Let me remind You, that the voting for the FIFA 08 BEST EPISODES ends on Monday, so You still can vote here.
Three clips here are the winners of last top and we have a few new competitors. So, please vote now and let me remind You (once more) that You can participate in the contest by sending Your clips or links to them to or pasting their links here in comments.
Today we have the first FIFA'08 best episodes top 3 winners. Björn Olsson's "Rooney scores - difficult angle" (1st clip) and Florentherzog with "Nasri goal" (5th clip) both share 2-3 places and the first and the hottest goes to... Florentherzog again for "Del Piero goal" (6th clip).
Congratulations! These three winners will participate in voting for the next top which starts tomorrow.You still can participate in the contest by sending Your clips or links to them to or pasting their links here in comments.
Now let's watch replies - winners again:
2-3 place. Björn Olsson Rooney scores - difficult angle
Custom Formations feature was something great for me. Design your own unique strategy to create the perfect formation and tactics. Set each player’s exact position in the formation, and assign specific attacking and defensive runs to unlock the opposition, they said and I imagined that I'd be able to play with 4 forwards or to make my side forwards to become midfielders when defending.
And I really got some awesome opportunities, but some limitations remained. For example, I couldn't place more than 7 defenders in one formation. However, this problem was wider discussed here. Today I want to talk about one more disadvantage (at least in PC version) of the Custom Formations, which is really irritating not only for me, I know.
When You make Your own formations of the team and go to Manager mode, forget about any improvements of Your lines. They simply are not allowed! You can buy and sell players, climb to the stronger league but Your strategy options are restricted to the situation which was before You'd chosen the team...
What is more, there is very short list of default formations for Your team in FIFA'08. That's the way how the word "custom" becomes an antonym to the word "creation"
First of all, I want to observe Manager Mode Improvements. The creators had promised:
1)new features include pre-season friendlies to test your team before a campaign
Hm...pre-season friendlies was new and interesting feature. However, what if do not want to play 4 pre-season games? If I want only one or even no one, cause I've been playing with the same team for the third season and just want to start playing new season ASAP?I'm left with my own troubles, then. Yes, a gamer can choose less games then four, but, for example in Spanish league, he/she loses a chance to get new players, cause the traffic season is being organised during friendly matches time...
2)new training options to hone your squad of players and dynamic board expectations that change depending on your successes … or failures Sometimes it is great. You go to Your manager office, open the calendar and set some trainings. Sometimes one or two of Your players even gain some skills through training. However, almost always a major part of the team gets tired and then not only play worse but also the possibility of injures increases...
And the day has come! Now we will launch the first voting for our competitors in the first FIFA BEST EPISODES TOP 3.
The voting is expired. Look for newer voting.
Björn Olsson was the first who provide his clips so first four episodes:
1) Rooney scores - difficult angle
2)Rooney free kick
3)Scott Carson (goalkeeper) scores
4)Cristiano Ronaldo goal
Florentherzog participates with two episodes from FIFA PS3 version:
5)Nasri goal
6)Del Piero goal
James F. sent me three goals by email and wrote this style of shooting he likes most but I can choose one of the clips cause they're so similar. So I've chosen this one:
7)Pirlo goal
And I also couldn't miss the chance to participate in the first FIFA 08 top like this
8) The keeper holds the penalty
The results will be summed up and the TOP3 will be published on next Monday. Everybody who have great videos from their FIFA 08, post link to them here in comments or send me a link or the clip itself to . Read more...
Don't miss Your chance! The first voting for the best FIFA'08 episodes top starts on Monday. So You still have enough time to start participating in contest by posting links of Your episodes here or sending episodes or links to them by email to
Björn Olsson was the first one who sent me some clips and here we have one of them - Wayne Ronney scoring from really difficult angle (other Björn's episodes will also be on the voting list, so if You have something better, share it).
Today I'd like to share with You some tips about saving Your best episodes in FIFA'08:
1)Although the ability to export game's episodes in format which lets You to watch the clips on casual video players is great, this feature isn't perfect yet. The quality of the exported clips can be described only as semi-satisfying and it will be a compliment. However, You can improve the quality by going to MY FIFA - GAME SETTINGS - SYSTEM and adjusting the options there. Pay maximum attention to Output Video Resolution and Output Video Quality. Here we have my visual example way:
Both low
Both medium
Both high
Keep experimenting with these two and other options by Yourself, but have in mind that low quality doesn't recompense high resolution and vice versa:)
2)This one could look too simple but I should say that I lost some of my great moments just because I hadn't think of it. When saving, be sure that the end of Your episode is before the cursor in the saving bar - don't rewind it to the beginning of the episode. I'd saved a few of my first beautiful episodes in this style and when I wanted to watch them, I saw only the scene how my guys rejoice the goal. Only then I noticed that the most important thing is that blue line.
