With arguably the greatest sporting event in the world just weeks away, Betfair have kindly sent Geek-Pride a copy of Electronic Art’s new FIFA videogame to review.
2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil is the competitions official game, published by EA Sports for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. This isn’t a new thing that EA Sports does, in fact nearly every two years we are graced with two FIFA games instead of just one, due to a major tournament. But how does this World Cup version of FIFA stack up when compared to it’s nearest predecessor, FIFA 14, and is it worth the outlay of money?
Well the answer quite simply is yes and no, this is a game for FIFA fanatics, it’s not one for your occasional FIFA player. EA have introduced some nice new game modes, such as ‘Captain your Country’, where you create your own footballer and work your way through the B-Team until, obviously, you captain your country and hopefully lift the World Cup. It also has ‘2014 FIFA World Cup’ where you can compete online or locally through the World Cup Finals, ‘Story of Qualifying’ which allows you to compete in scenarios such as trying to replicate Colombia’s three goal comeback against Chile; rescuing a point for England against Poland using Frank Lampard.
As seen in the above video, there are two other modes to this game; the first is ‘Road to Rio de Janeiro’ which is this games version of ‘Online Seasons’, taking your country of choice you play against other players through the 12 Brazilian World Cup venues as you try to make your way to the Estadio do Maracana in Rio. Just like in FIFA 14 you either win matches and go to a new city instead of division, or lose and be relegated to a different city (division). The final game mode is ‘Story of Finals’ which is another online mode and unavailable until the tournament itself starts. It boasts that one hour after the latest World Cup game has been played, Story of Finals will challenge the player to a host of different scenarios where you play for bonus XP to buy more things in the EA Catalogue store.
All of this sounds interesting and some of it is done quite well, the Captain your Country for instance through EA’s new use of Sports Radio which has over 50hrs of radio podcast commentary, that changes depending on your performances and adds a new layer of realism. Unfortunately a lot of this we, as gamers, have already seen before. Story of Finals can be seen in FIFA 14 as Game of the Week, Road to Rio de Janeiro is Online Seasons, there isn’t a lot which can be described as new material that warrants spending £40 on a new FIFA game. Especially if you bought FIFA 14 with FIFA 15 surely waiting in the wings to come out in a couple of months time.
That being said this it is fun, FIFA is arguably the best football game on the market and if your looking for realism, good graphics and are desperate to play FIFA 14.5 then this is for you. There are a couple of new skill games involved here and the football podcasts that have made there way into it are really good. Hopefully they will consider keeping them for FIFA 15 and it’s new career mode and the cut-away graphics to the realistic managers, players and fans watching around the world on big screens; giving this game a sense of grandeur otherwise lacking in it’s predecessor.
All being said, In a few months, when the new FIFA has come out or once the World Cup is over, FIFA World Cup Brazil will no doubt stay on your shelf but at least it has been a nice filler between versions.
