Terrible

I got this game a while ago because I wanted a soccer game and I read the reviews that FIFA 08 was a lot better than PES2008. At first it didn't seem too bad, the online multiplayer Be a Pro mode is somewhat fun when you play just one position (but there there are only 10 online players max per game or 5 per team) but there are some extremely irritating things that make me realize that this game just sucks.

For one thing, the players move entirely too slow and are WAY too slow to react. If a defender is coming at you, you basically have to pass or try to dribble (dribbling is impossible by the way which is what I have read in other reviews- it is true- you MAY be able to get by one defender but you will never get past the 2nd) *anyway*, you have to press those buttons BEFORE you get the ball because it takes so long for the player you are controlling to do anything, once you press the button (in what should be PLENTY of time for the player to do what you press) the defender will have stolen it before your player reacts to the buttons you pressed. That is by far the most annoying thing because you will press a button, and the player won't do anything and then will lose the ball.

And when I said you have to press a button BEFORE you get the ball, well that also sucks because the game will make you do the button you press while you have the ball w/ the previous player with the NEXT player as soon as if not before the ball leaves the previous player (stupidest thing ever). And if you press a button like pass a few times to try to get one off, well the game will make you pass with the next few players who get the ball. Did FIFA programmers think that maybe we would want to do something different w/ the ball once we get it instead of the buttons we pressed with previous players? Nope of course not which explains a lot about why this game is so bad.

So if you press the shoot button with one player (which is also the clear the ball for defense button) it will make the next player shoot from like midfield if you were just trying to clear. Even more annoying is when you are trying to run one direction and pass, like run to the left to get away from a defender and get a pass off, and then you press pass it will pass it to the left OUT OF BOUNDS instead of passing to the right where you're pressing towards when you are actually about to release the pass. And half the balls you pass go to NO ONE...would it be that difficult to program it so it goes to the nearest player when you press to their direction? Apparently not for the FIFA programmers who don't know how to make an enjoyable game.