Wow, it must be a LOT better than the demo, because the gameplay and graphics were WAY below Rugby League Live in that.

Had about 5 games on it yesterday and thought it was crap. So going to take it back and get something else. Something cheap like Killzone 3.

I've finally got round to playing Pro Evo 12 demo. Quite impressed with it tbh. The game engine is the same as last years but with tweaks and improvements, think like when FIFA 09 went to FIFA 10. Demo comes with a 20 minute game but no commentary on it. Think I'll be getting it in a couple of weeks!

Merseyside Blue versus London at the Rose Bowl in the Master League after signing Warne Roomey. It just doesn't get any better than that.

(Or have they sorted the licenses now?)

Can you tell me why? Everywhere I have read has said it's still miles behind FIFA. Animation, AI and particularly the tackling are being criticised. They have removed the standing tackle button haven't they, so now you can only slide tackle or 'jockey' for the ball, you can't just put a tackle in. That must be incredibly frustrating when you are trying to defending in your own box?

Decided to buy Deus: Ex...Which I think is an RPG I believe (I never buy these type of games). Anyways seeing as it's not the type of game I play, it's not too bad but just too much wondering about looking for things to keep my entertained the whole time. As soon as I've done it it'll be going straight back most likely save the money to my account and wait for Fifa 12 to come out.

All the teams have proper players names and all the teams have proper team names and kits except 18 of the Prem teams. All the stadiums have proper names. A couple of weeks after the game comes out a patch is usually on the official website with all proper team names and kits for the rest of the prem teams

I thought the AI and tackling was decent from the couple of games I played. I was still using the standing tackle though so didn't notice they had removed it. Pro's always gonna get slagged off though, even when FIFA was absolutely shocking for years and years until FIFA 09 came out it still did miles better than Pro Evo!

Played Dead Island for a bit earlier. It didn't really do enough to make me want to purchase it, but I don't really like lazy "smash 'em" games - I got bored of Dead Rising in a couple of house. I do like how you can roam around the whole island and the wealth of weapons is appealing but the aiming system is a bit annoying, I didn't really get into the story or objectives and the Ozzy voice grates quite a lot.

I'm surprised there hasn't been a demo for Rugby Challenge, with it pretty much competing for the most popular Rugby game title, you would've thought it'd be in their best interests to release one after the RWC demo was. Spoke to someone who has played both though, and they said Rugby Challenge is superior by far.

I've only just managed to have a proper go on it the last couple of days despite having it since wednesday. Anyway, so for its excellent, stunning visuals, although the graphics in general arn't outstanding. The game is really well programmed and for a game this size seems almost glitch free. The AI is very good (reminds me of when I first played Halflife) and the game can seem quite hard at first but once you get used to the fact you actually have to think about what your doing and not just charge in it gets easier. What I really like about it is there is no right or wrong way to play the game and you can upgrade your charachter (Adam Jensen) according to how you want to play the game. I won't say too much about the story so far but its the full corporate conspiricy. Normally, a quality narrative is one of the first things I look for in a game and I think Deus Ex will deliver, although to be honest so far I'm enjoying the game that much I don't really care what happens in the story (not yet anyway).

In a nutshell think a little bit of Metal Gear solid 4, a liitle bit of Oblivion and a bit of Blade Runner in there and your not far off. I would highly recommend this game.

Sounds good. I may well buy it then as I've got a month before FIFA12, Gears 3, Batman etc kick in.

Had a play on the Gunstringer demo tonight. Me likey.

IMO, Pro has always been one of those games that I've enjoyed playing, even if it has been flawed. I've always bought Fifa, purely because all of my mates did and we used to have Fifa tourneys, but I'd buy the occasional PES and it's always enjoyable. People whinge about graphics and the way it looks, but (I never played PES 11) they've always played well IMO. People laud Fifa's '360 degree movement', but what good is 360 degree movement when you only have about 30 degrees of angle to run at without getting tackled? Fifa's additions have always generally been gimmicks. Whenever they've tried to up the game play it's always been poorly executed IMO. The greatest example of this is their yo-yo attempts to balance out strength, height and speed; it's never been close to balanced. I think it was Fifa '09 where Aston Villa were the best side on it because of Agbonlahor, then came Fifa 10, where pace mattered very little as defenders shirt pulled you until you were ousted from the ball.

