FIFA Soccer
Machine: Sega Megadrive, Playstation, and many others
FIFA started out on the megadrive. It was alright, I suppose. It had slightly iffy controls, and slightly unrealistic statistics. The worst thing about it was that it did not play a good game of football. It seemed obvious that it was made by people who hadn't watched much football... It was almost as if the programmers belonged to a country that had not embraced the game... Let's say, for the sake of an example, that the game was made in the USA, by Americans who kinda liked 'soccer.'
Still, it didn't seem to matter to most of us Europeans. We lapped it up. We paid good money for the new instalments of the games. So EA started producing 'updates,' year after year after year. They changed the graphics. They added Des Lynam's voice for the front end. They even added funky music and flashy titles. But they forgot to change one thing: the actual game. It was rubbish. The players ran around like headless chickens. The controls barely responded and the actual physics of the ball were laughable. It felt like kicking a piece of paper around... not only this, but there seemed to be special places that you could score from every single time. You want to win? Fine. You want to win by taking advantage of a shoddy piece of programming? Not fine. I was most surprised by FIFA fans who used to play footie classics like Kick Off 2 or Sensible Soccer... did they not realise that they were now accepting an inferior product... a product that was effectively re-packaged and released as new, EVERY 8 MONTHS? I remember one of the more gullible of my friends who had just bought FIFA '98. He loved it. He played it all the time, blindly. Then EA released a World Cup special version of the game. My mate bought it. He tried to be brave about it, but even he admitted that it was PRACTICALLY IDENTICAL to the game he had just bought 6 months previously. For shame, EA. Never pick on the stupid.
Bubbaray 02 Mar '03
If you hate FIFA Soccer, bin it and try:
Football Manager
One of the first management games and undoubtedly the most popular. More...
