Soccer fans will love improved play of ‘FIFA 14’
By CHRIS CAMPBELL | Howard Scripps News Service
FIFA 14
Platforms: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Genre: Sports
Publisher: EA Sports
ESRB Rating: E, for Everyone
Grade: 3.5 stars (out of 5)
I’ve used this space to lampoon EA for not making substantive changes to its NFL- and NHL-related properties. Now I get to celebrate EA for not making any real alterations to one of its core sports franchises, as “FIFA 14” only makes the slightest of tweaks to an already fantastic brand of soccer simulation.
Most of the dramatic improvements to “FIFA” occurred in the 2012 edition, from the 360-degree ball-handling to improved body positioning and tackling. “FIFA 14” doesn’t rest necessarily on those laurels, instead taking a more measured approach to refine and improve what already stands out as stellar.
The way you shield the ball, engage in contact with defenders and better direct passes to streaking players combine to make the game fluid — and insert a sense of pace into the matches. You can’t just dribble willy-nilly through a maze of midfielders and defenders and slam the ball into the net. Building up your attack from the middle, stringing passes together and finding your wingers and strikers in the best positions possible, now becomes absolutely critical. Sure, people who knock soccer for being a low-scoring sport will laugh at this game for making scoring even harder. But for soccer fans, “FIFA 14” now feels like the game they love so much.
Some updates to the menus make getting onto the pitch faster and remove a lot of the clutter, which in 2013 makes you a successful game alone just for that. The online modes continue to shine, and while diverse in the offerings, it would behoove EA to invest resources into improving the single-player modes for those times when you just want a unique experience without having to join leagues and wait to meet up with others.
The drop in quality for “Pro Evolution” means that EA now has a stranglehold on the soccer genre. I hope the company doesn’t get lackadaisical, but instead continues refining and improving what is now the best video-game representation of the beautiful sport.