3)When You are watching Your recorded clips, You can choose the point of viewing. For example, if You want to see only how the goalkeeper behaves in the episodes above, You can focus only on him. You can save Your clips with different angle of viewing too - just select it before exporting.
A new feature starts a new stage of fifa08pc.blogspot.com history today! From now on we will have the FIFA best episodes TOP here! This is the first top made from a few games I played today but I know You have more beautiful, more amazing and more stunning clips. So please put a link here in comments or send a link or even a file by email:
What is more, if you have possibilities provide clips from every console the FIFA'08 is available. It will be a great opportunity for all of us to compare how differs FIFA on PS3 , Xbox or PC.
As I've mentioned last week, it is very interesting how FIFA'08 appearance in North America have changed the game's sales results. So now, thanks to video games blogger, we can analyze the stats of the amazon.com online sales and compare week 40 and week 41.
Nintendo Wii players in North Amercia didn't put FIFA'08 in tops and in Europe this game version got third place while it had been first last week.
EA Sports should say thanks to Xbox 360 players in America, cause they've bought enough copies to put FIFA Soccer 08 in the third place there. Europe gave FIFA third place too (second place a week before). However, thanks a lot should be said to PlayStation players in both continents. FIFA Soccer version for PS3 debuted in the first place in North Amercia and got second one in Europe (first place last week).
A version for PS2 won first place on both sides of the Atlantic. It remained the most popular game in Europe for PS2 for the second week. There are some FIFA'08 fans among Playstation Portable players too. But the most of them live in Europe because this kind of FIFA was in tops only here - it got the same second place in week 40 and week 41. Read more...
Manager mode is one of the most essential things in FIFA series because it ties You to the game and makes You play over and over again and than come back and play again. I think manager mode takes about 80 or even more percent of my playing FIFA and I guess I'm not the only one who spends so much time on that.
However, there are different strategies of playing manager mode. The most opposing ones are:
1)You take a team-Cinderella (from the last league and almost without budget) and grow it up to the Princess (champion of national league and cup and European tournaments leader).
2)You take a well-known (perhaps yours favorite) club, buy a few your beloved players and struggle to survive pursuing everything the board of the club requires.
There are a lot of in-between variants of playing manager mode, but every strategy has more or less features of those two just mentioned.
Me, for example, took a team of Hereford from the fourth English league (officially - Football League Two) last year in FIFA'07 and brought to the "Cinderella" in four seasons. However, then I got bored of the same country, same opponents and same players of my team.
Therefore, this year I've taken a team of Las Palmas from the Spanish Segunda. It should take only two years while I'd be able to play in European tournaments, I hope.
And what is Your choice and Your favorite strategy?Do you like teams-Cinderellas or teams-whales?
I want to illustrate my journey with Hereford in FIFA'07 by one of my forwards S.Fleetwood who had only 56 OVR when I started with that team, and after three seasons had 71. As the player growth predicted, he would have gain 72 of fourth seasons but I simply hadn't enough patience...
Only hours, not days left till the FIFA' 08 will appear in US. It's very interesting if Americans will buy it widely because it's a country preferring other sports. America has it's own football, therefore another football is called soccer and FIFA is FIFA Soccer'08 :)
The amazing days are coming not only for those who finally will be able to sink in this great football (soccer) game features. It also will be very interesting how the FIFA'08 coming to US will change is sells.
According to Amazon.com online sales, quoted by video games blogger, in the week 40 of this year (by the way, the week 40 (Oct. 1 - Oct. 7) was the first full-length week for new FIFA version even in Europe because the game was released in the middle of the week 39) , FIFA'08 got these results (only tops where FIFA is, are mentioned) :
Nintendo Wii
North America: 1. Carnival Games (Global Star), 2. Wii Play (Nintendo), 3. Dance Dance Revolution: Hottest Party (Konami).
Japan: 1. Dragon Quest Swords: Kamen no Joou to Kagami no Tou (Square Enix), 2. Dragon Ball Z Sparking! Meteor (Bandai), 3. Wii Sports (Nintendo)
Europe:1. FIFA 08 (EA Games), 2. MySims (EA Games), 3. Super Paper Mario (Nintendo),
Xbox 360 North America: 1. Halo 3 (Microsoft), 2. Halo 3: Limited Edition (Microsoft), 3. BioShock (2K Games).
Europe:1. FIFA 08 (EA Sports), 2. SingStar Rock Ballads (SCEE), 3. SingStar ’90s (SCEE).
PlayStation Portable North America: 1. Jeanne D’Arc (SCEA), 2. Star Wars Battlefront II (LucasArts), 3. Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow (SCEA).
Japan: 1. Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII (Square Enix), 2. Gundam Battle Chronicle (Bandai), 3. Eiyuu Densetsu: Sora no Kiseki SC (Nihon Falcom).
