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ConsoleSports.net guest contributor Paul Miles has written a nice article about FIFA 08's single player gaming experience.  Twelve years.
That’s right....over a decade I have devoted myself to purchasing EA’s football offering. I have defended it time and time again, stayed loyal to it as if it were the most special of wives, and played it until I could not stand the commentary anymore.......then played it again!
Finally, this year I am ready to discuss the possibility that I may have to purchase a different football game. To me this is worse than cheating on my girlfriend....it’s the lowest of the low....the ultimate cardinal sin against my beloved fifa relationship.....and here is why;
When I first loaded Fifa 08 onto my console, I had the usual hunger and desire to see all my football video game dreams come true.......and my first thoughts on playing a quick match were......Wow.
I thought it looked and felt superb..... Visually stunning is a phrase I later used while playing online against an equally excited football fan. I am a big fan of the authentic stadia, kits and players from around the globe although I still feel the player likenesses lack the authenticity of other titles, for example it is abundantly apparent when you play EA’s NHL 08 where the players look incredibly accurate to their real life counterparts.
That aside, I played on and very much enjoyed my first few games.....
The passing system I like very much, it seems you must be tremendously more accurate with your passes to create space and or opportunity. This is a great addition to the game as previous Fifa’s as many of you will know, enabled you to just punt, lob, pass or through ball to a player anywhere on the pitch and he would receive it near enough guaranteed. The through ball system in 08 is also good.....it has to be a through ball at the correct speed/weight/direction which is accurate to real football...... however, I feel that the players you want to make a run do not make space for themselves or pull away from the defender. This is unrealistic; especially if it is a world class forward we are talking about.
Shooting is also so much more realistic......yes it is difficult to get the hang of, but a great improvement. It feels and handles like you could score from anywhere (not that you do!). The new ball physics which have been much hyped are indeed very good.
I had a look at the achievement list on the 360 version and after noting that several required the professional difficulty setting, I set about starting a manager mode in the single player......here is where I started to discover some major, major flaws in the game.
First up, I have to mention the difficulty level. The higher the difficulty level, the more it takes away from the game they were trying to create! If you play it on professional or World class it should not take away from realism of football which I am afraid to say the game proceeds to butcher when on these higher settings.....and I have justification for that damning verdict.
No matter what difficulty setting you play the game on a team such as Inter should not be outplayed by Parma, Arsenal should not be outplayed by Wigan, Fulham, Rotherham all in consecutive matches. Friends and fans alike that I have spoken to about this all agree with me; in their manager modes they have hit the same problem time and again.
Personally by making it a higher difficulty setting I believe it should be harder to score and certainly harder to beat very good teams, but not be played off the park by inferior opposition. Yes, yes I know that there is a major upset now and again in football and I feel previous Fifa’s encompassed this, but 08?? No. It hasn’t, if you play it on a hard difficulty level, it becomes unrealistic on a large scale. To name a few points on the matter, possession football goes out the window as you are charged down time and time again by slower players!!! In short, time on the ball is completely eradicated.
Oh and those lovely tricks you can pull off?? Forget about it in professional and above, because you will not get the space to pull them off......EVER!!!!
My biggest beef on this particular aspect is the free kick situation. On the higher difficulty settings I find that I concede countless free kicks to the AI for everything but even when I appear to have been scathed down/elbowed off the ball by the AI......I get nothing. Zip. In previous Fifa’s it was almost a farce as hardly any free kicks were awarded to you when playing single player. I believe this year has made an improvement in that area....but no where near enough and on the higher difficulty settings it is almost ludicrous!
To be honest, I have had the most fun playing the single player on semi-pro or amateur. At least I feel the game is most realistic at that level. I will work toward getting those pesky achievements, but it is not going to be pretty!
I also have to mention that the lack of weather in the game is ridiculous. With the new ball physics I would have loved to have seen rain or sleet affect the pace of the game and ball. But.....no. Instead it is always sunny! Even away at Bolton Wanderers on Boxing Day which we know is absurd!
Another thing, the lack of a referee on the pitch, I know it is only a small thing to mention but again, I want realism. He appears in the cut scenes but is not on the pitch during regular play. Surely that can be rectified.
I have to wonder if the people who worked on this game are big football fans, purely because it doesn’t feel like it has been tested by people who watch a lot of the beautiful game. Otherwise I don’t think it would have been released, at least not yet. I mean, if you play NHL 08, it looks and feels like a real ice hockey match. It really feels like it has been put together by a team who know their stuff. With Fifa. I am not so sure.
I know some of you will disagree with me. I was in your shoes for years. It is what I now call “Fifa denial syndrome”. But like it or not.....it still isn’t good enough.
Bottom line.......It is a huge improvement to last year and I find multiplayer thoroughly enjoyable. If playing with another player who knows his football, the game is tremendous fun. Single player wise though, it falls terribly short.
Paul Miles
Milothefirst[at]hotmail.com
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