However, Fifa's greatest addition, and they do deserve to be noshed off for this, is Ultimate Team. Ultimate Team is a superb game mode that revives a morbidly repetitive game. Fifa will always be number 1, purely because it has little in terms of competition, it's the established market leader and nothing will come close to it, unless 2KSports decide to have a go, which I very much doubt.

As I've mentioned previously, I've been working on a new updated website... determined to make it look at least a little bit more professional. I've got a couple of folks from here and other forums who have already "volunteered" to take a look at the demo website and give me some feedback, I'm looking for a few more of varying internet opinions and browsers/OS/etc to help me with testing.

Anyone who is interested, 5 minutes of your time (or more if you want!) would be really appreciated. Either reply here or PM me and I'll send you the link.

The main bulk of the website is retro gaming based, but I'm hoping to include much more media and articles on many varied subjects.

I've been the other way round all my mates buy the pro evo's but I did really enjoy last years World Cup game but it got to the point where I'd worked out which angle to score the goals into the same bottom corner. I've just never been a fan of the standing tackle and shooting in FIFA, its always seems like I either do a pea roller straight to the keeper or if I hit the ball just a little harder it spoons into row z.

Pro Evo 11 was a massive step forward and it was the best one since the ps2 days, it was just the refs as usual that would let it down. You could get chopped in the penalty area and nothing would come of it but you'd always win soft free kicks in the middle of the pitch so hope they've changed that. Seems like this year they've just tweaked it and seems a little like an expansion pack but I can't really judge it until I play the full game. I agree though FIFA will always be top cos its seen as the official football game and has always sold well regardless of how good the games were, but I have to admit FIFA has tanned Pro Evo on this generations consoles so far cos it has been the better game. I remember this time last year on here though FIFA 11 got a right slating from everyone that it was a step backwards compared to FIFA 10 but it was the best selling FIFA yet.

I've never actually played the Ultimate Team but I've heard really good things. I did download it last year but I never got round to buying the game to give it a go. I'll rent FIFA 12 out and give Ultimate Team a chance if its free again this year

That's a fair assessment. So far living up to my expectations, but then again I'm a massive fan of the original.

I am puzzled by the current trend in games advertising to show the game in such a bad light.

A classic example is the (Sorry Fishta) Nintendo advertising for the 3DS. They go on about how brilliant the technology and 3d is, then show a football game (Pro Evo?) where the character dribbles round in a circle in the box whilst the AI drift and move about like zombies ignoring the fool running round in circles.

Another is the Driver advertising that is spamming the Sky channels at the momemt. It shows a driving sequence with decent graphics and animation and a funky soundtrack. All good so far, but then it shows footage of the driver mounting a kerb and driving along with people panicking and diving out of the way. Only two or three of them don't manage and disappear magically through the car, which looks terrible.

The worst Ive seen was Goldeneye for the Wii. They somehow managed to make it look worse than the N64 version in the ad.

Have a read of this [u[url=http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-08-24-why-microsoft-wont-publish-psn-firsts?comment_start=100article[/url[/u

It's an interesting piece about Microsoft's demands on publishers of retail and downloadable titles. It would be nice to hear what other people make of it. Personally, I think it's slightly hypocritical, but being a PS3 owner I may be slightly biased

It's a very biased article. As someone in the comments points out before all the Sony fanboys start flaming away is that all Microsoft says is that it 'may refuse' and reserves the right to. It's no different a policy to Sony's, you can bet on that. It's just that no one has written an article about that yet.

