A vertically panning camera has some issues, such as the actual goal at the bottom obscuring the action and the ball being hidden behind a footballer when running up. More importantly, it also seemed like the gamer playing upwards have an advantage over the gamer playing down because of the perspective and tilting of the camera. He would simply see the goal earlier when running up. One solution is to have a camera looking almost straight down, as in KO, but this is less desirable because it also make it difficult to see the animations and the relative height of the ball compared to the footballer - which is necessary to judge when to kick the ball and tackle etc.
During one of our regular chats 5M casually mentioned that he had also implemented a side-camera, that we had discussed some time ago, and asked me to test it. I have previously campaigned for the top down view, claiming it was the only view that would allow us a perfect aim at goal etc.. but I was wrong. The side camera works like a dream, and for starters it doesn't favour any of the players.
So, long story short: we have more or less made a decision to change the default camera view from top down (vertical) to side view (horizontal) - very much like in PES or FIFA, rather than as in SWOS or KO. Please note, the top down view will still be supported!
Below is a preview movie of the side view. Both cuts in the movie are first takes - you'll see that its indeed possible to score from a difficult angle - I didn't need any practice really to pull it off - and no, it wasn't just first time lucky I could do it again and again! =)
