Got the game yesterday and managed to get a few online games in last night\ this morning.
First Impressions :
As I've stated before I've played Fifa 10 on all manual settings for a few months and when you get two decent manual players together it plays an excellent game of footy. It's not perfect, but it's not far off.
So far on Fifa 11 all I've played is manual games, so the same problems may not exist on other settings. Also I've played the 11 demo a bit, but then switched back to 10 and have been hammering that - so this could also be me playing 11 with a 10 mindset (if you know what I mean).
It's awful. Firstly, the responsiveness of the players is more like Fifa 08. Players seem to take an age to get the ball under control and even decent players (At Madrid) have heavy first touches, so your second touch is usually a tackle.
Speaking of which I like the new slide tackles, but the standard tackles are very random. When players come together it seems down to luck who will come out with the ball. It's more realistic to watch, but as a gameplay mechanic it's frustrating.
Passing - the beauty of manual passing on Fifa 10 is that you have total control over where the ball goes. It's difficult though and even classing myself as a decent manual player my passing average would barely get above 75%. So EA have decided that one of the features of Pro-Passing (the accuracy correction) should also apply to manual settings. Even relatively simple passes don't go where you aimed if your player isn't facing in the direction he's passing.
I'm also struggling with judging the path of the ball. Numerous times so far I've though the ball was heading for one of my players, but the path of the ball has deceived me it runs through to a defender even though I would have bet my house on my striker getting there first. It happens both ways as well with me getting to balls that i thought I had no right to get to. It's hard to explain.
The points above combine to take away the one thing that is attractive about manual settings - control.
On the positive side skilled dribbling is now even more effective and the analog sprint is genius, but they are minor points when the whole game is a slugglish, unpredictable and frustrating experience. I'd go back to Fifa 10, but imagine it will be like a ghost town at the moment.
. I certainly am not amazing, but I used to do alright at online games in Fifa 10.