Avoiding the Drop

I have been playing Electronic Arts’ FIFA series since the beginning in the early nineties. The first version I ever personally owned was FIFA 97, which you may remember was the first one to include indoor soccer. I have played every year’s edition since then. However, until last year, I was still rocking a PS2 so I was stuck with the repeated versions for the years 2007-2009.  Last September I decided to break down and buy a 360, and of course I got FIFA10 when it came out. It was apparently much improved over the previous year’s attempt, but it was my first dip into soccer on the current generation of systems.  So obviously I preordered FIFA11 this year, and after a few days with it I thought I would give some initial reactions.

Yes, I took a picture of it in my car upon purchase.

Now, to give you a bit of a glimpse into my personal life (and why I’ve been MIA in large chunks), I’m in my fifth of ten years of graduate school.  So Monday evening when I received a text from Gamestop letting me know I could come pick up my copy of the game, I was sitting in the library. I remained there until eight in the morning.  I’m sure someone can relate to the knowledge that you can go and get a game but can’t play it yet.  So I had to wait until I finished the project I was working on, and then headed off to get my copy.  I got it at ten in the morning, but because of my schedule, I wasn’t able to play until ten at night.  I no longer fear hell, because I was deprived of FIFA11 for twelve hours.  But a few days in and I’ve logged a bit of time on it, and this game is definitely an improvement over last year.

To start, Wayne Rooney isn’t in the opening animations that you couldn’t skip last year, so that’s a plus.  Kaka graces us with his presence, reminding everyone that yes, he is still actually playing soccer. Allegedly.  The game opens up in the arena mode (load screen mini games are the best thing to happen to video games since Doki Doki Panic), and if you go into the options within you will notice the first major change: you can play as the keeper.  When I played for the first time it was with a friend, so when you have two controllers turned on the game automatically gives one player control of the keeper.  It is pretty intense to play in net, and while for the Be-A-Pro mode I think it will be a bit boring (although you can speed up the action to the important parts, like in Football Manager) it is clearly meant more for online play so that you can have 11 player sides.  This is a feature the users wanted and EA delievered, so good on them.

Presented without comment.

The actual gameplay has changed markedly, in my opinion.  The controls are still the same, but the physics have been given an overhaul.  The game now plays much more realistically.  Passes die quicker, eighty yard through balls are a bit more difficult to pull off, and the chip shot has been neutered to an extent (which sucks, because the Georger Stratgem, as it’s known around these parts, consisted of feint, feint, chip, robot).  The critique of FIFA vs. WE/PES has long been that it feels more like an arcade game.  EA has slowly worked at this, and now has produced their more realistic edition to date. Traits such as balance and tackling are more prone to the physics as well. If your player’s balance sucks, Peter Crouch Syndrome as it were, he will jump at an angle and flail wildly for headers. If their tackling is poor, they will make scissors tackles.  So basically, they have made it so that the gamer’s skill cannot overcome a terrible team in the way it could in the past. I don’t see myself getting the 7-0 scorelines with League Two sides anymore, which is fine, because while arcade style pinging goals in is fun, it gets old.  The game is more challenging and realistic, and that is a plus for me.

Doctor Rockso is the pinnacle of realism.

I haven’t gotten into the Manager Mode yet (rebranded “Career Mode” with Be-A-Pro mixed in), but I have heard good things about glitches being fixed from last year.  With the calendar within both modes there is a FM style wait while days are simulated between games, personally that’s the one thing I have to bitch about so far, it seems unnecessary.  Also United signed Daniel Agger within the first week of my season so they still have not improved the transfer AI.  For that, FM still cannot be beat, but I don’t see why they can’t code in the fact that United and Liverpool do not engage in transfer negotiations. Oh well, at least it’s not like the PS2 version where the game would schedule two matches on one day, one of the laziest screw ups in video game history.  But back to Be-A-Pro. Once I realized that my previous GameFace looked like an abomination, I decided I needed a new one before I could get back into the game.

This picture should make you question your faith.

Well that was out of the way, after navigating EA’s ridiculously jumbled site.  As tradition holds, I decided to start my Virtual Pro’s career with Norwich City.  A change from last year is you no longer automatically start in the reserves, somehow my raw talent was enough to justify being thrown straight into the first XI.  Personally I was looking forward to getting a hang of the new physics against crappy Colaship reserves, but I guess being thrown into the fire is one way of doing it.  The biggest complaint I had about this mode last year was the player rating.  I literally had games where I would score five goals with my player (the legendary Polish striking wizard Bombasto) and have a 9.0 match rating. Why? Because I would call for passes and the teammates wouldn’t deliver them, or they wouldn’t get on the end of my passes, or god help me if I had to deliver a corner in for the AI to try and get on to.  The scoring system was terrible, basically it punished you for trying to get more involved in the game. If you tracked back with a striker to defend you would get docked for being in the wrong position.  Now, that’s all gone. The rating is now not impacted by these little things, as much.  If you screw up a pass royally or get the ball taken off you, it does count against you, but for the most part it is all on you and not down to your teammates.  The game also gives you a numerical readout of your rating during play instead of the progress bar of last year, which was absurd considering the game gave you numerical thresholds you needed to hit before the game but you had to enter the pause screen to see where you were.  The game also no longer gives you these expectations before the match starts, which is a plus, because as far as I could tell they had no real impact.  I haven’t gotten far enough in to see how the progression through the ranks of the team goes, but I hope it is the same as last year, and that the national team callup feature is still there.

You cannot carry over your player from last year, but personally I wouldn’t want to, the fun is in the development of the player. Plus that would make online play unbalanced as people could go in the first day with players rated in the nineties.  I have yet to get into the online play, mainly because my Live subscription (tag: lampjaw) was suspended due to me leaving an old credit card on there because I couldn’t cancel it online and wasn’t about to give Microsoft the satisfaction of putting me on hold.  Now that I have it back I am anxious to get back into it.  Which leads me to a question, if you’ve made it this far, I want to put together an online club team and will need some people. So, who’s coming with me?  I think we should get together a team of bloggers and readers to give the cadre of thirteen year old kids that continually beat the crap out of me at every game a run for their money.

But anyway.  Those are my initial reactions to the game. Massive improvement on the physics, bit of a change in the modes, and the game is less of a prick when it comes to statistics.  So go pick it up if you haven’t already, and then use a large dog to frighten a racially diverse Real Madrid suddenly lacking a sponsor. Let’s FIFA!