When I first played it I thought it was absolutely terrible, but after about 10 games it's alright. Better than 2006? No.
Problems;
Camera - I don't get why this has been so hard. 2006 and even 2005 had a great behind the play camera, that just worked. It didn't take 5 years to turn around, it didn't drift all over the place while just standing doing nothing. The side camera is almost totally useless. This game isn't Fifa, a side camera dosen't work, especially when you can't see more than 30m in front of you.
Controls - A mass over complication of controls. In order to have any chance of preforming a successful pass, you need to find your target with the left analogue stick, hold down R1 to lock onto them, hold down L2 to select a stab pass, then press X, charge the kick, and let go at the right time, without having let go slightly of R1 or L2 even slightly. Why's it so complicated to do something as pass the ball? It should be look where you want to pass, press X, onto their chest. Tried pass assist on, pass assist off, made no difference. And this passing meter seems to be very precise, if you don't get it just right, the ball will go flying over your teammates head or straight into the man on the mark.
Marking - If my player isn't at least 10m free completely on their own and they try to take a mark, regardless of height or position or number of players or marking skill, the CPU will take the mark 90% of the time. I just end up spoiling every single contest now, which actually is simulated quite well in terms of its success rate. In 2006, when you kicked the ball, the player in the best position WHEN THE BALL WAS KICKED would take the mark unless a player with a significantly higher mark + height got to the contest OR if someone got in the right position and spoiled. It just worked so much better and was so much simpler.
Special Kicks - First, why is torp two buttons? Even from full back it's hard to pull off, and if your finger releases slightly from either one before the kick, it dosen't work, which makes it practically impossible on the run. Should be just R1, and you can release it as soon as you start charging up the kick.
I don't know about you, but I don't see any reason you would ever want to attempt a banana or snap anywhere but when kicking for goal from inside 50. I've never kicked one on the run, and from what happened when I tried them from set shots, they're completely useless. The banana goes dead straight for 40m before finally starting to turn after it's already gone 20m past the far behind post. The snap has the weakest hook I've ever seen and I have no idea what I should be aiming at, it always misses by 50 metres.
2006's goal kicking function was a metre on the bottom of the screen, with goalposts and a line moving automatically from side to side across them. The closer to goal you got the bigger the goals became and the slower the line moved. But this wasn't an automatic goal kick button, it kicked the ball relative to how you were positioned yourself. If you were deep in the left forward pocket, running towards the boundary line, if you kicked for goal when the line was over the right behind post, you'd snap the ball across your body. If you were having a set shot from next to the behind post on the boundary line, you could turn your player to face away from the goals, and if you timed the button press right, and accounted for the right angle, the wind, you'd banana the ball in for a goal. You didn't need dedicated buttons for these kicks because they're basically useless anywhere other than when you're less than 20m out and not between the two behind posts.
Spare man - From what I can tell this dosen't do anything either. It dosen't help that one option is something like "Spare Man: Play in Defense" and another one is "Extra spare in defence". None of them seem to do much, I end up with both my wingmen playing on the wing seemingly all the time.
2006 had the best feature ever - you could get any AND every player on the ground to tag any player. Which means when you go a goal up with a minute to go, you can order all 18 players to tag the opposition's full forward, and if your opponent wins the clearance, they'd kick it long to the square and there'd be 15 players all standing around him, ready to spoil. Or if you've got a midfielder who's unstoppable, just get 3 or 4 blokes to tag him and shut him down. Or need extra forwards? Get your wingman to tag the fullback. The full back keep taking uncontested marks in the goal square? Send your forward to tag the left half forward, the full back will follow him over there, clearing the goalsquare out. So much more fun, and actually worked. In fact, O don't think you can actually tag anyone in this game.
"New" Player Roles - Everyone was so excited when they saw they could now select someone to do the kick ins, and designate a second ruckman, even though by halfway through the second quarter you'd end up with your full back rucking the centre bounces.
Once again, 2006 had these already, and not only did they work, there were more options. You could select TWO players to rotate kickins. You could select a player to do the ruckwork inside the forward 50 AND one to do ruckwork inside the defensive 50. And they actually worked. Another 'new feature' that's actually a downgrade.
What it does better:
Graphics - That's pretty much the extent of that. Has almost no impact on my opinion of the game compared to 2006.
Running down the clock - Was pretty much impossible to do a short kick that actually worked in 2006, would almost always be cut off, spoilt or be so short it'd be play on. In this, I can actually pass kick the ball around the defensive 50 to waste time and take a minuite off the clock without dropping a mark or making a contest.
Kicking to Space - Unless you kicked to an area of the ground with literally no players or kicked a torp 60 metres your kick would always lock onto a player, teammate or opponent. You can actually kick the ball to space in this game and run onto it, to avoid being forced to kick to a one on one.
Team lineup - This actually shows you which players are lining up against eachother, and displays them on a field instead of a list. While this is better than 2006, 2005 did this far better, showing the whole field at once, and showed your opponent's full stats including height and weight.
