Every now and then EA give us all false hope and FIFA makes a positive move toward being more like what is indubitably the king of football games, the Pro Evo series, (pick any one you like). But then something happens that is cast deep into the core of EA’s being that spoils things – too much glossy presentation, too little attention to detail, and worst of all this time around, no quality control.
This particular version of FIFA, shoved out the EA production chute (shockingly enough) to cash in on the World Cup is amazingly the second FIFA game on Xbox 360 already, and the third “new” FIFA I’ve played in 8 months. After a brief rally with FIFA 2005, which we actually quite liked, EA have managed to hit a new low with this glitchy, bug ridden and deeply annoying pile of officially licensed crap – but I’m jumping the gun, let me describe the game’s features, options and controls before I rant about this mess, a mess that I was daft enough to buy after reading a few reviews that gave it 8 or 9 out of 10.
The game looks quite nice, tufts of grass and high levels of detail on the ball, goals and stadia. Players kits are detailed too, but unfortunately still look like they’re made out of wax as they fail to move in any way like fabric, and the player likenesses are poor (Peter Crouch looks like a blonde Herman Munster and David Beckham’s hair NEVER looked as wiggy as that) and the physiques are still all wrong – I don’t know what it is with those EA boys and their huge, muscley thigh fixation but I think they have a problem. The ball physics are probably the best yet in a FIFA game and the control system pretty much mirrors Pro Evo’s now, added to the “first touch” which survives from 2005 (you move the right stick to control the ball and set the player off in whichever direction you choose - it feels a bit like you need a second right thumb to use this properly) and minus the option to play with the D-Pad as basic management options are now mapped to that (a good idea and you can change the control to the D-Pad if you like). The commentary by Clive Tyldsley and Andy Townshend is also pretty good and adds to the atmosphere, at least Tyldsley puts everything into it anyway.
Initially I thought the game played quite well, even if it was a bit more “Houllier” than “Benitez”, fans of George Graham’s Arsenal will love it, today’s Gooners will wonder what the heck is going on and what exactly this games is supposed to be simulating. The game seems to be stuck in a quagmire of deliberate passing and slow build ups, long passes are rarely accurate enough to hit a forward’s run and are nearly always mopped up by the AI defenders, who are clearly psychic and respond to your passes a lot better than any of your dumbassed, seemingly lazy and skill-free players. Most of my goals came from battling to somewhere just inside the opposition half, then finding a telling through ball. Wing play is possible but ridiculously hard against all but the weakest opponents due to the sluggish controls, and running by these defenders or shielding the ball just doesn’t work, they nick it off you every darned time. You can’t even successfully run with the ball, dribble or shield it with the likes of Ronaldinho or Robben, and Henry seems to have lost all his pace and is easily caught by any old defensive donkey. Regardless of quibbles, I played right the way through qualifying as England and the World Cup finals themselves, conceding only a couple of goals (one to Azerbaijan amazingly enough), and beat Brazil 5-0 in the final. A bit too easy, not terribly realistic and lacking in tactical options, but pleasurable in a FIFA kind of way. I keenly started on the game’s Global Challenge mode, and oh dear then the game’s faults really started to hit home…
Yes, the same old FIFA problems soon rear their ugly heads. Pretty animations that can't be cancelled quickly enough drag the gameplay reaction times down, and make “remembered” button presses a real problem (a player receiving the ball may pass it straight on because you pressed the ‘tackle’ or ‘pass’ button a second or so before he received it – this is annoying the first few times it happens, infuriating when it costs you a certain goal or ruins a good move. The players also seem remarkably ball-shy and never seem to get drawn to the ball – unless, that is, the ball is rolling out for a throw in to your team, at which point they'll hare after it (ignoring your control inputs) and concede a throw themselves. Honest to God - sometimes you’ll feel like you’re playing in one of those school playground games where your team got saddled with all the dorks and jessies.
I also initially thought that free kicks seemed to work a bit better with an all-new control system. I could at least hit the target consistently but when after about 50 games the only free kick I’d scored was against some hopeless clown from the Congo or somewhere, I realized that they’d made those far too hard to score from too, just like Pro Evo’s. Indirect free kicks (anything over about 30 yards from goal) are also incredibly vague, you can’t lob one into the box with any idea of what you’re aiming at – it’s rubbish. Penalties seem to work quite well now, the ball goes where you aim it (As does the goalkeeper when you're defending one - you can even wave his arms or do 'crazylegs') and there’s a power line that you really don’t want to go over to give you good idea of what power you need to score. You can even just dink the ball if you want. Throw-ins are implemented well enough too, and you can throw to or in front of a player. Corners are a little vague not aided by another glitch that has the power gauge disappearing altogether on odd occasions for no apparent reason. The replay mode is without doubt the game’s single most polished feature, but after you’ve viewed them from every possible angle or player’s view then you still can’t save them – why the hell not?
