FIFA 2010 – The Full Demo Is Here
There was a time when devotees of the Pro Evolution football series looked down their noses at devotees of EA Sports’ FIFA series of video games. Pro Evolution, it was said, was the authentic football experience while FIFA, hamstrung by the costs of obtaining licences for every single league and player that there is, sacrificed gameplay for making everything look shiny. Those days are over, and they have been since FIFA 2008 introduced a quantum leap forward in the playability and realism of the franchise. FIFA 2009 built upon these developments, and now FIFA 2010 is almost upon us, and it’s one of the most eagerly awaited games of the year.
What, then, is new? Well, the most trumpeted innovations won’t become apparent until the full game is released at the start of next month (the managerial aspect of the game has, it is reported, received a complete makeover and you will be able to develop custom set pieces that can be unleashed at the touch of a button in matches), but the teaser demo version released last week by EA Sports does give us a hint at what we can expect. The PS3 demo version comes with the option to play matches between six teams – Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Chelsea, Marseille, Chicago Fire and Juventus. The game’s interface has been tidied up, and the game seems to load more quickly than it did before (although this, of course, may be due to it being demo version).
Once we’re in and the game is under way, though, the differences start to make themselves obvious straight away. The players move more naturally, occasionally mis-controlling the ball and taking too strong a first touch. Goalkeepers move more naturally and defences sit more deeply, meaning that, even on the easiest level, they can be a little more difficult to break down. The sound effects feel as if they have been slightly sharpened, and it is, as ever, graphically stunning. It has been said elsewhere that the close-up player faces are identical to those used on FIFA 2009, but Didier Drogba certainly carries the same continually pained expression that he carries on “Match of The Day”, although Frank Lampard looked a little bit as if he had been in a fight. Whether this was a satirical move or a small oversight on the part of the makers of the game remains open to question.
The game-play feels further tweaked towards realism when compared to previous versions of the game. Shots bounce off goalkeepers at more different angles to before, and the pace that they pick up in doing so feels more accentuated than before. The much vaunted three hundred and sixty degree ball control, giving the player total control over one can take the ball once in possession of it certainly makes the game feel more realistic than it did before, and games feel less predictable than they would feel on previous versions, with the game’s developers having appeared to have put as much time into valuing defensive and midfield abilities as the strikers. The temptation, of course, would be to write a game which sacrifices this for the spectacular, but FIFA 2010 feels like a game that requires a plan above and beyond “attack, attack, attack” if one is to master it.
FIFA 2010 will, of course, face stiff opposition. For the more celebrally minded, Football Manager 2010 is released at the end of October while, after a couple of very disappointing releases, Pro Evolution 2009 was regarded as something of an improvement over previous versions, although whether they have been able to meet the challenge that EA Sports have laid down remains to be seen. It’s early days yet, but on the strength of the evidence to hand FIFA 2010 seems likely to set the bar for the new version at an even higher level than before. The full version is released on the second of October.
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Games like Fifa are part of a two headed bane on modern football. Fifa and Championship Manager all started off as fun and for a few years they were a giggle but a generation brought up on skill buttons and computer AI have ludicrous attitudes towards what happens on a real football field and react to that disparity with boos for good players just cause they don’t press R1 L2 and Up when facing a defender and Van Gettas turn skill past him.
Likewise CM has told a generation that the reason the club they support are not winning the Champions League is because the manager is not doing what he needs to do and not to do with the fact that if the opposition are not AI but rather real people then things are substantially different.
For sure Fifa is fun but don’t mistake it for anything like real football and more than being good at guitar hero means you can teach Jack White how to play guitar.
Hi, can you please let me know if you get european football in this new game? im playing a league however, there is no european football. am i doing something wrong?
I have to agree with Michael. My Nephew has just started playing FIFA and now thinks that he knows all about the real thing down at Sincil Bank on a Saturday. I gently try to point out the difference between a computer game and reality but he doesn’t seem to get it.