Ever since the 1990’s EA have been bringing us a yearly dose of Football via their FIFA franchise, to begin with this was a excellent series which was unrivalled, however two things happened to change this, the first was a little game from Konami called Pro Evolution Soccer and the second was that FIFA jut wasn’t that good anymore, mainly due to the fact that it just didn’t evolve with the times. We are now at the time of year again were FIFA and Pro Evolution Soccer prepare to square up to win over the hardcore football fans and Pro Evo already has the advantage here due to it’s loyal fan base, but can this year’s FIFA make them swap sides?
When you first start up FIFA 08 it will be of no surprise to you that everything from the background music to the menus are crisp, clean and easy to navigate as well as looking and feeling fantastic. As with last year’s FIFA you are also able to have some shooting practice using a player of your choice whilst you are waiting to startup a game and once in a game the commentary, player likeness and general presentation is perfect as usual.
But how does FIFA 08 play you ask? Well I can say for certain that this version is a big improvement over last year’s Xbox 360 version and this is due to the massive differences in player movement on the park, tackles now feel more realistic, for example if a player goes for the ball and mistimes his tackle, the opposing player will jump over him and continue on his run, or alternatively if two players go for the ball at the same time then it will spin away from both of them, retrieving the ball also feels more realistic, rather than just running up and taking it you really have to work to get it back and all of this adds a very realistic feel to the game. As well as the defending it seems that EA have also been working on things up front also, the shooting feels much more precise as you are able to use the analogue stick to pick out where you want your shot to end up, although to me it still doesn’t have the randomness about it that Pro Evo does when your are on the attack.
As well as improving the defending and attacking elements, EA have also added in some additional moves for the player to get to grips with, these include things like body feints and stepovers, the great thing about these is that they are really easy to execute and make FIFA feel much closer to the real thing. Another new feature I should also mention briefly is the ability to take full control of the goalkeeper, this is the first time that EA have allowed this, although it makes things very difficult so I get the feeling that most people will stick to the automatic setting.
The AI opponents certainly seem to be more intelligent this time around, EA have said that this is due to the 1000 potential reactions per second, now that’s some pretty impressive stuff and in the game you can really tell that you AI opponent can read you next move, make a shoddy pass and he will be on to it like a flash, or try the easy through ball and he will cut it out without flinching. The main positive about the strong AI is that no one game really feels the same and this is what the FIFA series has been missing for a long time.
Looking through the menus you will notice that FIFA 08 provides you with all the usual tournaments that you will have come to expect, however glancing down a bit further you may be intrigued by the option which says “Be A Pro”. In this mode you take control of only one player with the camera following him rather than concentrating on the ball, your teammates are controlled by the computers AI and therefore it is up to you to get your player into decent positions to enable him to receive that ball from them, this is certainly a different way of playing the game and to an extent it works well, however there are frustrating moments like when your teammate doesn’t pass to you even though you have a clear goal scoring opportunity, but then again, that’s football.
If you are the type of player who likes authenticity then FIFA 08 will provide this to you by the bucket load, all the usual licensed teams, cups and competitions are present, but that’s not all, you can also take part in online leagues, ranked matches or custom games which all provide you with all the excitement of competitive sport.
Although this years version of FIFA provides a great improvement over previous versions, I still feel that it’s not enough to convert fans of Pro Evolution Soccer, FIFA 08 is a sturdy football game in every sense and as usual it’s presentation is unrivaled, however it still seems to be missing the one thing that makes the Pro Evo series so great, I just can’t put my finger on what that is, but perhaps in next years version of FIFA, EA will.
