#fifa review

[thominospizza]

FIFA 22: The Same Old Story (Except Worse)

Sorry that it’s a post about a fucking football game but I need to get this off my chest because it has been driving me nuts since I was about fourteen. Roll your eyes or scroll right on by. Whatever you want to do.

So I went through a phase in my teens are getting the new FIFA game near enough on release. From FIFA 12 to FIFA 18, I bought it every year without fail until I just decided that it was a pointless exercise. Not to sound elitist but I don’t play FIFA games with the mindset that most would because most don’t really care about the games’ problems. They just want their dopamine fix of getting the player they want in a pack or even just to play as their favourite team in career mode for about three hours before getting bored of it. EA Sports know that that is their audience. Someone who reviews animé and video games excessively in his spare time is not their audience.

I bought it every year to play the Pro Clubs game mode with my friends and if you played it as often as we did (1000 games across 4 games!), you begin to notice all the glaring issues with FIFA and how lazily it is put together as a video game. I don’t really like to give developers a slagging off but when I say lazily, I mean LAZILY. There are game-breaking bugs in that gamemode that went unfixed for YEARS. One such bug was that if the opponent spammed a certain tactical change on the D-Pad, your player would seize up and become unresponsive to button prompts for several seconds.

Speaking of the control being taken out of your hands, the most egregious problem with FIFA games is the scripting element which is now worse than ever. Essentially, what EA do is code the game in such a way that, during online play, stack the odds in favour of one player or another. I think the reason they do this is to try and simulate failure and success so the player gets the illusion of satisfaction when they win. Obviously there is a certain element of skill involved and you do have to know how to play (how to exploit the systems) to be in with a chance but the game has decided for you anyway. They do this by slowing down player response times and increasing passing error and shooting error in the script. Although they deny that “scripting” is a thing in the game (they instead call it dynamic maximum something-or-other), it has been proven frequently through data-mining.

Instead of giving the player accurate football “simulation”, the player just ends up thinking that they didn’t really deserve to win. This is especially noticeable in FIFA 22. Every single game that I’ve played, I have either wiped the floor with someone but lost or drew or I have barely tried, played deliberately lackadaisically and won the game. I’m not alone in this experience of feeling either fucked over by the programming or unsatisfied in victory. This is outside of the game generally feeling sloppy to play with incredibly slow movement on the ball, completely illogical movement off the ball and frequent wayward passes and shots. I’ve also found horrid bugs in players’ hit-boxes and collision detection.

Every year, they seem to add improvements that are supposed to change and revamp the game in particular way but end up breaking it and then reversing it. In FIFA 22, it’s dribbling and it’s so hideously overpowered that it basically renders you untouchable. Previously, it’s been goalkeeping in FIFA 15 where they decided they were going to improve them for the better - for some reason - and made the goalkeeper incredibly poor and unreliable to the point where you could walk around the goalkeeper and score into an open net without fail.

They also enjoy focusing on tertiary and inconsequential stuff that doesn’t matter like atmosphere and dynamic crowd noise and putting the word dynamic in front of basic systems to make it sound like they tried. Admittedly, the crowd noise does sound good in the headphones and it does make the game undoubtedly more immersive even if the wonky A.I offsets that immersion. You will find yourself turning it off by the 10th time the obnoxiously loud French P.A interrupts your train of thought just like you’ll find yourself skipping by all the other stuff that they’ve added for immersion purposes.

This finally brings me to my point.

EA only give a shit about intangible additions that fundamentally do nothing to the gameplay. Former games journalist Steve Burns put into words on a VideoGamer video review concerning FIFA 16 that the FIFA games are less concerned with providing a footballing experience and is more interested in making a “Sky Sports Simulator”. That sums up everything wrong with FIFA games. They want it to be played the same way that one watches it on the television. It is fantasy video game in that respect and it is abundantly clear that they are not interested in producing anything else.

Little changes like the goal being lifted slightly off the floor from a ball-impact or the 4th official holding up the injury time minutes on the board add nothing. But EA know that Joe Public will point that out and go “That’s cool” and that’s it. They also know that the types of people who are tasked with reviewing the game don’t give a toss about the content so will just give it at least an 8 every year consistantly (with few exceptions). What I’m saying here is that, quid pro quo, they get away with making shit games every year. This year is no different. Next year will be no different. Like all popular AAA games that come out every year, they are too afraid to change the form in real experimental ways that affect the button-to-button gameplay.

