Games interview: EA scores with FIFA 2004

Posted on 24 Jul 2003 at 10:51

The FIFA games are good to look at, they're stuffed to bursting point with detail, and they're an absolute cinch to pick up and play. But recent years have seen EA's iron grip on the football genre weaken, thanks to the brilliant but less immediately gratifying Pro Evolution Soccer series from Konami. So what can we expect from the latest FIFA game? Line producer Danny Isaac bends our ear like Beckham...

What's changed for the latest version?

Isaac: From the front end stuff, we're going to have upwards of thirty stadiums in the game, so that's a lot of the more famous stadiums of teams that will be included. We have the Nationwide league included, Divisions 1, 2 and 3, which is a first for FIFA and great for me as I'm a Brighton and Hove Albion supporter!

There's career mode, and one of the more important elements of career mode is relegation. It's a single-player experience, and you'll start off with limited skills, so that if you immediately went to a big club like Manchester United you wouldn't be skilled enough to fit in and you'd get sacked. So you need to learn your trade in the lower divisions and then work your way up.

There's all the options you'd expect; similar to last year, you can play a normal Premier League season, or you can set up your own tournament. There's a new addition called Rival Mode where, for instance, if you pick Arsenal as your home team your choice for a match will be Chelsea or Tottenham.

You can also play FIFA alongside our new management title Total Club Manager, which will allow you to manage the side through a cup run, for instance, and actually play those games in FIFA.

Another new feature this year, for the PS2, is the ability to play online. So you'll be able to go online and play friendly games, and also tournaments. You'll be able to type in chat and talk to people, and we also have the headset for even more instantaneous communication.

What about the actual gameplay?

Isaac: As always with FIFA, our main concerns are the basic fundamentals, like AI, passing, shooting, positioning. So we have some new technology this year in our formations that allow us to link players together more accurately. So my centre-half goes up the pitch, I can run, and my leftback will run up to cover.

Last year in FIFA 2003 we worked on moving the ball away from the players which made the game look a little more realistic. We've hopefully made it a little more responsive this year. We've also allowed you to have analogue control over his feet so that if you ease off on the stick then he slows down, apply more pressure and he speeds up again.

Also this year, one of the things we have to deal with each year is people saying: "If the football game's going to be the same as it was last year, what's the point in releasing a new one?" We want to provide good value for money, we want to provide a different experience each time, so this year we've invented off the ball control.

The inspiration for it was just football, watching football matches. When people play, of course there's a lot of off the ball activity; so with a press of the R2 button in the game, I get a camera shift and then I can pick the receivers that I want [in a way reminiscent of the John Madden Football games].

How do you feel about the success of the Pro Evolution games?

Isaac: We think we've got a product to compare with Pro Evolution 3. Everyone else is asking "aren't you concerned, aren't you concerned?" but we outsell Pro Evolution three to one, so we've definitely got a market.