Which of the following companies has Peter Moore not been involved with?

A. Microsoft B. SEGA C. Nintendo

To enter, all you have to do is send an email/message to: Email: anthonyb@theplaystationetwork.com or podcast@whitemeetsrice.com PSN: Barmelo Twitter: AntBarlow or TPSNcom Please enter with the subject line ‘Peter Moore Competition’  and the name of the game you would like. The competition closes Tuesday August 11th. Winners are chosen at random and will be notified shortly after the competition closes.

When I first heard about EA releasing downloadable content for, our 2008 sports game of the year, FIFA 09, I have to admit, I was genuinely hyped up about it. The FIFA franchise is one of my favourite franchises and for that to be expanded on with DLC was a big thing. After I had stopped myself jumping for joy and thinking of the possibilities I actually took the time to read the press release and that’s when my excitement faded. Was my gut feeling, right or did EA pull it off again?

Finding out that EA Sports were putting out a card based gameplay option for FIFA wasn’t exactly what I had in mind for DLC. Upon hearing it was called ‘Ultimate Team’, I envisioned myself stepping into some sort of online version of the game’s manager mode, picking my team and taking on the world. Well, I guess I was half right.

The idea of Ultimate Team is to build a team through earning points and subsequently buying packs of cards to use within the game. Like many people, I was put off a little by this card based take on FIFA. Nonetheless I tried to see it as a good thing, and you know what? It is…sort of.

Obviously, as I have already pointed out, the main difference UT has to the rest of the FIFA 09 game modes is the cards. These virtual cards are divided into different categories: Players, Training, Managers, Coaches, Advanced Training, Contract, Healing, Arena, Kit and Gameplay. Each card type is also split into three main categories depending on how they stack up against other cards. You’ve got Bronze packs of cards which contain the lower ranked cards, Silver have got the middle of the road cards and so on. The better packs you’re buying, the more chance you’ve got of scoring (no pun intended) a great card.

I was surprised how well the card based system works. The guys at EA Sports have put a lot into this to make it as good and as fully featured as they could. One of the largest examples of this is the ability to trade cards with other players around the world. It works sort of like eBay. Players can bid on other players cards with the coins they’ve earned from playing matches. Auctions can take some time, so you might want to wait until the last second to try and grab the card you want. There is a ‘buy it now’ option on many cards but this is not used, usually, when it comes to the higher level cards.

The card based stuff aside; the game is purely FIFA 09. When it comes to matches there have been no changes. The game plays as well as it did before and, thankfully, the dev team didn’t decide to do something stupid that would’ve ruined the experience for the majority. The only difference I can see is that there is a little bit more of a reliance on the player ratings and team chemistry. Something which won’t bother FIFA veterans.

One of the best things that Ultimate Team has done is bring in a new commentary team. The Ultimate Team matches are commentated by Clive Tyldesley and Andy Townsend. This makes a change from the usual tones of Tyler and Gray whose voices have become somewhat of an annoyance since the game was released back in October (especially Andy Gray’s).

The one major problem I’ve had whilst playing is the opponents. The majority of UT takes place online against opponents around the world. This is a great idea in theory and, for the most part, it works really well. Although, having someone ‘rage quit’ on you mid game because you’re trouncing them is really a pain in the arse. A simple solution to this would be to allow the player to play the remainder of the game against an A.I. opponent, an oversight that could cost EA in the long run.

Overall, I feel that Ultimate Team is a worthy expansion to FIFA 09. I just feel that a full online manager mode similar to, but not on the same scale as, Football Manager Live would do really well with the FIFA community and I think that’s what they were expecting. The new mode does a lot of good things and I can definitely see it being included in FIFA 10 this year.

EA have provided a five game trial of the new game mode and I urge anyone to try it out and see what they think. I think this is something that FIFA fans will definitely like, but I’ve just got this feeling it could’ve been so much more than it was. I do applaud EA for trying something like this, it was a ballsy move. Whether it’s paid off or not, I’ve no clue.

7.5

When  we, as XeNonX, told you what our most anticipated games of 2008 were. Many were surprised that EA Sports’ annual football/soccer title FIFA (in this case FIFA 09) made it pretty high on both mine and Ad’s’ lists.

Then at the beginning of this year it was time for the first (and last) ‘XeNonX Game Of The Year Awards’. There FIFA was ‘awarded’ ‘Best Sports Game 2009′. So, you see, my point is that FIFA 09 is a damn good game. Well now it’s got trophies.

A few months back EA announced that a new mode ‘FIFA 09: Ultimate Team’ would be released on March 19th and would come with trophies. With this announcement I asked (to myself) “Why not just add trophies to the whole game?” (or something along those lines). Well my prayers were answered, as a few days later EA announced full trophy support for FIFA 09.

Well that day that I, like many others, have been waiting for has arrived and the FIFA trophy patch is now live. What a joyious occasion.

FIFA 09′s ‘Ultimate Team’ DLC has been priced. EA Sports have confirmed that the update will be released on March 19th and will release for £7.99 ($9.99) on the PS Store.

The DLC is launching in both paid-for and free forms. Users will be able to download a free, 5 game, trial of the mode (1.3GB) before making their decision, which is kind of nice.

For those who don’t know, this mode allows players to assemble their ‘Ultimate Team’. Collecting virtual cards to help them on their road to success in online and offline tournaments.

Personally, I like the idea. I don’t know if it’ll catch on though. March 19th is also when the trophy patch will be going live for the game. As a massive FIFA fan that’s something I can’t wait for.

EA have revealed a few more details on the upoming ‘Ultimate Team’ DLC for FIFA 09. As we know, the pack is coming on March 19th and will bring with it a new set of trophies for people to grab.

