The offsides are a joke too.

Playing as Newcastle, all my attackers were onside, split the defence with a through-ball from midfield, attackers had too much pace and got away from the back four, as keeper closed on my striker I layed it off to strike partner - called back for offside.

Hardly any? Unless you're unlucky enough to be playing it on a PS3

I agree 2 is better than 3, can't remember much of the first.

Why play it then? I sold mine after a couple of weeks...hated it.

It is hard, but I wouldn't say professional is awful. It's irritating the life out of me at times. But that's because you have to work to get goals, simply putting a through ball down the middle doesn't work all the time like it did in previous fifa's, you have to build up and pass the ball around a bit and keep hold of possession. Even if it means going backwards for a bit and starting again. I break through one on one quite a lot but if you don't time your shot right, aswell as having a good aim... then the keeper will save it. I'm in my second season now with Wigan Athletic and I'm upto level 11 in Career mode and it is now starting to get damn hard. I can dominate teams and see a keeper pull of miraculous saves out of nowhere and the opposition can have one shot all game or the cpu players will suddenly all become Ronaldo's .. and score and either win or steal a draw. It p1sses me off but tbh, its more realistic that way and a good challenge. After bad/infuriating experiences with fifa 11 online I've still not given this a go on live yet though.

Hardly any? You playing the same game as me? It's on the Xbox by the way.

I've got a staff I can't get rid of. It's part of a quest but the quest hasn't triggered because I somehow found the staff too early. It can be fixed by putting the staff on the weapon racks in my house but wait a minute, they are also bugged Got 3 quests sitting in my list that I can't do because I again found one item too early. I can't buy a house in Markarth despite doing the quests required because the Jarls assistant talked to me when I didn't have the quests done. I'm lucky that it's only these small bugs that have effected me. I also accidentally wondered back into Sanguines little fantasy world. I don't recommend doing it as you can't get back out

I have a friend who's had the game corrupt 2 save files as well as having a load more quests glitch out on her.

I was the same as you with regards to online but try the head to head.

You start on league 10 and have 9 games to get a certain amount of points to get promoted. If promoted you can get relegated if you dont reach 7 points iirc. If your a 5 star team you play against a 5 star team, 4 star v 4 star etc. If people quit you get all 3 points.

Im on league 3 now and im just managing to stay up, theres some awesome players in the league, had some great games.

Im in my 6th season on career starting at Shef Wed, Swansea, Hannover, Palermo and now at Chelsea for the 2nd year running. Finished top last year but nothing to shout about in any of the cups. For breaking down the defence it depends alot on you formation imo. I play a 4-2-3-1 with Chelsea and Milan on line. As said you need to pass the ball alot and with having 2 holding players its alot easier to pick players up in good positions.

The bugs have been rare for me. Got a couple of completed quests that are stuck in the miscellaneous log and a cave that I couldn't actually see in because the colours went all funny when I was going into it, but nothing major. It helps that I have about 15 separate save files and alternate between each one that I save to so that if anything does go wrong, I can go back and try and find out the moment that the game messed up!

Anyone else that has Madden 12 on PS3 find that it crashes/doesn't load a lot?

It's mainly in superstar mode when you have finished a game and then quit to go back to the menu! Starting to get really feckin annoying now

I have had this problem before with previous Maddens so shouldn't be suprised I guess, damn you EA.

Why play any game? No game is perfect, many have come close, but I've never played a game that I felt was perfect from start 'til finish. Even FFVII had some of the hardest boss battles I've ever faced on a game, they were probably too hard as the only way I done them was by researching methods and 'plans'.

I also think you're not grasping the whole process of buying a game. I'm not saying games should cater to everybody's needs, but when you buy your favourite game that's part of a series, you expect to see progress and development. It's why you pay £40 every year for the same title. The alleged progress made on this year's Fifa is completely unacceptable, the game was/is riddled with flaws, the gameplay has completely stagnated, there is little in terms of progress and the calls for a new 'engine' are legitimate, IMO. I don't know if it can be implemented, but if they could get the AI to play more like a character controlled by a human, it would be so much better. By that I don't mean chasing down short goal kicks, or persistently chasing you down with two players. What I mean is just 'up the tempo' of the way they play, instead of keeping the ball for long spells, why not just get the attack out of the way? I do those EA Challenge things, where you get put into a certain scenario. I do most of them, but some are like 'score two goals in the last 10 mins', and it's on World Class or something, you're lucky to get two attacks, let alone two goals. They are possible and I've done them, but it took about 25 restarts.

Fifa isn't difficult, let me get that straight, it's not that hard to play against the CPU on any level providing you play in a certain way. If online wasn't so laggy for me, I'd spend a lot more time playing on that, but I can't take getting beat by lag, or feeling gimped by lag, so I have to play offline which is terrible.