I downloaded the Fifa 2001 demo today but I was a little precautious. I fell in love with Fifa 99 and when I bought Fifa 2000 it would
not run on my Windows 2000 machine. I am happy to report that the Fifa 2001 demo installed and ran without a hitch. As for first impressions, the
menus have changed a little from the fifa 99/2000 menus and dont seem to be quite so intuitive to me. There is a "<" on the
bottom right of the screen, and I assumed that was the back arrow to go back to a previous menu option. Unfortunately, it ended up throwing me into
the game. I was quite thrilled though to see the changes that have happend since fifa 99 at least.
First off, the detail everywhere has improved greatly with things like the jerzees having wrinkles in them and to being able to see the
spikes on the cleats. I am still using my same game rig (366mhz celeron) that I played 99 on, aside from the fact I have a
Geforce card now.. I dont know if the game could have run more smoothly, but it was VERY playable.
Another thing I noticed was how smooth and fluid the motion of all the players. It did not seem quite as jerky as I remember
it being. The stadium lighting was not too bad, and I had some mixed emotions with the crowd. The crowd, while playing in the
game, seemed pretty good but during the whole game each fan was jumping up and down at the same rate. That got a
little annoying and when they had a closeup of the crowd it seemed quite blurry. Although, I have to say that adding english
bobbies (cops) in yellow slickers was pretty cool. I think I will have to wait until the full version comes out to feel the
full effect. One thing I miss is the british commentary (not sure if it is there in the full version). They just seem to have
coaches yelling, and you can hear the occasional play on from the referee.
In the demo you only get to play one 45 min half. I think it should have been a full game, just like NHL 2000, but its not. Regardless, I was still hooked on the game. The AI seems to be much better, players are where they should be, and the
biggest pet peeve I had in fifa 99, was how stupid the golies were. They would never come out to cut off an angle of
an attacker, well now. They come out, and boy do they come out. It's quite a challenge now. If you have the time I
suggest you download the demo at FIFA 2001 download site.
If you are going to download a video download the fifa 2001 movie. It really shows off what fifa2001 can do. The other 2 movies
show clips of the motion capture compared to the in game moves. I cant wait to see the final product, I dont think
this demo really does the game justice. From what I could see, they finished (almost finished) the game and decided that
they had to throw out a demo game to whet peoples mouths. Here are the tennative release dates for FIFA 2001:
PlayStation - Friday 3rd Nov
PC - Friday 10th Nov
PlayStation2 - Friday 24th Nov
E3: Electronic Entertainment Expo 2001 