Here’s the thing. If you actually genuinely like the FIFA games in face of their inherent and obvious flaws, that’s great. For me, I cannot swallow every single year that journalists and critics are fawning and pontificating with grandeur about how great the FIFA game is to play as though it’s the first time they’ve ever played one.

Or I could just not care because yearly sports game don’t change and they never will and I may as well just accept it as I am secondary to the target market.

FIFA 22 is still the worse one in the entire series though.

[uniongamesnews]

FIFA 21 - review

Annual sports simulators develop gradually, some changes occur every few years. At the end of regular generation of consoles, developers usually bring to mind the achievements of the past, and already on the new hardware they begin to introduce serious innovations in gameplay, physics and graphics.

#SPORTS, #SPORTS_GAME, #EA_SPORTS, #EA_GAMES, #ELECTRONIC_ARTS, #Nintendo_SWITCH, #PS4, #PlayStation_4, #XBOX_ONE, #FIFA_21, #FIFA_REVIEW

[skillermoves]

The top 10 things wrong with FIFA 15 that need fixing in FIFA 16!

[foxsoccer]

FIFA 14 caps hat trick with stunning golazo

By FOXSoccer.com

Soccer fans, rejoice: FIFA 14 is finally here. And while it might not feature the sort of gameplay changing revolution that FIFA 10 did with 360 degree dribbling, FIFA 14 does boast the nuanced revisions the franchise's die-hards crave. 

The FIFA series just gets better and better, doesn't it? We'll admit that at first we were apprehensive by FIFA 14's slower-paced gameplay than that of years past, but as you play the game more and more you appreciate the realistic feel.

From a gameplay perspective, gamers will find that patience, unlike in previous iterations, is the key to scoring.  Gone are the days where you could just sprint past slow defenders and be one-on-one with the goalkeeper. You have to be more methodological in your game play, keeping possession to break down defenses. With the physicality of players noticeably improved, getting bumped off the ball while trying to make a darting run is more commonplace. This is where shielding the ball really is at its best.

Image: EA Sports / FIFA 14

The game has slowed down to make way for tinkering in dribbling, passing, defending and shooting. All four combine to make for a more fluid and life-like gaming experience. Defenders play tighter than before, trying to cut out your options to make it more difficult to pick out that killer pass. The counterbalance to this is a vastly improved teammate AI.

More incisive runs can be found around the pitch, but it's up to the user to pick them out before the short window closes. On breaks, the computer makes smarts runs into space, drawing defenders or settling in for a key pass. The changes make for tougher scoring, but for those that enjoy the build up as much as the payoff, FIFA 14's changes are a welcomed challenge.

The CPU’s tactics are also more sophisticated than in FIFA 13; teams press higher and more often -- not just when the opponent is behind in the last 10-15 minutes of the game. For us, shooting was noted as the biggest improvement. Last year, we often would shoot whenever an open shot outside the penalty area presented itself. But depending on where the player was in relation to the ball, the shot seemed unnatural, or the game would defy physics in an attempt to create a shot that would look natural. 

For instance, Pure Shot makes goals look crisp and at times, can point out why you probably shouldn't have gone for goal. Free kicks are harder to master, especially when the AI goalkeepers are much smarter than their FIFA 13 counterparts. Each set piece you take might have the same result, but the look and feel will be different all due to Pure Shot.

Shooting basics are not the only part of the game that has changed either. Career Mode has gone a major upheaval in team management, particularly scouting and the transfer window.  In a big change from seasons past, FIFA 14 no longer allows you to search for new players by their rating; now, they won’t be revealed to you until said players are actually acquired.

So how do you figure out who to buy? You utilize the completely revolutionized scouting network.  Aside from being able to search the world for the best new talents better than ever before -- you can now search for up to six different player types each trip, plus select certain attributes you’d like players to have -- your scouts can now also be used to help rate your transfer targets.  This change might be an annoyance to casual players who simply want to buy the best players, but it’s a FIFA diehard’s dream.  Your managerial skills will be more tested than ever.

Image: EA Sports / FIFA 14

Online gameplay sees a new addition to its many modes. The popular seasons mode is now accompanied by co-op seasons, which we find to be a lot of fun. The adrenaline you feel when you are going into the final game of your season, the result determining survival, relegation or promotion, can now be shared with a friend. This online experience will definitely be a fan favorite.

Feeling overwhelmed? Well, don't. Most of the key skills and basics remain the same. In the end, FIFA 14 provides the same level of excitement, exhilarating gameplay and distinct presentation that's second to none.