I've got to say im in a very good mood. it's saturday night, im full of imported lager (morrisons have a blindin deal on, i picked up 3 660ml bottles of kingfisher, 3 of peroni and 3 of san miguel for £15! thats a fair bit of beer, and im just finishing the last bottle of kingfisher, which is probably my favourite), i have a packet of chocolate limes, My itunes shuffle has been on form, dishing up a wide variety of songs, and i dont have to get up early. This is an Anti-rant.
I have played 2 league games since i last posted. The first was against I will bat joe. My mentality going into the game was schoolboy. I play a lot with Kappa, and our results are mixed. probably over the whole time we have been playing manual against each other its about 70-30 in Kappas favour in terms of wins. In one of our games i mentioned that I will bat joe was my next league game. Kappa had already played him, and told me that he was a decent player, likes to use the trick stick and could finish his chances. He beat Kappa 4-0, so things didn't look good. I went into the game with damage limitation in mind, which i shouldnt have. It was a tough game, i found myself endlessly soaking up pressure and breathing sighs of relief when chances were missed. Typical of football, i created a good chance late in the first half (or was it early in the second half?) and managed to put that chance away. So 1-0 up against what i saw as one of the most threatening players in the league, what do you do? push for a second and risk opening yourself up? sit on the lead and defend for your life? i chose the latter (fuck it, its worked for me before). im confident in my defending, and actually feel more comfortable clearing off my own line than i do trying to stick the ball over someone elses. I managed to hold out and won 1-0. i have to say i will bat joe was a top bloke and a very good player. he caused me loads of problems, and when i won he sent me a light hearted message about him hitting a non scoring streak. We need more players like that on 09 in general.
My second league game was against laddsy76. Long overdue in terms of league fixtures, but with time differences (he lives in australia, i live just outside london) we found it hard to tie up. It was a very different game. i found the button lag hard to deal with. notice how i specifically said button lag. Not general lag, there was no distorted animations, in general the game flowed very well, but button presses were delayed noticeably. Anyone who has read the online changes thread will have their own opinion, but this did surprise me. The whole game, visually, was perfect, there were no skips, but i had delay on my button presses and i can only assume laddsy did too.
We could not be much further, physically, from each other, and delay is to be expected, but it doesn't make sense that i can have a pretty good game with a guy 17,000KM away, aside from the button lag, and then straight after, play a laggy, skippy, game against my mate who lives about 4 meters away, i could spit on his windows from my flat and we are both on the same exchange. Gotta love technology, i get paid to make sense of it and largely end up confused. Anyway i won 3-1, i probably got a bit lucky, but a win is a win.
Which leaves me Played 9-Won 4- drawn 3- lost 2, with a GD of +3. Joint top of the league in terms of points! the only problem is that there are 2 other teams on 15 points who have a game in hand, and TONYG who runs/plays as l.a. galaxy is on 14 points and has 2 games in hand on me.
All that considered, im really happy with my position, i am exceding my early expectations, and if i can keep the results in my favour i will be happy. To be honest playing a decent game is the most important thing. I got beaten 3-0 by guy from the forums, Bis4brutus, earlier. He was very good, really creative, which allowed me my own space, and certainly wasnt afraid to take a shot from range. All in all a good game even though i lost and i look forward to having another game with him. I also played t3h 3n3my, who is fairly new to manual, he beat me 2-1, which shows how open the games can be. Again, he was a top bloke and a really decent player, no spamming through balls, no stupid formations, not pace abusing, just a decent game of footy, i am happy to lose fairly, that doesnt worry me, it helps me see my flaws and patch them up, i just hate to lose to assisted noobs. thats not a knock to assisted players, i just dont like playing them. 99% of the time they use the same tactics, and demented formations that bastardise football.
There has been a huge interest in manual controls recently, which is really exciting to me. Loads of manual threads started, old ones being bumped and picking up pace, it seems that the football fans of the fifa community are becoming more self aware, have realised that manual controls put all the tools to play and create good football in your hand and they are now comfortable with making the "i play manual" statement, which can alienate you. There is an obvious divide of late between manual and assisted players, which i think is a good thing. I want to see manual leaderboards, im not saying i am better than assisted players, tonnes of them could tear me to bits. but how many could say they did it with skill? none. because on a 360 A,A,A,B = Goal. Too easy. No concentration or thought required. Hopefully this massive switch of players from assisted to manual will make EA consider giving manual players their own leaderboards. We need this.
Cheers for reading.
Tom