9 November 2003
Early thoughts: it’s brill. Volleying is vastly improved, and I’ve scored a couple of decent ones myself, although none as good as the ones managed by the AI. The four countries — England, Italy, Spain, and Germany — are pretty much as you’d expect, stats-wise. Players like Rooney, Kuranyi, and Xabi Alonso are in there, and as usual there are some pretty baffling selections in the first eleven (picking Albelda in the middle, moving Valerón out to the left wing? Madness). The player names are correct (hooray!) except, bafflingly, for Germany’s (hoor…eh?).
Admittedly my PC doesn’t meet the minimum specs, as I have a Radeon 7200 and the lowest-numbered supported version is the 8500. Still, there’s slowdown on corners and when there are lots of players on the screen, the menus are sometimes unresponsive, and the audio is choppy. Considering the latter is just crowd noises, ball-kicking sounds, and the odd stadium annouincement in the background, it’s almost unforgivable. Except that this is a demo, so of course it’s forgivable.
Free kicks are as expected, which is A Good Thing considering the big adjustments required for WE6FE. Still not scored one, but hit the woodwork a fair few times. I’m finding it harder to win the niggling little challenges in the midfield that are so often key to this game, but I guess that will come with practice.
Now second (after the game itself) on my wanted list is a Skillz Cube Connection, a clever device that provides for a Gamecube controller to connect to a PC via USB. The keyboard controls are adequate — here’s my config:
I rarely use the secondary shoulder buttons (Q and E), because it’s just too awkward. At least my keyboard can handle three simultaneous key presses, unlike someone I know. The only question remaining is whether or not it’s worth buying the hardware — new video card and Skillz thingy — first or second. I don’t want to find out the demo is faster than the real thing because of less data being loaded: 5GB are required for the full thing!