FIFA 10 Demo (PS3) Impressions

After what seemed like forever Sony finally posted the FIFA 10 playable demo up on PSN. Some quick thoughts after six or seven matches;

i) Lots of new tackling animations and in particular last-ditch tackles and shot blocks. These are really neat and make the play even more dynamic around the box with more rebounds, blocks, and ricochets. There are more than a few times players will hurdle over a tackle and this will take them off stride - I`m not sure I`m totally keen on this. On one hand it`s neat that a player can dodge a tackle and keep his balance, but there were other times I would rather my player go to ground and win the foul.
ii) Player interactions (i.e. shoving/shoulder barge) graphically look very impressive but functionally I`m not noticing much of a difference.
iii) Ball physics are improved, the ball is less floaty than last year and the crosses are almost perfect now with a fantastic degree of whip with good players. For some reason the long cross-field balls still seem to hang up a bit in the air too long. Shooting is improved with more pace on the ball and I scored from outside the box once in those six matches.
iv) Again, I`ve only played six or so matches but I`m not seeing a massive differences in the dribbling and nothing as of yet groundbreaking with the `360 degree` dribbling.
v) Keepers are very agressive coming off their line but I`m a bit concerned that this might lead to more chipped goals as in those few games I think I saw at least four chipped goals.
vi) You can dribble around the keepers - I sold Cech on a beautiful step over and fake shot with Messi before walking the ball into the net.
vii) Response times are very good and at this point I`d say they`re as good as Winning Eleven without having those pinpoint turns on a dime.

That`s all for now, I`ll write more later but color me impressed. My favourite demo moment was when a CPU Ashley Cole took the ball of Messi and in response I tried to mow him down with a flying slide tackle using Toure and not only knocked down Cashley but followed through and hit little Messi as well!