Hot Play: FIFA 2008
FIFA 2008 a great game for players who love to venture online, as a party Game, but single players won’t get enough for their money.
It’s easy to slag off FIFA, so let’s make a start. The perennial complaint is that it’s the same game every year with little more than a different number on the box. As such, it’s always tempting to give it the same review. However, last year’s 360 debut was markedly different from previous years in that there was actually less content, featuring only the Premiership plus a smattering of foreign leagues. Apparently, the developers were too busy honing the next-generation graphics and game play to type in the details of the relevant clubs, or indeed cut and paste them from the previous game.
Thankfully that has been rectified for this year’s model, with the Premier League now augmented by the Championship and Leagues One and Two, plus a hefty amount of foreign outfits. You want numbers? How about 620 licensed teams, 30 official leagues, and more than 15,000 players? And while we can’t vouch for the physical likenesses of every single player, some of the glaring racial inconsistencies of previous incamations appear to have been ironed out.
Instead, they’ve introduced a whole new array of factual howlers, largely by way of the new Toumament Mode. We know it’s new as it says so in-game, a worrying trend in itself as there’s a danger that FIFA could be going down the Tiger Woods route of adding and removing features each year just so they can be flagged up as new. With 35 officially licensed toumaments included it appears to be a waste of the license fee.
As any lower division dullard will attest, the early rounds of the Johnstones Paint Trophy don’t have extra time; in the event of a draw they go straight to penalties. How about the venerable FA Cup, which in the world of FIFA 08 has Premier League teams in the Second Round and a final played in September. (Incidentally, Cardiff City beat Doncaster Rovers to lift the trophy, which has to go down as merely improbable). And in The League Cup, Plymouth Argyle’s reward for a heroic march to the final was the honour of staging it at their own ground, something that is all the more frustrating given that the game features a perfectly recreated New Wembley.
It plays a very fun over-the-top, yet seemingly plausible (for the most part) game of soccer very reminiscent of indoor soccer. The lack of pace is made up with skills and basic soccer strategy.
What FIFA ’08 lacks is teams and depth in its game play modes. It’s a great game for players who love to venture online, as a party game, or for players with readily available human opponents, like in a college dormitory or something similar, but single players won’t get enough for their money.
