Originally posted at IGN.COM
May 12, 2004 - Each year the FIFA franchise proves to be one of the world's most popular soccer games because it's so accessible and perhaps more than anything, it's got so many teams (500), players (15,000) and licenses that it's actually got more licenses in it than all of EA's other games combined. Now that's a lot of licenses. That's something we already knew, but that we thought you'd still want to know.
Numbers are important, but so is playability, and last year's FIFA Soccer 2004 did several things new for the franchise and for soccer games in general. First, the development team incorporated off-the-ball control, giving players the ability to pass to themselves using unique off ball controls. Second, it was the first console soccer game to go online. And third, it packaged some of the coolest and eccentric collections of bands together in a sports game that we can remember. But the game still left players wanting. Animations got in the way, the online was rather hectic to get going, and it still didn't feel all that realistic.
This year's edition is a revamp of sorts, with extra special effort going into the gameplay department --specifically quick movement and precise control -- and more emphasis placed on the authenticity of the stadiums, announcing, and regalia surrounding the event.
"First Touch," a term taken from the athletes who play the game for a living, refers to the first time a ball touches a player's foot. And more importantly, what that player intends on doing with the ball in that first meeting of leather to leather. EA's team realizes that the highly designed animations in last year's effort were good looking, but they got in the way of the gameplay, and more importantly, they got in the way of realism. EA showed IGN several realtime of players using the first touch of the soccer ball to pivot and explode down the field, to fake and pounce on an enemy's weakside, or to instantly lead a teammate down to goal. Any way one looks at it, EA's previous game prevented players from doing such a thing.
FIFA Soccer 2005 is designed to seamlessly blend animations and to eliminate unnecessary ones so that players can instantly pivot and burst down the field, increasing responsiveness, instant improvement and quickness with the ball. The quicker animations aren't just for your team, they're for all the players on the field, so the responsiveness therefore opens up a faster game, and a more aggressive AI, which on the offensive side moves toward the open seam, and on the defense, closes it up faster and more aggressively. With a quicker set of players, EA said it's also working on creating an easier-to-access off-the-ball gameplay, which worked in part last year. No word was given on how exactly it would be improved.
Still, EA is intent on getting things right. Looking back at 2003's efforts, the lighting and camera angles didn't give players the most authentic and most realistic looks at the pitch. EA plans this year to give gamers a TV-realistic view of the field before the game, during it, and with superb replay action. At least for now, the game is supposed to be online only for PS2 and PC, though with the possibility of EA and Xbox tying a knot, this might be the year of FIFA online on Xbox.
In another interesting move that seems to be rampantly moving through EA's development teams is the quest for the ultimate Create-A-Player (CAP) mode. Using it's own specially designed Create-A-Player engine, EA's FIFA team gives players the ability to change what seems like an infinite amount of subtle facial aspects to a player. You can alter the size and shape of players' chins, eyebrows, eyes, lips, neck, hair and skin.
In short, FIFA Soccer 2005 is, in many cases, being re-created from the ground up. We'll have hands-on play in the oh-so-near future.
