FIFA 2004 - FIFA 2004

What else would you expect between releases? Well, the passing system has been tweaked once again making each pass even more accurate. Goalies too, are now about as error free as their human counterparts. The shooting is also better, so scoring from outside the box is no longer the achieved only by the computer on world class level and defenders’ AI means they close down the danger man rather than sticking religiously to their allocated attacker. But hang on, we expected all of this. Every FIFA release since the original has made these improvements.

Sure, there is Off the Ball Control, but it’s just too fiddly to use on a regular basis. You need time and space, yet that is what Off the Ball Control is meant to create in the first place. And while the passing is better, it still doesn’t pass into a player’s stride and they stop and wait for the ball to arrive. This can be circumvented by timing a through ball pass, but you shouldn’t have to do this outside your own six yard box.

Tackling also remains a problem area. Like the past few FIFAs you can’t easily tackle a player from behind, but when he is in front of you a simple tap of the soft tackle button is all that is required to lever him off the ball, whether he is Sol Campbell or Michael Owen.

And for all the other improvements to the game, I actually think this edition’s corner routines are worse. This time around, you are told where the ball is going and must battle one-on-one in a relatively deserted penalty area with a single opposing player to see who gets to the ball first. This is a long way from the crowded pushing and shoving contests of the real thing and it’s just too sanitised. Free kicks are improved, but still involve a combination of targets, sliding bars and rotating circles which makes it feel more like preparing a swing on a golf simulator.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate the game. EA said it would change a lot and it has, just not fundamentally. I get the impression that, under another title, EA may have done a lot more to the game, but in a way, the FIFA series has become too big for radical change. Its customer base is too vast to risk upsetting the faithful. I find this sad, because with its current strategy the series is simply not developing where it matters.

Verdict

The FIFA series has undergone another evolution, rather than revolution. Die hard fans will lap it up, despite knowing the heart of the game remains the same. But for the rest of us Pro Evolution Soccer 3 is here, and this long reigning monarch faces the chop.