Beams and Swan have their tatts.
I really like how the ball bounces and the fact that you can crumb the ball of a contest alot better now. Hurley went for a speckie but it bounced off his hands and Winderlich ran on seamlessly and kicked a pretty cool goal.
*Positives
+ Good flow and not as much of a tackle fest
+ Handballing is excellent, animations good also
+ Kicking mechanics are good
+ Unpredictable bounces
+ Good pre game options (adjusting crowd size, day/night/twilight)
+ Running onto loose bouncing balls is great
+ Career options looking good so far
+ Marking animations and mechanics improved
+ Spoiling
+ Evasive animations around the contest aren't bad
+ Some player models look pretty good in the footy factory (namely the superstars)
+ Back line players can properly "mop up" after an inside 50 entry. They actually have space down there and they work to help each other out when the ball hits the deck, so now they actually get touches and the forwards arn't always breathing down their necks constantly tackling them.
*Negatives
- Graphics
- Some of the player movements are just downright ugly
- Kicking animations look pretty wonky
- Some player models (especially the ones outside of your teams best 22) will look downright ridiculous at times (Hocking has a goatee WTF?)
- Pretty bad presentation (no pre game, celebrations, team songs, or post game cutscenes)
- Menus are a step back
I focused more on the positives then the negatives here, but the game isn't nearly as bad as I was expecting, they've done well for a 12 month developent cycle thats for sure, this is also just a rough list after playing it for an hour or so.
I'm still thinking of trading this back purely because of GTA V coming out soon, otherwise i'd probably keep it.
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