That's enough for now.
Problems;
Camera - I don't get why this has been so hard. 2006 and even 2005 had a great behind the play camera, that just worked. It didn't take 5 years to turn around, it didn't drift all over the place while just standing doing nothing. The side camera is almost totally useless. This game isn't Fifa, a side camera dosen't work, especially when you can't see more than 30m in front of you.
Controls - A mass over complication of controls. In order to have any chance of preforming a successful pass, you need to find your target with the left analogue stick, hold down R1 to lock onto them, hold down L2 to select a stab pass, then press X, charge the kick, and let go at the right time, without having let go slightly of R1 or L2 even slightly. Why's it so complicated to do something as pass the ball? It should be look where you want to pass, press X, onto their chest. Tried pass assist on, pass assist off, made no difference. And this passing meter seems to be very precise, if you don't get it just right, the ball will go flying over your teammates head or straight into the man on the mark.
Marking - If my player isn't at least 10m free completely on their own and they try to take a mark, regardless of height or position or number of players or marking skill, the CPU will take the mark 90% of the time. I just end up spoiling every single contest now, which actually is simulated quite well in terms of its success rate. In 2006, when you kicked the ball, the player in the best position WHEN THE BALL WAS KICKED would take the mark unless a player with a significantly higher mark + height got to the contest OR if someone got in the right position and spoiled. It just worked so much better and was so much simpler.
Special Kicks - First, why is torp two buttons? Even from full back it's hard to pull off, and if your finger releases slightly from either one before the kick, it dosen't work, which makes it practically impossible on the run. Should be just R1, and you can release it as soon as you start charging up the kick.
I don't know about you, but I don't see any reason you would ever want to attempt a banana or snap anywhere but when kicking for goal from inside 50. I've never kicked one on the run, and from what happened when I tried them from set shots, they're completely useless. The banana goes dead straight for 40m before finally starting to turn after it's already gone 20m past the far behind post. The snap has the weakest hook I've ever seen and I have no idea what I should be aiming at, it always misses by 50 metres.
2006's goal kicking function was a metre on the bottom of the screen, with goalposts and a line moving automatically from side to side across them. The closer to goal you got the bigger the goals became and the slower the line moved. But this wasn't an automatic goal kick button, it kicked the ball relative to how you were positioned yourself. If you were deep in the left forward pocket, running towards the boundary line, if you kicked for goal when the line was over the right behind post, you'd snap the ball across your body. If you were having a set shot from next to the behind post on the boundary line, you could turn your player to face away from the goals, and if you timed the button press right, and accounted for the right angle, the wind, you'd banana the ball in for a goal. You didn't need dedicated buttons for these kicks because they're basically useless anywhere other than when you're less than 20m out and not between the two behind posts.
Spare man - From what I can tell this dosen't do anything either. It dosen't help that one option is something like "Spare Man: Play in Defense" and another one is "Extra spare in defence". None of them seem to do much, I end up with both my wingmen playing on the wing seemingly all the time.
2006 had the best feature ever - you could get any AND every player on the ground to tag any player. Which means when you go a goal up with a minute to go, you can order all 18 players to tag the opposition's full forward, and if your opponent wins the clearance, they'd kick it long to the square and there'd be 15 players all standing around him, ready to spoil. Or if you've got a midfielder who's unstoppable, just get 3 or 4 blokes to tag him and shut him down. Or need extra forwards? Get your wingman to tag the fullback. The full back keep taking uncontested marks in the goal square? Send your forward to tag the left half forward, the full back will follow him over there, clearing the goalsquare out. So much more fun, and actually worked. In fact, O don't think you can actually tag anyone in this game.
"New" Player Roles - Everyone was so excited when they saw they could now select someone to do the kick ins, and designate a second ruckman, even though by halfway through the second quarter you'd end up with your full back rucking the centre bounces.
Once again, 2006 had these already, and not only did they work, there were more options. You could select TWO players to rotate kickins. You could select a player to do the ruckwork inside the forward 50 AND one to do ruckwork inside the defensive 50. And they actually worked. Another 'new feature' that's actually a downgrade.
What it does better:
Graphics - That's pretty much the extent of that. Has almost no impact on my opinion of the game compared to 2006.
Running down the clock - Was pretty much impossible to do a short kick that actually worked in 2006, would almost always be cut off, spoilt or be so short it'd be play on. In this, I can actually pass kick the ball around the defensive 50 to waste time and take a minuite off the clock without dropping a mark or making a contest.
Kicking to Space - Unless you kicked to an area of the ground with literally no players or kicked a torp 60 metres your kick would always lock onto a player, teammate or opponent. You can actually kick the ball to space in this game and run onto it, to avoid being forced to kick to a one on one.
Team lineup - This actually shows you which players are lining up against eachother, and displays them on a field instead of a list. While this is better than 2006, 2005 did this far better, showing the whole field at once, and showed your opponent's full stats including height and weight.
That's enough for now.
