I have played precisely one match of FIFA 14 on current generation consoles. Only one match. But I had fun. I can say that much. For the most part I’m going to let you guys and girls drive the review related discussion of this one, but I do have a couple of things to say about the FIFA franchise in general.
A couple of months ago, just before E3, I went to a preview event for FIFA 14. During this event I was shown an hour long slideshow/presentation. The presentation was designed to show the press what was different about this year’s game. The slide show had over 40 slides and, while informative, it gave me something of a revelation: slides were required to show us what was different about a video game. Slides. Not the game itself. Slides.
And crazily, when I went to my first presentation of this year’s Pro Evolution Soccer, Konami pulled the precise same trick. Another press showing, another slide show!
That’s when it clicked: the smoke and mirrors aspect of annual sports updates. Unless you happen to be core fan of soccer games, it can be very difficult to tell the difference between new iterations of sports games and the games that preceded them. We need to be told what to notice. This isn’t an attempt to disrespect the insane amount of work that developers do in order to constantly and consistently improve FIFA and PES, but when you work on that annual schedule the improvement will always be incremental. When does that start being a problem?
I love FIFA 14. But I play it for roughly a month or two then I move on. Because of that I find it extremely difficult to tell the difference when the new version comes around. Am I alone here?
Comments
9 responses to “Community Review”
I never found much long term potential in FIFA games, until earlier this year when I started playing Ultimate Team.
Holy crap that thing sucked the life out of me – http://i.imgur.com/Qmgo2iD.jpg
Sportsball!
\o/
“When does that start being a problem?”
It already is… The PS2, Vita, 3DS and Wii versions are “Legacy Editions”, they are the same game as the previous year, except for roster and kits updates. The packages even have a disclaimer on the back of the box stating there are no gameplay changes.
http://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2013/09/23/fifa-14-legacy-edition-on-playstation-vita-ps2-psp-has-updated-kits-and-rosters-only/
The Vita version also has the benefit of having the EXACT same recycled trophies and trophy tiles also EA are charging full price for all of these these versions.
At least they have a Vita version. I don’t know what Konami are doing with PES 14, but PES 13 only had a PSP version. Which will play on Vita, obviously, but why would you?
I always buy the latest version of FIFA and then play it until the next one is released. Easy to prolong the game’s life with Match Day and new scenarios to play out every week.
FIFA 14 seems quite good so far. A number of fixes along with some that only regular players will take note of.
Although games like StarCraft & Diablo aren’t released on a yearly basis, companies such as Blizzard still make a lot of fixes and adjustments to their games (just as EA do with FIFA). Adjustments that mainly go unnoticed by the average player. Diehards normally know something is up within a few seconds of playing though. FIFA is just like this.
Yeah but diablo and starcraft aren’t charging you $100 for those updates.
I used to buy every wrestling game so I can barely talk but from the outside it seems pretty crazy how many sales they get with just minimal updates.
Yep, Blizzard are only in the process of releasing 3 different versions of StarCraft 2. Expansions or not, three campaigns used to be a single game back in the day. Equates to $200 – $300 in cash by the time it’s over.
As for minimal updates, I guess it’s to do with being a fan of the game. Football is timely, fans of the game are interested in what’s going on now, not last year, or years before that. They are concerned about their team’s current season, performance, jersey, the latest signings and so on. For me, that’s mostly what sells the latest FIFA/football game. The mechanics are obviously important, but in FIFA’s current build, it’s doing quite well.
Yeah but surely you could just take last years game with an online update for stats/jerseys or whatever and it’s basically the same thing?
Starcraft came out in 2010 and had one expansion in 2013 and there’ll be another one in the next year/couple of years. I agree the last game came with all 3 but it’s hardly a money grab when they span it out over such a long period.
I don’t generally buy these every year… probably every other year at most. Although playing the demo of this year’s PES, it does feel very different to last year’s – it’s got an entirely new engine (FoxEngine, same one they’re using for MGS 5). Took some getting used to, but after playing it a bit I really like it.
PES need to get their shit in order. Fifa is ripe for the taking, the game hasnt evolved in years and its just not worth its price.
The PS3 version is broken to some extent in the career manager mode (which apart from career player mode is the only thing I play). The menu system is insanely laggy, with double inputs making it near on impossible to change your team or line up. It was so frustrating that I gave up trying to play. When I sat back down to it, I thought I would just tough it out. After 4 hours, and only having played 5 career matches totalling about 1 hour of game time, I gave up, packed the game up and returned it to JB and got a refund. The game was so frustratingly broken that I couldnt seriously play it.