Best Football Sim (that's "soccer" to you colonial types)

[Traianvs]

It's weird but usually you don't need special moves to attack. It does come in helpful when you have a player like Adriano, Riquelme or Pirès who can do a special move (by tapping a direction key twice when having the ball and running forward). It's easier to keep the ball, but it isn't really necessary I noticed.

Usually you simply need to watch the enemy defenders closely and react to their movements so they're always one step behind. Merely moving short bits in this or that direction is enough to create an opening and pass it so another player can kick it in. And if you don't find an opening simply return the ball to your DMF or wing player and try again from there.

The most useful 'trick' that every player can do is the shoot, and while your shoot-bar is filling up press low pass. You'll see what I mean when you try. If you're running at full speed you can mislead defenders and have a clear shot at goal

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Traianvs
The most useful 'trick' that every player can do is the shoot, and while your shoot-bar is filling up press low pass. You'll see what I mean when you try. If you're running at full speed you can mislead defenders and have a clear shot at goal

Yup, teh feint. This is how I score most of my goals these days.

[Solver]

Yep, the shot feint is great. I love it when one-on-one with the keeper, then you can send him to the ground, run around him and score it Ronaldo-style.

Stepovers and the like are fun, I think - it's more fun scoring when your attacker can beat a couple defenders through special moves rather than just finding/creating the space correctly.

[Maquiladora]

Originally posted by Solver

Stepovers and the like are fun, I think - it's more fun scoring when your attacker can beat a couple defenders through special moves rather than just finding/creating the space correctly.

Me too, but more often than not, to create those chances you need to open up the game in your favour first. The AI won't throw away it's 8 man defence in the box until the end if it's losing, so you need to spread the play all over the pitch.

All my spectacular goals (dribbles, long shots etc) have come through dominating the game to the point where I can start to play around and try things I normally wouldn't risk.

By far the best trick to get past opponents (besides the keeper) and open up play is the side-step. Even a sidestep into a seemingly pointless direction can confuse the AI to pull it's players out of position, and it's even better against a human

The normal shot-feint is good for going past a keeper when you're running straight at him. If you're running away from the keeper, or a normal feint would run you further away from goal then use super cancel feint or a small lob, or even a roulette. SC feint:

[LordShiva]

Some of those ball receptions are pretty sweet.

I can never get teh lob right; always send it too high.

[Maquiladora]

By small lob I mean the shoot then hold R1, or double-tapping shoot if you're configured that way.

The normal lob shots are hard though like you say, 90% of the time I use the hidden lob now, it's nearly always a goal if you hit it from the right distance.

[El_Cid]

re: 'Best Football Sim'

FM 2007(Sega) for my money, the series has nearly come together perfectly in this version(I've played 05+06..lets not talk about what is now called Championship manager!).

My perfect game involves randomising all the players names and stats(so I don't know who the great players are right away), picking a team I like from either the conference south or north, and seeing how far I can take them.

My best effort was to take newport to the championship, but they just couldn't get big enough or desirable enough to compete at that level.

Then I jumped ship to wrexham(then in div2) and we are now a 28,000 capacity club who can compete in the Premiership(mid table candidates for the last two seasons).
I'm just coming to the close of another season in which we've been in both the FA Cup and EURO cup finals(runners up) and won the FAW cup against cardiff. As it stands we'll make a respectable 8th place this season.

Now if only i could sort out my striker problem, they never seem to score many goals, then maybe we could aim higher?

horribly, totally addictive. And maybe the last bastion of a game in this era that offers all that old school depth/addiction and countless hours of play without getting stale. The best football managment sim ever....to my mind

[Maquiladora]

Theres a lot of new PES 2008 vids on youtube from the Leipzig conference. Looks excellent so far.

PS2 version will look pretty much identical to PES6 (as in not next gen) but with new player anims.

PC version appears to be next gen like the X360 and PS3 versions will be, and roughly how PES looks on X360 now.

FIFA 08 also looks excellent but if you look carefully the animation is still jerky. They supposedly added a feature to control your feet exactly with the analogue sticks, sounds like BS and certainly won't make a deal of difference to overall gameplay. FIFA has never been about simulating real team football, which is why you can score wonder goals with any player on the pitch.

[Shrapnel12]

My son has shown interest in playing a soccer video game. We have a PS2 and he is 7 years old. Anyone have a suggestion of a game that would be easy for him to play?

[Maquiladora]

Sega Soccer Slam, that's pretty easy and very arcadey, same goes for FIFA 07.

[Solver]

Is it possible (or has it been, in any PES) to make your goalkeeper rush to the enemy penalty area during a corner?

[Maquiladora]

Not sure about earlier than PES3, but it hasn't been possible since then.

If you want to bring central defenders up for the corner then you need to have your team mentality set to red IIRC.

[Solver]

No football sim can be complete without the ability to score with a goalkeeper.

[Maquiladora]

Swap him for a forward then

[Maquiladora]

Apparently the PES 08 demo has just hit XBox Live, the PC version is due out Monday/Tuesday AFAIK.

I've been trying the PC FIFA 08 demo, which BTW is NOT next-gen, unlike PC PES08. FIFA08 is alright, the controls are definitely an improvement on 07, but the nets are still crappy looking and the play does tend to dissolve into the same goals if you play it enough, although the speed of play is good. Most animations are excellent too, better than PES in some cases (keepers), although PES is more fluid from one move to another.

I dunno what difficulty the FIFA demo is on (can't change it) but it's ridiculously easy, after a few halves of play I was beating Barcelona with America (Mexican team) 5-0. Also scored two spectacular goals with Ginger Scholes from well outside 30yrds, after only a few practice games too.