Slow progress with my FIFA 19 Career over the last few weeks due to the ongoing movie room renovation at home, and having the PS4 and other equipment disconnected from its usual positions and ready to re-wire into the movie room, so apologies for the delay in the new post but its been difficult to find any gaming time and when I have, the PS4 hasn’t been in its Power save/ready to go mode.
Season 9 has started well, we are 4 points clear at the top of the table, early days yet with only 8 games played but a good start carries momentum, we will certainly need it as the season goes on.
The biggest difference so far has been our ability to claw games back and grab a win after being a goal down, which we have done a few times, most recently against West Ham after it being ‘one of those games’ where nothing goes for you, but patience paid off and we ended up 2-1 winners, last season we would have lost the game.
New signings are bedding in well, Oblak is a solid superb keeper, and Diop in the AMF role feels like a proper nimble, world-class, technically gifted player, brought in to replace Foden due to his constant injuries last season, the only issue with Diop being that he rarely lasts a match, his stamina is at about 10% after 60-70 mins so always ends up being subbed off.
Racić is a solid player too at DMF role, but with him, and Tchoumeni both in the centre mid positions, its solid, but we lack craft and guile, so all the creative play is shouldered by the AMF.
The Europa League kicked off with a 5-1 win against Rangers in the first Europa league group game followed by a 0-0 stalemate with Girona, I’m confident of progressing through this group, I need to be, the board expect me to win this competition.
I simmed the first round of the Carabao cup, fielding a youth team, and lost 2-1, the domestic cups are not my priority this season, after winning the FA Cup back to back in the last 2 seasons, and winning the Carabao cup and getting to the final the following year, I’ve had my fill of those, the fixture congestion and player fatigue as a result is just too much, my priority is to focus on the league and Europa League.
On a side note, this is what happens when you get a FK on target in FIFA:
In PES that would have nestled in the back of the net with ease, here as you see, the keeper flies across his goal, palms the ball out and ends up in the net, it looked nice, but scoring FK’s, even when you do get the power and direction bang on, is a very difficult skill.
Another Quirky thing happened, I was 2-0 up against Newcastle, they pulled it back to 2-1 and had a period of domination, I needed another goal to kill the game off, and got a counter attack break away, my winger runs into the box and was caught by a late sliding tackle:
What was all that a bout?! Obviously a bug, a clear penalty, even the commentary eluded to the fact, but a goal kick was given, luckily enough I held on for the win.
No outstanding goals to report in my few and far between sessions, so to finish off here’s a few random goals scored during the last session.
FIFAFX.com 
Paul – great to see you back and I’m looking forward to the first footage of you playing on a scifi-style wallscreen. I haven’t taken the plunge myself in this week off, instead I picked up a new gadget, a Windows ultrabook. My first real go at Windows for a decade and so far I’m loving it.
I think your break has broken the spell that sort of connected our careers on different games. Its been a long time since on-target FKs were guaranteed goals in PES, not that they ever were for me. Keepers were buffed a few patches ago. In my season ending session last night I had a ton of shooting range FKs and the keepers saved ’em all.
Love your little compilation at the end, the way goals are constructed looks impressive.
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NG – Must admit after a couple of weeks of not playing, the game did feel all glorious and new and fresh again, playing at a sun drenched Selhurst Park in an enjoyable game against palace.
When I do eventually transition across to the movie/games room, footage wont look any different of course as it will be captured from the PS4 still, I will record some brief footage of stuff running o the finished screen though.
One of the nice things about FIFA from my point of view is the sheer variation of goals that you can score, there’s never any predictability.
So what was the thinking with the Windows Ultrabook?
Is your 2009 MBP on its way out? if not, considering you have a souped up PC already, whats the need for the Ultrabook ?
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Paul – definitely a strong element of ‘I want something new to play with’ when it comes to the Windows laptop. It’s 5 years since I had a new laptop and they’ve got smaller thinner lighter etc. Very happy with it. I’ve never really bothered to use the gaming PC much as a PC so I’m going in depth with W10 for the first real time and liking what I find. They’ve been taking notes on MacOS it’s clear. Still got my Macs of course and firmly intend to swing both ways.
My PES2019 footy gaming year is heading for an interesting conclusion that I’ll save for tomorrow’s post.
And yes, what I want is to see footage of the finished video wall as if from a camera mounted on your shoulder. That’s the money shot at the end of this.
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NG – Thats fair enough, a new gadget to play with is always welcome.
We still use Windows 7 at work, the rest of the time I only ever use macs, so windows 10 is alien to me, my few brief encounters with it have left me confused as to where everything is.
Look forward to the climax to your season.
4K footage of the finished setup is a certainty. The Galaxy S10’s telephoto lense will be useful for a good wide angle in a small room.
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Get tired of FIFA for a moment. Especially because it became too easy for me to win with Sunderland – even tho i’ve been using OS Sliders and Ultimate difficulty.
So i came to desperation steps and bought PES 19 for my nee PS4 toy. And … oh god. It opened my eyes so much. FIFA is such a great game in compare to PES, no matter what people saying, but FIFA is just miles better – only issue is lack of fouls really. My first game after a month break and trying out PES was a game against Bournemouth at Vitality Stadium on Broadcast camera – and it just smashed me in a face, how beautiful this game is, especially on this stadium with this camera, it feels and looks like a match in a TV!
Finally, i found sliders which works perfectly for me on Legendary difficulty – which means i started losing again some games still managing Sunderland in my first season in Premier League and also Wales in WC Qualys.
FIFA is a beauty, real beauty this year, I can’t anyhow understand all those complains about a game.
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Abbes – Bournemouth Away at the Vitality on broadcast is the best I’ve ever seen a football game looking, its glorious.
FIFA 19 is a very good game, its just been slated by the community, 90% online community, because it takes a more simulation route rather than the frantic ping pong pass and skill to every goal online method that they all love, credit to EA for sticking by that.
In my opinion there is no comparison between FIFA and PES, PES 19 looks so dull and bland and washed out, its like they have tinted the entire game with some kind of Grey filter, from the blank grey menus, through to the game lighting and graphics, it’s just all very Theresa May.
Couple that with the awful commentary and complete lack of match atmosphere and lack of any presentation and it’s just not appealing, such a shame as the core on game action in PES 19 is very very good.
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Simming? Wow, that’s a big step. I can understand simming training or pre season tournaments but a domestic cup, no, never been there.
Unfortunately I’ve fired up red dead 2 again so it could be 2020 by the time I properly play 2018.
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Turf – Have never simmed a game before in any career or ML, but there was no point playing it, I fully intended to lose the game anyway, to ease fixture congestion and player fatigue, so there was no point playing a game that was 100% guaranteed to be a loss.
It just freed up valuable time for em to get more proper matches in.
I havent continued with RDR2 for months now.
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Surely a football league inquiry would be underway. Who did you lose to? Not someone like f’king warnock?! I can only imagine how Kevin Keegan would feel where he managing a rival…
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Everton Turf. 2-1 and that was with my youth team. A
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New post will be up at 11am today
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