I like many of you out there who might be looking at this blog, love football games. Management games and match playing games have taken up countless hours of my life. I used to be a Pro Evo fan up until around Fifa 10. I had always dabbled in Fifa as it was at least a football game, as a football and game enthusiast the marriage of the two was perfect. Well I say perfect, this blog is a chance for me to talk about why Fifa is flawed in some significant ways and also one of the games I play the most.
Okay so the image that starts this blog. I am a Blackburn Rovers fan, that's the team on the right. Looking at the match stats you can see that I dominated the game offensively and why I felt aggrieved not to come away with a win. Now I understand the need to recreate this kind of match which does occasionally pop up but it's the way Fifa rubs it in your face. So here are my major complaints about Fifa football games.
1. The opposition are always stronger than you. This isn't just Fifa, nearly all games like this make the opposition stronger than you due to the fact it's relatively easy to out think the computer. The result of this is that you end up buying fast players to try and make physical encounters less frequent, you simply run past the opposition player. It does annoy me though when a player I know is very strong seems to get knocked over by an opposing average player with ease.
2. Following on from that point is the way the opposition gets up from tackles and is up and away before your player gets to their feet.
3. Your team mate A.I. Simply that it is stupid. Even with a Barcelona level team you can collect the ball in midfield and see your striker in a perfect position to peel of their marker and get in space. What tends to happen instead is that they run away from you putting a defender or two between yourself and them and getting themselves into an area of space from which there are very few options for a fluid attack.
I do have other grievances with Fifa, mainly bugs in the career mode, but these are my three main points and this blog is titled 'a love/hate relationship'. So why do I love Fifa? It's the best we have. That is a bit unfair really, it's a very good game and captures the feel and spirit of the sport well. My main complaint is that the problems I have highlighted have been there a long time. I mentioned I used to play Pro Evo primarily and I always buy the new one and give it ago. The same complaints can and are made against it so it's not just EA. Although they do release a lot of game and for every good one there are two poor ones, I seriously wonder what happens in their quality assurance department. I'm getting off point though, Fifa is very good. The career mode is almost like a football RPG, building teams up from nothing by increasing players stats from playing well in games. Like a good RPG it is engrossing, it is compelling and most importnaly it is immersive. Getting promising young players and building them up over the seasons into world beaters is immensely fun and satisfying.
The online component is strong and Ultimate Football is great fun. Fifa is a big game with plenty to do and there is a reason its sells like hot cakes. Even though I don't believe the next edition will fix the main problems listed above, I can't wait for it to come out. I know I will play it for hours and hours and I will love it and I will hate it. There will probably be a blog about it as well. Anyway that's enough from me, my Accrington Stanley career mode won't play itself.