There are also 40 Global Challenges, “challenges” (and these are clearly on a higher difficulty setting that the basic World Cup) that take you around the world reenacting situations from real qualifying games from the past, and including some World Cup finals. Now this isn’t the first time that scenarios have made their way in to a FIFA game and I don’t think they’re an entirely bad idea, but the ridiculousness of this game’s is that rather than having the actual team rosters from the day, when you play (for instance) Scotland Vs Holland 1974 you’re expected to win by three goals to complete the challenge! Now back in 1974 the Scotland team had greats like Billy Bremner, Denis Law and Kenny Dalglish to play Cruyff, Rensenbrink and Rep with, now they have Darren Fletcher, Barry Ferguson and James McFadden (bless ‘em) to go up against van Nistelrooy, Robben and van Persie. Yes, it’s as difficult as it sounds. And it didn’t happen anyway, I didn’t think Scotland played Holland in 1974, so I checked. So even less points for shitty research. The other challenges seem to vary massively in difficulty, some I did first time (even exceeding the required scoreline) and others seemed impossible after 10 or 20 attempts. These challenges will also highlight the weakness in the AI, ball-shy players, ridiculous reactions after tackles (sometimes your player will win a tackle and then simply ignore the ball and run away!), meaning the player you just tackled just takes the ball back!
There are so many small bugs and glitches that crop up during gameplay that I wasn’t sure where to start, but here's a selection of my favoutites. On one occasion the opposition was attacking down my right flank, I just got a tackle in and the ball was transported to the centre spot from where the CPU team just carried on – unsurprisingly it took me a second or two to figure out what the heck had happened…
I’ve crossed the ball on more than one occasion and it’s heading nicely just for that gap you want to hit, between goalkeeper and defenders and all of a sudden, as it draws level with the keeper it turns 90° and ends up in his hands – Harry bloody Potter himself couldn’t do it better.
There are flickers of previous replays (or something) when the CPU makes substitutions (and amazingly you can’t skip these sequences – very annoying when you’re pushed for time towards the end of a game or challenge).
The game has the same old bug that FIFA has had since it introduced post-match highlights, whereby if you substitute a goal scorer then the substitute will score the goals in the highlights – rubbish or what? – I simply can’t believe that no one at EA has spotted that one.
At both half time and at the end of every single match the pitch texture (a worn grass effect that is presumably supposed to gradually appear) glitches fully into existence around the centre circle – it looks hideous and I can’t believe they let this game out on the shelves with something this visually horrible happening at the end of every single game – it’s a disgrace.
And finally, here’s a good one: I tried to ‘chip’ a penalty on one occasion and the opposition goalkeeper saved it. The ball rebounded off him and disappeared off to the left side of the screen (penalties are taken from behind the kicker) – I expected the camera to switch back to the normal ‘Action’ camera side view. But no. I sat there, my player had gone (after the ball presumably, but more likely down the pub), all I could see was the opposition goalkeeper and the game continuing on the radar – until the ball got near my goal at which point the view switched to a view of my goal (as if I was taking a penalty at that end). The camera only unstuck itself and returned to normal when the opposing team shot and my keeper tipped the ball round the post for a corner – amazing.
Play just the World Cup and maybe just with friends (with a sense of humour) and you might be able to bear this annoyingly buggy game, if nothing else it simulates all the niggling, pushing, shirt tugging and arm pulling of the modern game – even handballs, incorrect offsides and dodgy refereeing, and as such might just be the most accurate simulation of the "sport" yet... But that doesn’t mean it feels finished, polished or make it fun to play in depth - it means it'd probably be safer for all concerned if it never went it near my 360 again. Although mostly playable, this game can be truly infuriating due to countless silly flaws, but as long as moron reviewers give it 9/10 and idiots like me buy it, then EA will insist on shoving the game out the door on the marketing guy’s date rather than when the project leader says "it’s finished", and this is the sort of pre-Beta test crap we’ll have to put up with. Keep buying games this poorly finished and we'll all be downloading patches as often as those poor saps who play their games on PCs. I am honestly amazed EA let this one crawl out the door.
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