The details of said trophies has now been revealed. The patch, also available on the 19th, will add 57 trophies to the game. 47 of these will be for the original game, whilst 10 have been incorperated into the ‘Ultimate Team’ pack.

The patch will also add ‘Ultimate Team’ to the FIFA 09 main menu and will allow players, after a 1GB+ download, to play 5 games of the new mode free of charge. How nice.

‘Ultimate Team’ allows players around the world to create and manage a football team using a card-based accuisition system (a la trading cards). Dont’ worry though, the cards are virtual.

The mode is explained in full over at EASportsWorld.

By the way, whatever happened to press releases? Everything, including this, seems to come through Twitter. How strange.

It has been revealed that with the new update FIFA 09 will be getting full trophy support. Earlier this week it was announced that a new downloadable pack, ‘Ultimate Team’, would bring some trophies to the game but now it has come to light that a full set of trophies is to be implemented in a free patch.

The patch is going to be released alongside the downloadable content on March 19th. It’d have been nice to see it earlier, but I guess it makes sense to release both at the same time.

FIFA is one of my favourite PS3 games, so i’m sure i’ll be going for Platinum in this one, I think I know someone else who will too.

UPDATE: The update is now out, to get it go to Adidas Live Season and download the latest update. If it comes back saying you have the latest update go to league selection and click on the league of your choice. I chose the Premier League so I clicked on that and downloaded the latest update from there.

]]> http://www.theplaystationetwork.com/fifa-09-winter-update/feed/ 5 http://www.theplaystationetwork.com/dlc-for-fifa/ http://www.theplaystationetwork.com/dlc-for-fifa/#comments Sun, 01 Feb 2009 09:31:26 +0000 Anthony Barlow http://www.theplaystationetwork.com/?p=6031

Just after the release after the winter update, there’s more FIFA 09 news to share. Announced this morning was some new downloadable content for EA’s popular footy game and it sounds, well, kinda cool. The new ‘Ultimate Team’ mode is said to “deliver a strategic new online experience” to the game. The challenge is for the player to create or collect the best team and compete against others worldwide. This new downloadable content will also add trophy support to the PS3 version of the game, which is really cool, but why not just give the whole game trophies?

The mode is card based (wait don’t stop reading yet), players need to collect bronze, silver and gold cards. It’s not only players you’ll be collecting either, coaching staff will be available too, as well as different formations and contract upgrades.

You’ll also be able to create your own team. You’ll be able to:

” Customize everything from players and stadiums to the kits and badges, creating the world’s next great football club. Compete offline and online to earn more valuable cards or trawl the market for the ones needed to complete a winning team. Climb the league table or compete in knockout tournaments for the most coveted trophies, where the opposition becomes more difficult after each victory.”

The ‘Ultimate Team’ content will be available to download from March 19th (more than likely 20th for PS3). The press release also states that some kind of trial will be available to players, allowing them to try before they buy. Sounds, alright. No pricing has been announced as of yet, rest assured we’ll keep you informed on all the latest goings on. Hit the jump for screenshots.

[By Anthony]

It’s taken a while, but EA have finally announced they are going to patch FIFA 09. Although the game is the best football (soccer) game on the market, it does have it’s flaws. For example players will take really stupid squad numbers in Manager Mode, leaving many players (yours truly included) more than frustrated. EA are also addressing a number of other issues people are having with the game. Hit the jump for the details.

- Fixed side-stepping issue on lofted through balls
Fixing the issue where a player sidesteps when trying to control a lofted through ball instead of running straight onto it and controlling it, was a top priority for the EAC development team. We’re happy to say that the team at EAC has been able to fix this problem and it will be included in the game update.

- Improved advantage rule: fixed goals being called back for free kicks
There was a problem in the advantage rule whereby the referee would call back a goal if it was scored when the advantage was being played. Instead the referee would give a FK or a PK to the fouled player. This issue has been resolved in the game update. Goals that are going in when a foul is committed will count when they score.

- Improved number assigning in Manager Mode
When signing a player in Manager Mode the player now makes a more sensible decision, based on this position, on which number he would like, whereas previously he would always take the number 2.

- Allowed up to 8 user-controlled teams in Tournament Mode
After installing the game update it will be possible to play in Tournament Mode with up to 8 user-controlled teams. This gives the option to host bigger events with your friends to compete in offline-tournaments. Have fun!

- Removed ability to bring custom teams into Online ranked matches
Everybody has the option to transfer players in his favorite team and create his own custom dream team. This is an option we want to offer everybody to enjoy the feeling of creating own teams and play matches online or offline. When it comes to ranked competitive online matches we think only real teams should compete against each other to keep everybody’s chances even. So with the update it is no longer possible to enter a ranked match with a custom created team. You will still be able to upload your customized team online as in customized starting line-up with the existing players of that team’s roster

- Fixed Stadium 23.Maj lag issue
We fixed a major frame rate issue in 23.Maj stadium.

- Fixed join issue in Online Team Play Lobbies
A game hang issue occurred during search for available OTP game sections within the lobby rooms has been resolved.

Sounds good. A lot of these issues are minor, but will improve the game and hopefully make transfering players a little more tolerable. Nice work EA.

[By Anthony]

I would first like to point out that there was a small discrepancy with my FIFA 09 review that went up a few weeks back. I failed to mention that in ‘Manager Mode’ you are unable to change the squad numbers of players, something which has been a feature of FIFA for years.

This has obviously caused some outrage within the FIFA 09 community and members have created a petition thread on the forums, lets hope EA take notice. I said i’d plug them on here, as I think it’s really dissapointing that it’s not in there. To voice your outrage (as you should), go here.