I live in the USA but am interested in ordering TCM this year along with FIFA. Could somebody give me some details on how this works as well as the pro's/ con's. I play FIFA every year but am looking for more out of career mode which TCM seems to provide. Any comments are appreciated.

well basically in the total club manager during a game you'd be 'on the sidelines' as the manager while a nicely rendered 3d game went on. i attached a picture of what the screen looks like.

with fusion, you can export the game date to fifa 2005 and actually play the game yourself =)

If you want to play a football game (controlling the players), get PES4, FIFA2005 is not good enough in my opinion.

Football fusion is an EA marketing ploy (N)

Originally posted by champdave
If you want to play a football game (controlling the players), get PES4, FIFA2005 is not good enough in my opinion.

Football fusion is an EA marketing ploy (N)

meh, the 'which is the best footy game' debate has been run into the ground.. to each their own.

as far as the marketing ploy, you're preaching to the choir.

How does Football Fusion play this year? Is there an option to play with the normal FIFA 2005 AI or does the TCM AI mess the game up?

Originally posted by cwhein
How does Football Fusion play this year? Is there an option to play with the normal FIFA 2005 AI or does the TCM AI mess the game up?
Well EA ****ed up the Football Fusion. You have to quit TCM and start FIFA 2005 and load a save game then play the match. After you've finished the match, you have to quit FIFA 2005 and start TCM then load a save game FIFA 2005 made and continue playing.
Anyway IMO nobody needs Football Fusion if you want to play a football game play PES or FIFA or get outside of your home and play there with a real ball.

If the Football Fusion matches are played under FIFA 2005 AI then I'm OK with some disc swapping.

i think thats why you have to quit tcm and open fifa, so that you can play with fifa´s AI ;)
but still, too much work, i rather control my players from the sidelines.
great work on tcm this year :rockman:

Do they have TCM 05 for the XBox in US version? Or is that just in the UK/Europe? I looked on their site, but it's very vague, and not informative at all.

no, tcm has never been available outside europe.

Is there such a thing like "Private Life",like tcm 2004...

From what i've heard they took private life out.

Originally posted by KaseyKeller
From what i've heard they took private life out.

very true

I received my copy of TCM yesterday and was able to give Football Fusion a brief once-over. I played 2 games, 1 friendly and my first league match, and I think Fusion is better than last season - so far.

The disc swapping is a pain (but not the end of the world) and I found a NO-CD patch for FIFA that makes it a non-issue. I can leave the TCM disc in the drive and load FIFA from my desktop without any hiccups.

The files that you load/save during the Fusion matches look like they can clutter the directory so folks will have to clean up periodically.

The player ratings were very low - but then again so were the cpu generated players in my shell league. While the ratings were low the games weren't uninteresting - a 1-1 draw in a friendly against PAOK and a 3-0 drubbing of a cpu generated Real Salt Lake.

The cpu AI (most likely just the normal FIFA AI) is much smoother this year and doesn't "avoid" scoring opportunities like it used to. Last year the Fusion matches were one-sided affairs - either I crushed the cpu or the cpu crushed me with a world class club. I would like to know how the AI difficulty level is set so I can adjust this as I get better at the game.

My formation from TCM didn't translate exactly - I had set a custom 4-4-2 with 2 AM's and the RM and LM in their standard positions but it appeared as a default 4-4-2 with the midfield straight across - RM-CM-CM-LM. Also, I didn't notice anywhere to change the formation during the middle of the game.

The kits were a mixed bag - if the team appears in FIFA then you should be able to assign their kit with the editor otherwise a team will have one of 5 generic colors.

I haven't had time to mess with the stadiums yet to see whether they look as good in Fusion as they do in the TCM stadium editor.

I tried to figure out whether the missing teams from group play of the Champions League could be added to Fusion for a custom tourney but didn't have time.

Razov

Thanks for the TCM impressions. i was hoping for impressions from somebody, who like me, cares more about the gameplay and AI then loading, kits, stadiums etc. I should be getting TCM this week and was worried i wouldnt be able to play some of the games via fusion. Thanks again.

Meh, EA has very little respect for football fans in the US. As far as I can tell, they didn't even make NTSC console versions of TCM 05. Also, I don't even think they sell the PC version in any of the stores in the US, so if you want it, you've got to order it from the UK. It's not like EA doesn't have the money to make NTSC console versions, even if it is on a smaller scale.

It's just frustrating...that's all.

i want private life back :(
what am i going to do with the money i make? donate it to the club? pure rubbish :crazyboy:

i like it

I played a little fusion and I must say it's quite better than last year (with a few exceptions). Well, you set up a formation in TCM and when you fusion with FIFA I think it translates corectly, although if you open the in game menu you see a different thing, but when you observe the players on the field it's obvious they actually are placed exactly as you did in TCM:) So that's a good thing.
Another thing is that if you change the players shirt numbers in TCM they also change in FIFA, but in FIFA on the shirts you will see the whole player's name, so you will be a little confused in the beginning;)
A bad thing is that the player's attributes (like fitness, for ex.) do not translate corectly...I mean if a player has bad fitness in TCM it's very possible he will have a very good fitness in FIFA:(
And I also think that stadiums you made in TCM do not appear in FIFA:f***:

I just got TCm for Christmas, I know that football fusion works with FIFA football in Europe, but does it work with FIFA soccer here in the US?

it should work

ok, sweet i'll have to try it out