Ok my rentals from Lovefilm arrived today and have spent couple of hours playing on both the 360 and PS3 versions.
First thing to report is that there is no differenece to me in either version, they look graphically almost identical and both have a solid framerate. That is good news as I felt last year FIFA 08 played better on the 360.
I played the demo a lot and again am pleased to report that if you like the demo then you will love the final version. It is without doubt the best football game that I have ever played, it looks great, plays great and gives you as sort of emotional attachement. I have also found playing as different teams gives a unique feel to the match, for example played with my friend and first we played Bolton v Blackburn, both the teams don't have the most technically gifted players and therefore possesion was lost frequently and the game was very franatic, also both teams had "big men" up front so it resulted in a more direct approach. After battling it out I managed to win 1-0 with a late goal.
Next we played Madrid v Barcelona and again it was a different kind of experience. Both teams have better players so the game was less franatic and passing was much better and the game was much less direct as the ability of the players gives you more options, I also found that the better quality of the strikers meant that they made more intelligent runs. This again was a tight affair which my friend edged 2-1.
I have to say that I am very impressed by this, never played a football game with this kind of depth and am really looking forward to playing it over the coming months. The bad news is that I have played 12 matches in MM and they have all been played in daylight and the weather was sunny for all of them. This is very disappointing and takes away from MM for me, I was led to believe that in MM there would various weather conditions and matches would be played and different times of the day. I also found that just occassionally players did random things that you could not control (ie through ball puts them one on one with the keeper and for some reason they decide to run in the opposite direction).
These few niggles aside have to say that EA have done a superb job. This game takes not just football gaming but sports gaming to another level, the gaming experience is very immersive and multi-player is going to make this game really shine and we are going to see some very competitive online leagues.
I am also looking forward to PES2009, if they can get rid of the bugs and make online work properly then PES will give me a different kind of gaming experience and that for me is a positive, what would be the point of having 2 identical games on the market.
Yet 14 days to go for me



I win

so if a night fixture was played at a stadium with NO night mode then it would be weird