If there was a third party game on PSN that was groundbreaking and exclusive you can bet Microsoft wouldn't enforce the policy. It's only to stop developers thinking they can go to Sony for the upfront money for the exclusive and then expect to release it later on Live. If anything it's a good policy because it forces developers to weigh up the economic balance between getting the money for exclusivity or getting a bigger slice of pie from having it on PSN and Live. Sony will be the same, if a developer is negotiating exclusivity with Microsoft on a key title they will make all kind of threats in an effort to avoid that scenario.

But that is exactly what happens now with Microsoft's timed exclusives, which was the point I was making.
Off the top of my head, the only third party title on the PS3 and not 360 I can think of is Trine.

It's a competitive market. Microsoft are competing with Sony. Sony will make similar threats and it's up to developers to weigh up the commercials with each game.

Live is such a goldmine for publishers that Sony would have to pay a lot of money for it to be feasible. To add to that PSN isn't as much of a focus to Sony as Live is to MS, so the lack of exclusives in arcade games is understandable. Most AAA games now are focused on the online capability and have sold better on the Xbox because of Live's superiority over PSN. So exclusives will be rarer and more expensive given the size of the user base you'd be missing out on.

But yeah, to answer your original question it is hypocritical and selfish. They want the exclusives for themselves and want to deny Sony quality exclusives. But that's just business right?

Quote ="Roddy B"I was saying this stuff months ago, it's why I stopped playing it. I can win on any level with ease, the problem is, you have to do the same old crap to win. You can't play a slow possession game, you can't dribble past numerous players or break a team down, there's only two ways to score from open play, and this is them: 1) Through ball/lobbed through ball behind the defence when they're playing high up, if your attacker has enough space between him and their defender, you'll get in a good position and score (assuming the defender hasn't pulled your shirt for 30 yards our outpaced you, even if your sprint speed stat is 94 and theirs is 62). 2) By closing them down without pressing the 'press/close down' button, i.e. nicking it off their defender, breaking away (assuming you're not on the floor due to weird rag doll physics) and putting it in the goal. Those really are the only two ways to score on Fifa when playing any level above semi-pro. Forget using skill or playing nice football, every game is a constant grind.'" Not completely true, pal. www.ea.com/uk/football/videos/ugc/91432312

Quote ="Roddy B"I was saying this stuff months ago, it's why I stopped playing it. I can win on any level with ease, the problem is, you have to do the same old crap to win. You can't play a slow possession game, you can't dribble past numerous players or break a team down, there's only two ways to score from open play, and this is them: 1) Through ball/lobbed through ball behind the defence when they're playing high up, if your attacker has enough space between him and their defender, you'll get in a good position and score (assuming the defender hasn't pulled your shirt for 30 yards our outpaced you, even if your sprint speed stat is 94 and theirs is 62). 2) By closing them down without pressing the 'press/close down' button, i.e. nicking it off their defender, breaking away (assuming you're not on the floor due to weird rag doll physics) and putting it in the goal. Those really are the only two ways to score on Fifa when playing any level above semi-pro. Forget using skill or playing nice football, every game is a constant grind.'" Not completely true, pal. www.ea.com/uk/football/videos/ugc/91432312

Quote ="100% Wire"Not completely true, pal. www.ea.com/uk/football/videos/ugc/91432312'" It's not true at all. FIFA is a quality game and with a bit of skill you can score on the highest difficulty level. But there are AI shortcuts to enhancing the difficulty levels that make it very frustrating. Having said that FIFA12 is pre-ordered. Gold packs r us on the way. Just hope I get Messi in them and not Jason Puncheon and Tony Hibbert like I usually do.

Quote ="100% Wire"Not completely true, pal. www.ea.com/uk/football/videos/ugc/91432312'" It's not true at all. FIFA is a quality game and with a bit of skill you can score on the highest difficulty level. But there are AI shortcuts to enhancing the difficulty levels that make it very frustrating. Having said that FIFA12 is pre-ordered. Gold packs r us on the way. Just hope I get Messi in them and not Jason Puncheon and Tony Hibbert like I usually do.

Anyone else pre-ordered FIFA12? Xbox gamertag is busngabb if anyone wants to add me in preparation for your disection when it's released.

(Anyone who is half decent need not apply as I'm terrible).