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FIFA Football 2004 Preview
Mark Simons
25/07/2003
We take a detailed first look at what EA have in store for this year's title...
'Fifa' is an interesting series, the yearly updates always seem to top the charts despite not offering the best game of football. For those who haven't played 'Pro Evo', 'Fifa' offers a very good football experience with great graphics, audio and a comprehensive collection of teams all looking as they should. This is more than enough for a large number of people, and if you've not played a few games of Konami's flagship series, then you don't know what you're missing out on.
To produce the best football game you would just fuse the strongest aspects of 'Fifa' and 'Pro Evo' to make something brilliant. This sort of seems to be the approach EA are taking, in terms of their changes to gameplay noting the success of Konami's series, and realising that they have the presentation sorted, time to focus on the playability.
So what do EA have up their sleeves? Well let's look at some fundamental changes to the gameplay, ball physics are now more realistic for a start. The ball has always felt a little too sticky in previous Fifa titles, mainly because it seems that the ball and feet were not being treated as separate objects. Now they are separated, 'Fifa 2004' will have less of an arcade feel with dribbling requiring more skill. The motion of the ball should be improved by this as well, looking more like the real thing. We hope this new found focus on the ball and feet will mean striking the ball is more satisfying - this is the area where 'Pro Evo' excells.
Next up there are the off the ball moves, pretty self explanatory, let's give you more detailed breakdown. This new aspect allows you to have an amount of indirect control over players when they don't have the ball, jostling for position at corners, being able to place players where you want, drawing defenders and being able to get in the right position to connect with the ball. EA have also been revamping their motion capturing techniques for sports titles, capturing more players at once, meaning that these off the ball movements look the part, not only in Fifa but across their whole sports range.
Off the ball movement is also improved for the computer controlled team-mates and opponents, re-worked artificial intelligence routines coupled with improved animation should equal a better looking and playing experience.
There are some changes to the control system as well, taking a leaf out of NFL titles, and the passing system seen in Sega's 'NBA 2k' series, you can press a button on the pad and you will get icons above players heads, press the corresponding button and a pass will be fired straight to them, with you taking control of the player that you passed to. This could be a very interesting feature, but it will have to be well balanced to not make things to easy, if it's all about the timing though then it could be good, the fact that control switches instantly to the player receiving the ball could make for some very nice off the ball movement. We will see.
Away from the pitch EA are really upping the ante with regards to what is on offer for single and multi-player games. There is a new career mode which looks to make the Master League look decidedly amateur. You can take control of any team and act as a player manager, you get some financial control and have to hire and fire players. It seems that there will be storylines as well, although the extent of this is unknown, but it could be interesting. At the very least with, 350 teams from 16 leagues featuring 10,000 players, the career mode has a depth and breadth that Konami just can't match at the moment. Interestingly EA are including a feature whereby you can take a team from their 'Total Club Manager 2004' game, whereby you can take a team you have created and play with them in Fifa. Perhaps Konami and Sports Interactive - 'Championship Manager' - should get together?
This all becomes even more interesting when you factor in that the PlayStation2 and PC versions of Fifa 2004 will be playable online. Create world beating team then take on the world, sounds good to us. We know how good football games are multi-player, if EA get the gameplay right on this one, and we are unfairly harsh because we are full on Konami boys here, then this could be compelling game with a deep one-player mode, comprehensive multi-player on one system, and online play. We don't know how many players will be supported online yet, we hope that it allows for more than just one on one matches, as it is always better to play a good football game with more than one person on a team.
Naturally there will be graphical and audio improvements to go along with the tweaks to gameplay and game modes. Animation will be better than ever, a bit more dynamic and fluid, 'Fifa' has always had great presentation, and just the shear number of detailed players, kits - which get muddy - and stadiums will overwhelm.
Commentary is using a new system in order to make things sound more natural, flowing more, rhythm and context being used to push things ever close to real-life. There will be over 300 new crowd chants to go with an already impressive library, coupled with the detailed graphics and slick presentation that EA always manage there is no doubt that 'Fifa Football 2004' should offer one of the best atmosphere's of any sports game. With crowd sounds, player animation and commentary all being linked to on the pitch action it seems that things are finally coming together as they should; your team gets outplayed, you loose the crowd, your players get dejected and the commentators know it; we hope it's like this, it's what we want.
'Fifa Football 2004' does seem to be making the right changes, gameplay wise, to beat 'Pro Evo', and retain it's position as the biggest soccer game around. Presentation is one area EA have had sorted for a while now, and they're going to town to ensure they're still the best. With the improved one-player games, seeming to offer as much as the master league, and then some, not to mention the online mode that, provided it's all smooth and easy - and we don't see why it wouldn't be - we could have the first Fifa game for a while that excites us.
