Football Gamer - Pro Evo & FIFA on the XBOX 360

Ok guys, be ready with the bouquets and everything. I’m presenting you the biggest discovery in FIFA 09. This discovery would change the way you play FIFA and will make you go crazy over it.

The below has been tested and found successful only in OFFLINE games so far. I play in WORLD CLASS difficulty with assisted passing/shooting and manual with the rest. I play with SLOW pace setting. Importantly, I DO NOT USE ADIDAS Live Season.

Firstly, let me start by saying why this discovery was needed. I’m now going to list down all the points which are affecting the FIFA 09 gameplay on the pitch:

1. The game play is a bit too fast, even on slow settings
2. Unable to hold the ball; AI always puts pressure and wins
3. Ends up being just a quick one-touch passing game all the time
4. Attacks are monotonous; there is not enough variety
5. Attacks and chance creation are not random and realistic
6. AI plays with the same plan in all through the match
7. Quite difficult to pull off the tricks

What I’m going to suggest could be a time consuming process but certainly worthwhile, if you want to realistic football in FIFA 09. Just follow me very carefully. All that we need to do is to reduce the values of two attributes for each player in a team. Then in my FIFA 09 profile, set my favourite team as Tottenham (I’ll explain you the reasons later). Then I went to the ‘manage teams’ and chose ‘edit player’. Now this opens up the squad list of Tottenham so that I can edit each player. This is why I set Tottenham as my favourite team temporarily so that I don’t have to browse from Chelsea (my favourite team) to Tottenham every time.

Now I opened the first player for editing. I went to ‘movement’ attributes. In there, the first two attributes are acceleration and sprint speed. Now for these two attributes, I reduced the values by 15 points. For instance, if the acceleration is 86, changed it to 71, if the sprint speed is 83, changed it to 68. After I changed them, I hit the start button or back button to carefully ’save and exit’. Now I was back to the squad list. Then I kept repeating this for all the possible first teamers and the bench. It took about 5 minutes to make these tweaks for Tottenham team. Now I have a team that has no one in their 80s in sprint speed and acceleration. Then I edited the Sunderland squad. I set a match up between an edited Tottenham and an edited Sunderland.

The final result: I won 2-1. You won’t believe how much I enjoyed that match. Forget the result. The process was fabulous. My players were slower but they played like professional footballers. They had control on the ball. They were able to dribble tactically. I had the time to think how I can build the attack. When I was pressurised by the opponents, I could keep the ball by evading the opponent, something I just could never do before.

Earlier, whenever I was under pressure, all I would try to do was to hurriedly pass the ball to the nearest player. Now I could dodge the opponent just like how the AI players will evade your pressure or tackle. More than all this, the game play experience was fantastic. As players move slowly, you’re not in a mindset to hurry the attack. You keep the ball and try to look for spaces. The more I kept the ball, I started seeing the AI players making intelligent runs or even overlapping runs.

Earlier, when the game is played fast no one has time to make these runs. Typically, My CB will pass to CM, CM to LM, LM to CAM and CAM to ST (and the ST to fumble it!). There was some amount of routine in which the game was played by me. That was because, the players ran faster, passes were delivered quickly and hence the players received the ball even before they could start their attacking runs. In effect, all players would be in their respective positions as per the formation when they received the ball. They weren’t making too many runs primarily because I didn’t allow them to, as I would pass the ball to them to wherever they are, before they could make runs.

With the game now slowing down due to the reduced acceleration and sprint speed, the pitch now looks bigger! Yes! Earlier the pitch was small and the players in high speed made the pitch look even smaller. If someone like Torres could cover one half of the pitch in 5 real seconds earlier, now he will take 7 to 8 seconds. That’s a lot of additional time for you to react. Now you may ask, that if the defender’s speed is also reduced what difference it will make? Good question. Remember that the defenders’ pushing up is also slowed down and even if you lose ball to allow a breakaway, you have a lot of time to select the correct defender or to make the right decisions.

More time on the ball also makes you think creatively. That’s what happened to me. With that extra second on the ball, I started looking to surprise the AI (which is by the way, the best way to beat the AI) and even tried to do outrageous moves. This is all too good to be true but I have started shooting better than before, because of the overall adjusted speeds all around.

More than anything, I’m playing good football and I’m very satisfied with the way I play and AI plays. Because the sprint speed and acceleration of AI players are also reduced, the way AI played the game also changed. Granted it takes only milliseconds to process but certainly with more time at its disposal, it can take better decisions and that was very evident. Someone made this brilliant comment: ‘when the players run it looks like they have more than two legs’. Completely agree. But now, in reduced speeds, even the running animation looks nicer.

I’m very convinced that this is the way to play the game. I wished there was a quicker way to edit the attributes but I’m happy that we are at least able to edit them. Then I went ahead and edited for Chelsea and played against an unedited Man Utd, got beat 3-0 but again, was a very satisfying match. Then I edited Man Utd and they won in penalties after a 1-1 result at the end of extra time. I ended up editing Arsenal and Liverpool too. I’m planning to edit 4 teams per league per day. I’m not going to edit the players of a team which I’m never going to play as or play against. I did not edit any other attribute other than the two I mentioned above.

We generally know that the league two teams produce great matches in FIFA 09. Ever wondered why? Because they’re slower, you can control them better. Imagine a very controllable and slower Man Utd or Chelsea with the same level of their own skill and other capabilities. Remember, we’re only reducing the acceleration and sprint speed. We are leaving all other attributes as it is. There could be a top striker with a sprint speed of 68 with a ball control or 92. This means he will have controllable pace with having very good ball control. This is why my shooting (not finishing) has improved.

My suggestion to you is to edit the acceleration and sprint speed values for players in two decent mid-table teams and play out an exhibition match for a proof of concept. Play 10-minute halves in world class difficulty or professional difficulty, preferably the former. If you’re impressed, you can then go ahead and edit the values of players of all other teams that you might use. In a week’s time I’d have edited the player values for all champions league teams and the premier league teams. After you’re done with the editing, make sure you save the squad file in two or three different names so that your hardwork is safe.

Okay then, let me summarise what needs to be done in short bullet points:

1. Choose the team for which you want to edit the values
2. Set this team as your favourite team in your FIFA 09 profile
3. For all players in that team, reduce the values of speed sprint and acceleration by 15 points.
4. Save the squad file in two or three names to be safe
5. For another team, go to step 1

Finally, if this is the way the game should have been, why did EA set the values of sprint speed and acceleration so high? Because, most of the millions of copies sold, were sold to very casual gamers or casual footie fans who may not look for realism, as much as you and I do. Those were the ones who kept EA in the FIFA business when they were sh1t. No disrespect to those type of gamers; each one can have different expectations from a same game. Out of the FIFA 09 buyers, the football connoisseurs would be a very very small minority. It makes sense to make the game to please the majority instead of an obscure purist minority.

Finally, if it works for you (certainly works for me), please drop a line here so that we all know. And, try to spread this message as much as possible so that everyone know about this. Please DO NOT WRITE OFF this idea without TESTING it. EA has hidden a great game within FIFA 09. The tweaked game that I play is incredibly better than the original retail copy. I would thank EA for making this great game and also for making it in such a way that it can be customised to your needs. Let’s FIFA 09!