Wow NZTiger!! You love ya footy don't ya. Excellent suggestions.
Of NZTigers suggestions, I think I'd like to see weather variatoins and effects (mud) the most.
Aside from all the of little niggly problems and quirks from this game, assuming they are all fixed.. I'd like to see online play. That's it. Online play. Jono up the top ranked franchise ahead of online play, for the reason that franchise adds to the replay value.. well what about online play? People still play Counter-Strike after 5 years, and it has nothing to do with franchise mode. Franchise mode would be ok, but anytime you play against AI, it's going to get old quick, compared to playing against people. I'm also pretty certain that if there had of been online feature in this current version, that there would be online tourneys going on right now (a round per week), and we would see about 10x as many people posting about the game in this forum.
I rate the graphics actually. Not for specific detail or facial expressions but I think the game did a great job of showing the different body shapes in the game from only two values (hieght, weight). From the fixed behind camera, the body shapes look almost identical, the only letdown is the hair colours and meshes, as they don't allow for enough variety. Particularly the fact that there is brown, and there is black and no in between. This isn't a game where you need to see there faces, so the faces don't bother me. I just wish there was more variety in the hair. I'd much rather see 20 different hairstyles and dodgy faces, then 10 hairstyles and more realistic faces, because the hair helps you recognise players. You can't even see your teams faces while your playing the game.
One thing that I wish I knew how to edit is the crowds cheering when a conversion is kicked. It happens too late. If your at home and you have just kicked a sideline conversion the crowd doesn't wait until the ball has hit the ground before they cheer. They cheer right at the moment they see the ball going in. And sometimes they get excited and it curls at the last minute and they go yeeaaaahhh-Ohhhhhhhhhhh etc. It frustrates me that there is probably only a section of code somewhere that could be changed to make the crowd cheer a second or two earlier, and I don't know how to do it! Little things like that really increase the "feel" and enjoyment of the game for me.
The only other thing I'd like to see is more realistic penalites (high tackles). Not every high tackle should be penalised. There shouldn't be any sin bins for high tackles at all. Send offs yes, but in my years as a footy fan I don't think I've ever seen a sin bin for a high tackle. It would also be good if occasionally the ref put it on report.. even if it was a friendly match and you didnt care if your suspended. This game surprised me, in some ways it was alot better then I thought it would be.. I just wish I could play a game without at least one of my players in the bin. It's just not realistic, especially since lately in real life, the refs have gotten even stingier with the whistle when it comes to sin bins. Blow that whistle ref!
Argh, every time I get sucked into reading one of these suggestion topics, I start thinking about all the features a new game could have, and it's impossible to put them all in. It's just setting yourself up for disappointment.
To sum up, I'd be happy with the basics that this game had, I'd hope though that some of those basics were done a tad better. An extra hair colour here, and extra hair mesh there, a jump button, a couple minor adjustments the AI (passing when they are clear of opposition players), and the crowd cheering earlier on conversions and this for me would be a 9/10 instead of 8.
