Review: FIFA 10, Ready to Have a Ball?
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Football games have come far from the nostalgia filled days of Sensible Soccer and Striker. Although the controls and game play were simple they captured the fun of football.
Nowadays football games are confusing beasts filled with a multitude of game modes to please every player but do they still capture the essence of the sport, the sheer enjoyment that the classics possessed?
Usually in football games I begin to notice certain flaws in the game play and although small at first, they slowly build and become huge horrible monsters that make you go and hunt out your copy of Pro Evolution Soccer 5. My main issue with FIFA 09 was the untrustworthy keepers; sometimes great, other times utterly brain-dead.
Now the keepers, and the AI in general can be trusted it makes you sit back and really get into the match. In fact, I cannot think of anything that has stood out as a potential problem. It may be a bit over-confident to say this but I think this could be the one I’ve been looking for all these years, the one football game that I don’t begin hating after 6 months of play.
Most of the controls feel similar to the previous title with two major additions being 360° dribbling and player urgency. With 360° dribbling a simple flick of the stick will move your player around with ease. I found it much easier to get a good first touch and slip past defenders without relying on intricate (and often ridiculous) skill moves. Combine the smooth dribbling with slick fast passing and you have possibly the sexiest football sim yet.
Player urgency was a must have addition after the goalkeeper issues of FIFA 09. Now if your keeper gets chipped then expect to see every available player bolting to the goal line looking to do everything in their power to stop it. The rest of the mechanics seem to have been improved but not to any noticeable degree. Free kicks do seem different as I struggle to even hit the target now (let alone score) but I know I’ll get to grips with it eventually..
Even though the gameplay may remain largely untouched, EA have bolstered their already impressive physics engine with loads of new animations. This is where FIFA really shines; whether it’s attackers shrugging off defenders or midfielders battling for possession it always looks impressive. Oh and when you land that perfect slide tackle sending the forward flying through the air while you emerge triumphantly with the ball, well, its special. The graphics are (once again) of a high standard with some definite improvements on last years game. There seems to be a lot more details in the stadiums which is a neat little touch.
FIFA 10 backs up its solid gameplay with a huge range of game modes: Tournament, Quick-play, Manager mode, Virtual Pro and a whole heap of online modes. With Virtual Pro you can create your own player who can sport your very own face, not in some morbid surgical way but in a rather impressive technological way.
Transporting your face onto your in-game character is nothing new in this generation but no game has done it so well. Simply go onto EA’s website and upload a few mug shot’s from differing angles and after some magic internet wizardry you can download your pixellated face onto your character. Now you have your very own mini-me, what can you do with him? How about everything.
You can play with him in Manager mode, Virtual Pro mode (obviously) and best of all the online Pro Club Championship mode. Through all these different modes you can build your characters stats by achieving in-game accomplishments. The accomplishments take the form of a sticker book, with each one unlocking the picture and the stat upgrade. Now let’s think back to our youth, or my youth if you will and my addiction to sticker books.
I spent so much of my hard-earned pocket-money trying to get that Bulgarian left back; trawling through peoples spares, trading about twenty good players for one key player. It’s such a clever play by EA to tap into the hoarders within us all if not a little evil, because I know I’m going to waste so much time chasing these down.
If you’re a casual gamer then you can go along at your own pace upgrading your pro as you go but if you want to throw down in the Pro Club Championship mode then you will want to get him upgraded sharp. It centres around the online Be a Pro mode that has featured in the last two FIFA games but instead of playing with random players you can start your own with your friends.
When starting your own club you choose a pre-existing team and customize their name and motto. You and your friends actually get to play as your created players and take on other teams of clones online. The key to this game mode working is the complete lack of lag, I played for 4 hours straight and every game was perfect. When you factor in that the games contained between 6 and 8 players you really have to congratulate EA.
If your player is relatively new then his stats will be embarrassingly low but don’t worry, just get yourself (literally) out there and earn some of those accomplishments. The fact that you can upgrade through all the game modes (even the arena) makes it quite easy.
A lot of the time you will get upgrades and have no clue what you did but for others you will have to set out to get them. It’s a really rewarding experience when you see your hapless little player improve from the slow, unskilled wannabe to the hat-trick scoring man of the match.
You get the feeling that this is the game that EA have been building towards. The last few games had their issues but FIFA 10 feels like the complete package now that the game modes have been improved and the online has been perfected.
If you have FIFA 09 then there is enough improvements to recommend this, if you don’t have any recent FIFA games then this is the one to get. An absolute peach of a football game.
