FIFA Soccer Games For XBox And Playstation - The Changes And Modifications

Electronic Arts has always had an ace up its sleeve with their FIFA license. From 1993, they gained the FIFA license to published and develop FIFA-based games. Up until the present, they still maintain this license and have grown the franchise to be one of the biggest football games in existence. It has seen phenomenal improvements since its first iteration and the player base has grown substantially. While there are other competitors in the field, the FIFA license gives them a leg-up over them and provides their FIFA soccer games for XBox and Playstation a much higher success rate due to success and credibility.

 

2006 - FIFA 07

 

FIFA 07 was released in September 2006 and marked the beginning of the next generation FIFA games. Available on the XBox 360, it focuses on refinement, rather than growth. The available teams have been reduced to the four European leagues, plus other national teams. To improve immersion, the atmosphere has also been improved with the crowd's ability to react to events throughout the game with small pockets of away support cheering in certain parts of the stadium or the home crowd being local to the region.

 

FIFA 08

 

FIFA 08 furthers the online portions of the game, keeping in line with the growth of the multiplayer market. Online cooperative play and player vs player interactive leagues are now available online, allowing players to choose their league and team to compete against a real player. This was refined with the ability to carry out trick moves. Additional gameplay additions include 'Be a Pro Mode', which gives the players the ability to play a match as only a single player in the team, besides the goalkeeper. Overall, the game also sees a decrease in the speed of each match.

 

2008 - FIFA 09

 

As with all of the FIFA games, there are a number of improvements. Hundreds, according to the game's producer. Improved responsiveness is also a noted change, which allows for more control over the ball and a shoulder-to-shoulder system that takes into account the players' strength when they jostle. A further expansion of this system allows for a massive overhaul of the player-to-player collision system that takes into account each player's speed, weight and power. Additionally, the goalkeeper has been improved to have better reactions, faster recovery and better positioning.

 

Following even this large assortment of changes, there are further improvements to the weather and time. While in Manager mode, there are no weather effects, but Kick-Off mode allows for rain and snow matches. Dependent on the stadium, matches can be played during the day, dusk or night.

 

2009

 

The latest game to be released, it has less improvements than the previous game, but perhaps more important for some. The Manager mode has been overhauled in many ways. It now shows news about other users' Manager Mode events and an Assistant Manager can be used to look after some of the game's other features, such as the team line up. The Auto-Resolve matches are now based on each team's strength, rather than random, as it was suggested in the past. The football players now improve based on ingame performance rather than the previous manual improvements.