Platform: Xbox 360, PS3, Xbox One, PS4, PC, WII, WII U, 3DS
Price Range: Standard Edition - £29.99 - £34.99 Ultimate Edition - £50 - £55.99
Age Rating: PEGI 3 ( Safe For Kids, Online Content and Communication May Vary )
Genre: Sports
Design:
So it's that time of year again when we forget all about our previous Ultimate Teams and Pro Clubs and move on to the next generation of the FIFA franchise, this time around EA have made some much needed and anticipated improvements to the game and the finished product is there for all to see in FIFA 14.
As with every FIFA game there is no story mode or anything like that, there are however all your favourite game modes returning this year in the shape of Ultimate Team, Career, Online Seasons, Pro Clubs and many more all of which have had minor upgrades to make the playing experience a little frustrating than previous titles, although it still won't stop you rage quitting when losing 6-0 to a bronze Belgian league team on Ultimate Team.
EA always manage to get us sucked in to the whole FIFA hysteria and there is no change this year, the game is very well put together although I was slightly concerned to see that there were a couple of signings missing in manager mode however it has come to my attention recently that it is down to you whether you make those summer signings or not so in a way I suppose that is a nice little twist.
Gameplay:
Now how many times have we blamed EA for losing a game online or even offline? Yeah thousands and I'll be honest it's going to be the same this time around, there are still various player control issues which to be quite honest have been there since FIFA 12 and could have easily been sorted by now however a nice thing to see is that Ultimate Team doesn't feel as arcade like as it used to, the pace has been slowed down slightly so that it feels more like Online Seasons and if you are going to make a pace team then be warned you won't get very far without altering chemistry styles ( I'll talk about those in a moment ) as defending now has much more depth and defenders are less likely to be outpaced when you run towards them.
Chemistry Styles are a new edition to Ultimate Team and if you know how to use them can prove very effective they basically alter the stats of your players on your team, for example a goalkeeper equipped with the 'Cat' chemistry style card will have better reflexes, speed and reactions than his basic form, the best part about these is that they are permanent once equipped but a welcome edition in my opinion, a couple of other changes, your consumables pile is now unlimited, single online matches are back and online and single player divisions now have ten divisions rather than the previous games which had five.
A welcome change to Career Mode is the Global Scouting Network where you can send a scout out like you did previously however this time with deeper control on what results are returned, you can send your scout out with specific instructions on what player you would like to be scouted.
Presentation:
Say what you like about EA and their controversial servers but they always make good looking games and FINALLY they have sorted out their bloody awful menu system, every time I have played a FIFA game it has always been terrible laid out and this year it has been drastically simplified, it almost looks like it is a Windows 8 kind of setup ( which leads me to believe they favour XBOX over PlayStation ) but either way it looks much better and is much easier to move around.
Players look as real as ever and with more licences being obtained by EA this time around they can bring you more players to the pitch, players like Hazard and Valencia who looked generic last year look much more like themselves this year as goes for many more players in many different leagues. Stadiums look pretty much the same as they did last year although there are a couple of graphical improvements that I have noticed which are always a bonus but we won't mention the terribly pixelated crowd... oops already did ;)
Summary:
Basically this is a must have for any football fan and a must have for Christmas we all love a bit of footy with friends and thanks to FIFA you don't even have to run out of breath playing it, unless you celebrate a little too much. But in all honesty it is a fantastic game and the changes to Ultimate Team, Menu System and Career Mode make it all the more pleasant to play :)
Ratings:
Design: 9.5
Gameplay: 9.7
Presentation: 9.5
Overall: 9.6
0 comments:
Post a Comment