Europe: 1. Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions (Square Enix), 2. FIFA 08 (EA Sports), 3. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories (Rockstar).
Chart Track, encompassing the UK, Ireland and Denmark statistics, claimed that "It's FIFA’s turn to shine as Microsoft’s ‘Halo 3’ loses some of its opening week glitz with a 79% drop in sales. EA’s ‘FIFA 08’ claims No1 in the All Formats Chart for week 40, completing a hat-trick of Week 40 No1s as it also topped the All Formats Chart for week 40 in both 2005 and 2006."
All in all, good enough start, I think. And, despite this blog doesn't advertise the FIFA '08 (as one can see it from my posts), You can buy it here from Amazon, just scroll a little bit down and look left.
In the end, here we have the cover of the FIFA'08 which will be released in USA and Mexico. What is more, You'll see Spanish cover too.
If You play with Netherlands national team in FIFA 2008, You'll find eleven differences at once. And even more will wait You if You analyze the whole squad. Here we have starting lines of Netherlands national team in FIFA'08 on the left (players on bench had never been heard too) and the official Netherlands squad for the upcoming EURO 2008 qualifiers against Romania and Slovenia on the right.
Goalkeepers: Edwin van der Sar (Manchester United FC), Maarten Stekelenburg (AFC Ajax), Henk Timmer (Feyenoord).
Defenders: Khalid Boulahrouz (Sevilla FC), Wilfred Bouma (Aston Villa FC), Urby Emanuelson (AFC Ajax), John Heitinga (AFC Ajax), Kew Jaliens (AZ Alkmaar), Joris Mathijsen (Hamburger SV), Mario Melchiot (Wigan Athletic FC), André Ooijer (Blackburn Rovers FC).
Midfielders: Giovanni van Bronckhorst (Feyenoord), Nigel de Jong (Hamburger SV), Hedwiges Maduro (AFC Ajax), Clarence Seedorf (AC Milan), Wesley Sneijder (Real Madrid CF), Rafael van der Vaart (Hamburger SV), Demy de Zeeuw (AZ Alkmaar).
Forwards: Ryan Babel (Liverpool FC), Klaas-Jan Huntelaar (AFC Ajax), Dirk Kuyt (Liverpool FC), Ruud van Nistelrooy (Real Madrid CF), Robin van Persie (Arsenal FC), Arjen Robben (Real Madrid CF).
It seems EA Sports and Netherlands football association don't love each other somehow. We can recall that one of greatest teams of the world was simply absent in FIFA'07 and FIFA'06. In recent game versions adequate squad of this team was only in FIFA World Cup 2006. However, thank God or destiny, You can improve Your squad with international selections inFIFA 2008... Read more...
There is one more great feature in the FIFA 08. You can feel like a real couch and manage Your international teams in the international selections option. For example, if You don't like Ronaldinho, You can throw him away (it's a misguided example, isn't it?) from Brazilian national team and choose another player from more than thousand Brazilian footballers. Or, if You'd love to, You can return Figo to Portugal national team. And maybe another Portuguese player from more than two hundred.
However, international selections, as almost everything, has a feature to disappoint You. First of all, You can choose a team only from about 40 national teams while FIFA associates five times more football federations. What is more, somehow You can't put some players to the team, as, for instance, Romario...The Ro-Ro (Romario and Ronaldo) attacking combo can't be restored even in video game.
On the other side, we still have Ronaldinho. Let's watch some skill moves he can do, made by Hoesrr.
As I've mentioned before, FIFA series like no other EA game has strong competitors. For example, nowadays the cutthroat competition between FIFA and PES is taking part. One loves PES for it's reality, other adores FIFA for it's features, etc.
However, it is more interesting for me which FIFA version is better? Do You like Your new FIFA '08 or FIFA'07 was more astonishing? Maybe EA Sports disappoints You every year when a new game is released?
Have Your say here in comments and vote in the poll on the top of this page. Read more...
The time has come to talk about custom formations in FIFA 2008. As we know, the creators bring us a new feature this year - we can design our own formation of the team. Here I've got three my first formations which are made of a half of curiosity, a quarter of experience and a quarter of humor.
You can edit the existing traditional formations and contemplate how to fit your own design of the eleven to your team strategy and players' skills. However, while playing with my created formations I discovered some disadvantages. First of all, the players don't cover the square as efficient as while playing with classical formations (let it be 4-4-2, 4-1-2-1-2, etc.). Perhaps I should experiment more with the possibilities of this feature.
On the other hand, I discovered some restrictions of the game itself. For example, I couldn't place more than 7 defenders in one formation.
One could think it had happened because of the requirement to have at least one player at each line. But my further experiment had broken this theory. No forwards, as you see:
or pasting their links here in comments.
