Reviewed: November 28, 2005
Reviewed by: Mark Smith

Publisher
Electronic Arts

Developer
EA Canada

Released: November 17, 2005
Genre: Sports
Players: 1-4
ESRB: Everyone

7
6
7
5
6.6

Supported Features

FIFA has been EA’s enduring soccer franchise that has seen its ups and downs over the years. They’ve been hard at work for more than two years now trying to evolve the franchise into the ultimate soccer simulation and most recently on the other consoles the series has delivered with features like a 15-year career mode, fantastic multiplayer, the FIFA Lounge, and official licenses for more than 10,000 players and 21 professional club leagues.

But much like their recent NBA debacle, FIFA 06: Road To FIFA World Cup strips away most of the content from the recently released soccer installment on the PS2 and Xbox and delivers a mere shadow of itself on the Xbox 360.

Gone are the career mode, the manager mode, the club teams, and the FIFA Lounge. Teams are limited to international only and there are only 1,700 players. And in some bittersweet irony, EA Canada, the designers for this game, don’t even represent with their own country’s team. So if you plan on playing this version of FIFA you had better be interesting in the international aspect of the sport.

Soccer is one of those sports that I just haven’t got hooked on, probably because there isn’t as much televised coverage as the others. And when it comes to soccer games, I find it hard to get that enthused. I understand all the rules and how to play and can appreciate when the game manages to bring all that together, but I just haven’t found a good presentation of the sport.

I had high hopes that the powerful Xbox 360 was going to give this sport a much-need facelift, but the surreal visual style, the mandatory distant camera, tiny players, and frantic gameplay had me longing for the next sports title on my 360 play list.

As far as gameplay, the control is rock solid and the AI has been tweaked making the game much more realistic and harder than ever to put the ball in the net. Over the course of three complete games I only got into scoring position about six times, and even though the computer was peppering my net with attacks, they were always going high or wide, so the computer was having just as much trouble scoring as I was.

I’m guessing my troubles are rooted in my sloppy game style caused by years of soccer games that don’t enforce the rules or concepts of soccer. This is probably the first year where those who know how to pass and work the ball down the field, and do headers into the net will finally be rewarded. All the rest of us posers will just have to relearn the game.

FIFA is a breeze to learn, even if you haven’t played one of the previous versions. The face buttons handle the passing and the shots and can be altered with the triggers for specialty shots. All of the commands are pressure sensitive and the 360 controller seems a bit twitchy on the pressure gauge, so it’s often hard to judge how hard or how far your pass or shot will go.

Much like EA's NBA title, FIFA has a slick little in-game management tool that allows you to change up the formation and strategy without exiting the game to some annoying menu. The computer AI has been greatly enhanced around the net and it’s practically impossible to get one by the keeper. The AI on the field is better but still a bit loose and you’ll definitely have more fun playing cooperatively.

Everything is done in a washed-out color pallet making everything look faded. Even the grass on the field looks like it needs watering. Player models are very lifelike and feature some amazing animation for all the major soccer moves, and they all blend together seamlessly, but it gets downright creepy when you get close enough to see their lifeless faces. And that’s just on the players they chose to face map. Many players don’t even have faces.

Of course my main complaint with games like soccer and hockey is that to play them effectively you have to have the camera pulled out so far that you can’t appreciate any of the details. Even on my big screen HDTV, the characters are only about an inch tall during normal gameplay and are nothing more than a mix of colors for flesh, shorts, and jersey kicking around a white dot.

It’s only for the post-shot and penalty replays that you get those close-up angles you see in the screenshots, and while these offer plenty of additional details like lighting, shadows, and detailed clothing and facial expressions, this is also the only time the framerate takes a major hit from the otherwise smooth 60fps.

The crowd comes alive during the game and really adds to the experience but not nearly as much as the spot-on commentary from Martin Tyler and Andy Gray who offer insightful and surprisingly accurate play-by-play.

The multiplayer modes suffer only slightly from the lack of core game modes. You can still have plenty of fun with the included ranked and unranked games and keep track of your progress on the EA leaderboards.

There is also a good selection of Achievements to quest after for those looking to bolster their Gamer Score. Most of these require completion of milestone events like finishing a season or winning a game online.

Gameplay is better than ever with tighter controls and a more difficult, thus rewarding experience. It’s just a shame there isn’t more game to explore. Hopefully, this was just a quick knee-jerk reaction to launching a game with a new system and next year we will see what EA can really do with the power of the Xbox 360.