Thought I'd have a blast at Ultimate Team Mode and it really is the biggest pile of crap. That only leaves one decent game-mode, and that's the UEFA CL. Which is going to get very repetitive. I'd play a league in FIFA 07 but I actually grabbed five minutes on it after playing the UEFA demo for something like a week, and it was nowhere near as good. I couldn't go back to that.
But anyway, the Ultimate Team stuff.
You get the cards, and actually, I quite like ... half of the idea. I say that because trading online, putting your cards up for sale etc. is actually a laugh - playing with the asking price and seeing what you can get. Trying to fill your collector's album is a fun little distraction, if you're into that sort of thing, and I like the way that the system works as a whole - I just hate the fact that you get given a team of random people, and a random team's logo and kits, rather than being able to choose. If you play Liverpool and you're wearing Liverpool's kit... It's just ridiculous. Plus, you can get manager cards - and yet you manage the team, so what's the point in that?
What ultimately kills it (see what I did there?) is the fact that contracts run out after FIVE GAMES - "that's a ridiculously short amount of time", I hear you say. Well, it is, but there's a reason; there's no actual league or competition to Ultimate Team. You play a bunch of random teams and if you beat ten you go up a level.
What a load of toss. You might as well play in the "lounge", which is equally devoid of meaning and an utter waste of the programmer's time.
Anybody thinking of completing the mode just to unlock the "Golden Ticket" game mode to save themselves from playing the same game mode 72,532 consecutive times; don't bother. This is from Eurogamer:
Eurogamer said:
As you progress through the levels you unlock better packs and better teams to play, but also at the end you earn a Golden Ticket that enables you to compete with your Ultimate Team in the UEFA Champions League tournament.
In the words of Lauren, am I bovvered?
I love the actual gameplay though; put it like this, I played FIFA 07 for something like an hour a day; even on it's day of release it wasn't over two hours that I played it for. I've played this for over seven hours now. My eyes are going to burst. But I don't care.
Every game is different, it's so good. If I play the CPU on PES it's a string of 1-0s. On this I've gone from drawing 1-1 (and being GRATEFUL) to losing 4-0. The game, on World Class, is stunning, and I'll tell you now, if you're under the kosh for 80 minutes, defending for your life, and you score a breakaway goal...
You will celebrate.