One series of games I like is none other than FIFA. What I like about these games is that there’s always a new one out every year and it keeps you interested with all the new stuff they add into it.
First of all it’s based around football, so it’s a pretty simple concept; they have to look into how about game the game better and better each year by adding new stuff into it. Basically they know that each year a new football season start so they would go about it my planning out what they have made the previous year and what they can add into it the next year for example in FIFA 2005 the game was pretty simple, there is a career mode which allows the player to play and manage a given team of their choice, this compared to FIFA 11 (the newest game in the series) is a lot different for the fact that they have now scraped the idea of only letting the user start off with a set number of different teams to chose and now they can start off with any tam the wish just to give you more option really. But it’s little things like that, that make up the game itself.
When people think of a football game I personally feel like they think “it’s just football how is the newest one any different to the rest?” well yes the idea of it is the same as any other FIFA game or football series but with that in mind it keeps the games simple and gives the creators and designers a big challenge every year simply because they need to build something better each passing year, but because the idea is just the same every time it allows them to take the all the elements of game and then think about how can we improve this. Some people could argue and say “well it’s going to get to the point where there’s going to be no way to further develop it” but it’s a good challenge.
If you compare FIFA 08 to FIFA 09 you’ll find that there are over 250 improvements in FIFA 09 as stated by the producer David Rutter. There’s so many people out there that have their own ideas for the games, so many that people make videos on YouTube about what to improve next and FIFA themselves even have their own forum that allows people to post idea themselves which the designers and creators listen to themselves.
The game play of it I find very addictive and if you love football then you should love the games, I find that the Xbox 360/PS3 version of the game is the best because the game I would say isn’t as good on the Nintendo DS or PSP simply because of the lower graphics and support from the consoles themselves not making it as good on a handheld device though it’s quite nice to have if you’re out and about. With an Xbox 360 or PlayStation controller you can do so many different tricks whilst on the ball and while not on the ball you can do other things like switch the team between attack, defence or a balanced style of play which is making it a more realistic to how real football in played. Realism is the big key factor here because the creators and designers are trying to make it as to real life as possible. The game play is introduced into every type of mode the game has to offer, for example there is one mode where you can select to play on any team you want, but you only play as just one player of that team taking orders for the team manager as you would playing in reality. For this they use a player camera, meaning that you don’t see the most of the pitch both teams are playing instead to focus it on the one player you are controlling they put the camera into a first person perspective as if this is how you would play in real.
These game are released on the first Friday of October every year (in Europe) this means that after every release they must immediately get working on the next one because they only have a year before its release, but the thing is they have less time then they think... The idea of the game is to keep it updated and so what they do is waiting till the final date for the real world transfer deadline to end so they can update all the teams in the game for their users who play but it ends at the beginning of September meaning they’ve only got a month to finalise everything and ship it out! In which in recent years they have been clever enough to add in a feature which allows users to connect to Xbox Live or the online PlayStation network and update the teams within the game manually as they happen in the real world. This is almost of way of enticing more and more people to buy extra hardware and software for their home consoles in which to update teams within the game that a lot of people could be passionate about. You could say they are trying to make more money by doing this sort of thing but I think it’s just to keep up with other competing titles on the market, because if the game didn’t have online capabilities then it wouldn’t get very far in the new age we’re living in.
Be a Pro mode.
They games go down to the very finest detail now, with just about every different team and league in the world, new modes being added every year, you’re even able to build your own players and customise them. On the Art side of it there a lot architectural design which all these Stadiums and character building to fit into every kit design each team has, so there’s a lot or work when you consider building these things down to a fine detail and a data base of million upon thousands of player out there. It’s one game series I’ll always keep buying.
Until next time...
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