I was a big PES fan for years, until the latest installments of both titles. The new PES is an utter shambles, which is utterly depressing. So I bought FIFA, and was pleasantly surprised. Some great animations, and the gameplay works reasonably well, however something's not right. I used to play PES all year until the next installment would come out, but FIFA, I haven't played in months, and have no real desire to go back.
Some points:
- The shooting is far too easy. Wondergoals are ten-a-penny, to the point I get no enjoyment from them. Hold R2(RT), get the power right, and the player will pull off some outrageous (often outside-of-the-boot) beauty into the top bag. Loved it at first. Hate it now. You'd have to work for those goals in old PES and get it spot on. I don't even watch the replays when I score them now. So make the shooting a bit more challenging and rewarding. And don't talk to me about turning off assisted shooting or whatever it is. You shouldn't have to disadvantage yourself to get full fulfillment from the game.
- Make the first-touch thing better. Using the analogue stick thing to take a touch is great, however it's not responsive enough. When I play a lobbed through ball to my striker, and want him to take the ball in his stride, often he stands waiting for the ball to bounce before taking a touch (often a poor one), and the defender can catch up. Should be able to take Berbatov-esque touches pulling the ball effortlessly out of the air, if you time it right.
- Improve the skill functions. Sorry, I know FIFA has some nice skills, but all this analogue stick and top buttons shit is stupid when all you wanna do is a couple of step-overs. Again, learn from PES. If you wanna pull off rainbow kicks and all that fancy shite you never see in real-life, by all means use the skill stick and top buttons, but for simple step-over it should just be 2 blasts of R1 (RB) like on PES. The shoot faint thing is utterly wank in FIFA too. It's very difficult to round the keeper one on one, so I just end up sliding it in with R2 and shoot, guaranteed goal of course.