It's just not there in FIFA. It's the same for 90 minutes and it has no heart.

Sure, that's a lot of stuff to type about what is essentially of zero importance to the gameplay, but as a -- 'I like the gameplay enough, just improve the atmosphere' -- guy, it's quite disappointing, because all the above requests are much, much easier to implement than hundreds of new animations, a new engine, cool match highlights, and so on and so forth.

Tldr: gameplay is awesome, presentation is awesome but could have been much more.

PC demo is available for download. Almost done downloading ;)

Waiting eagerly for the PC demo. My body is ready.

Dan is an awesome guy. Helping out no questions asked. I'd probably do the same for any duder on here in need. Besides, Child's Play is a good back-up cause.

Stop putting kindness in perspective to greater or lesser kindness.

@bollard: The PC version is confirmed to be identical to the next-gen consoles' version in features and content. That and it has the divine privilege of being on ze master system, of course.

Last year, FIFA gamers on PC had to make due with the FIFA of yesteryear as the IGNITE engine was available exclusively on the new consoles. However, this year all is well-- because the PC version is once again fully featured and up to date (ignited?)! Apparently the PC-gaming market has developed enough support for such a resource-intensive engine in mere months!

As a PC gamer I'm stoked about this, but every FIFA player I know is going for a console version. So are there any FIFA-duders out there with the PC as their platform of choice?

Spore. What a trainwreck. I must've watched the 1-hour gameplay rundown by Will Wright ten times, and then they release this watered down, buggy game with broken gameplay. It broke my heart. :(

Here's mine:

1. Get a can of Pringles.

2. Eat everything, leave nothing.

3. Saw around the top 2/3 off.

4. I carved a small rectangle out on the side. This way you can also stick a mug in, because there's an opening for the handle.

5. I covered in in aluminium foil. It looks less like a can of gourmandized potato-product that way. I suppose it also reflects the heat and cold.

6. Glue on top of your shifter mount. Or find some method which doesn't result in you destroying your shifter-mount like an ape when you want to remove the cup-holder in the future.

7. Repeat steps 1 and 2, if required.

Seconded!

@neemer: I'm also operating in a limited space, by the way. It's good to know that the keyboard tray can be set up on either side, so the wall might not be a problem if you're stuck next to it like I am. I'll try to get a picture in of my cramped recess tomorrow. If I don't, and you'd still like to get an idea, pm me. I'm a bit pre-occupied so I tend to forget!

Edit: actually, setting up the keyboard tray on either side is dependent on your shifter of course. You'll be forced to put the shifter platform on the opposite side of your keyboard tray. I don't have a shifter, so it's no problem for me. I turned my shifter platform into a cup holder (made out of a pringles can) and stuck it on the wall-side :)