Australian Gamer Review :: 2006 FIFA World Cup

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2006 FIFA World Cup

Reviewed on: Xbox 360
Available on: , PC, Playstation 2, Gamecube, Xbox 360, Xbox, Playstation Portable

The official game of the 2006 World Cup in Germany, if you're after a review comparing it to the last FIFA you're out of luck, because this was Yug's first outing into the world of FIFA video games.

Players: 1 - 4 Players
Genre:
Release: 2006-04-27

Developer: EA Canada
Distributor: Electronic Arts

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There are a few things you need to know about me personally before you read this review. Although the stigma is that ?Matts the geek? and ?Yugs the drunk?, that doesn?t mean I?m any more physically active than Matt. Drinking doesn?t require much effort. Dancing does, but that?s another story. The point I?m trying (and probably failing) to make is that I don?t really play a lot of sport. Drinking games don?t count.

To be honest as well, I don?t watch a lot of sport either. This is all leading up to the fact that I don?t play a lot of sports games. They?ve never really interested me, because I just never really cared about them all that much. I never cared about how realistic the characters looked to their real life counterparts, or how accurate the team roster is, or even really how accurately they?d captured the feel of the game. The few sports games I have played and enjoyed have been because they were fun regardless of the sport. Fight Night 3 jumps to mind, as does one of the NHL games I played a long time ago.

So why am I playing and reviewing 2006 Fifa World Cup on the Xbox 360 then? Two reasons:

1. When we went to an EA event in Sydney called ?Imagine?, where they were showcasing all their games, the one that I had the most fun with, and spent the most time playing, was FIFA 06. I found it easy to get into, easy to play, and playing against friends was the most offline multiplayer fun I?d had in a long time.

2. Australia qualified for the World Cup. Even I know how significant this is, enough that I went down to the pub with my mate and watched the Australia vs Japan game at 11pm Monday night. Those last 3 goals were amazing. I?d never experienced that kind of atmosphere before, that kind of group feeling of defeat and then triumph, there was blood, sweat and beer going everywhere and the mood was electric.

So, I have an interest in the game, and the game is fun to play. I?m not the kind of person who will compare this to last years Fifa game, or tell you the difference between FIFA and Pro Evo. I?m a FIFA virgin; all I can do is tell you how it popped my cherry.

This is the World Cup edition of the game, not to be mistaken with plain old regular FIFA 06. This is all about choosing one of the 127 teams from countries all around the world, and playing through all the qualifying matches to reach and then inevitably win the World Cup.

One thing that I wasn?t too happy with right from the beginning is the lack of help or explanation in the game or the game manual. The manual itself is only 12 pages, and although they give brief descriptions on what things are and the controls, if you aren?t used to soccer a lot of the concepts aren?t immediately obvious. Things like the player stats, they are abbreviated, so it?s hard to know what they mean or how they apply to the game. They different colours on the players themselves. Even just figuring out the difference between a ?low cross? and an ?early cross?. I spent a good amount of time trying to learn the moves without actually knowing whether I had done them or not, because I didn?t really know what they did. Some tutorials wouldn?t have gone astray.

I would recommend familiarizing yourself with the controls first on the practice pitch, which was very helpful, and then go to this link here which is a guide for FIFA 06, but most of the concepts and moves are the same. The fact that I had to turn to Google to find help on how to play the game really doesn?t bode well for it.

The game loads and sits the menu out in space while looking down at the Earth. Gives it a nice ?epic? feel which I thought was appropriate. You have quite a few options here, you can of course start your World Cup career, but you can also jump right in and play quick game against the computer or your friends, you can play online, you can complete challenges of old classic moments from years past, practice your kicks in the penalty shootout, plus there?s a store where you can unlock bonuses and other links to EA websites and videos of World Cup Germany locations.

Personally, it would have been nice if they could have integrated the current world cup information into the game somehow, even if you could just see what the current scores, etc are. How cool would it be to get real time updates of the latest matches, so your progression through the World Cup circuit was more accurate?

Then again, I suppose that?s why they keep bringing out new versions of FIFA every year, instead of just updating them.

Being the patriotic Aussie that I am, I chose to play as Australia. The line up of players was extremely familiar, with faces like Kewell, Cahill, Schwarzer, and Viduka. You can pick and choose from a massive selection of players for each country, including reserves. You can choose what offensive and defensive tactics you want the team to play, and what positions they will play on the field. Although I never really understood much of this aspect of the game initially, I started playing around with these features and found that they do make a difference during gameplay.

After you?ve tweaked your team settings, it?s time to jump right into the World Cup qualifying matches, and here?s where I get to talk about the game itself. The Xbox 360 graphics really are at their best here, the game looks amazing. From the epic stadiums filled with thousands of fans, all jumping and yelling, throwing streamers, balloons and big bouncing balls ? to the fact that you can see the blades of grass and scuff marks on the field when zoomed in. The players themselves tend to be hit and miss, either looking incredibly life-like (especially the faces), or way too fake (usually during a tripping animation). There?s no doubt that if you?ll be able to recognise the players from your favourite teams however, even though Harry Kewell still has his ponytail.

Occasionally there are a few clipping issues and pop-in textures, which is strange when you see it up close. For all the detail though, you?ll be spending most of the game zoomed out with a good view of the field as you control your team. At their most basic, the controls are fairly simple. A to pass, B to shoot for goal pretty much. The problem with this is that if you don?t learn the finer points of the controls, you will be more frustrated at your inability to get your team to do what you want, as opposed to failing because of a lack of still or timing.

Selecting which player you control has always been an issue for me, and when you are not in control of the ball, you can press A to switch between players on the field. Unfortunately, you sometimes have to hit it a few times to get to the player which you want to be, and move the joystick in the direction of that player. The downside is as soon as you become that player, they immediately start running in the direction you were pushing. It?s a small gripe, but in a game of momentum and quick passes, it makes a difference.

The same can be said for the offensive/defensive control scheme. When you don?t have the ball it?s the defensive control scheme, B is used to make a conservative tackle. However, after you?ve made the tackle, and if you then get control of the ball off the other player, your controls change to the offensive control scheme, where B is used to shoot for goal. Many a time I?ve gotten control of the ball only to immediately kick it in a futile attempt at the other teams goals, even from the other end of the field.

There are also very advanced movements you can pull off that allow or a greater degree of finesse. The right joystick is used to do fancy footwork ball manoeuvres, which allow you to get past your opponents instead of passing the ball. While I?m sure there are people out there that have mastered it, it was all a bit much for me, and considering that it?s hard to see the moves themselves because you?re zoomed out so much, and it was always easier just to pass the ball anyway, it?s not something I spent much time on. Scoring goals, funny enough, wasn?t that hard.

I played on the different skill levels, and although the players themselves became much much harder, actually scoring goals seemed to be relatively easy. The goalies just didn?t seem to be very good. This could be because the matches are sped up, at the default setting a 90 minute game only takes 6 minutes to play. That said, although it?s subtle, there is a difference in the skill levels of the teams you choose to play as or play against. I didn?t really notice it until I had qualified my Australian team for the world cup, and after beating the other teams in Group H (Italy, Portugal and Japan ? the last of which was a 3-1 game funny enough), I was up against Brazil. They were definitely harder to get the ball off, their players seemed faster, and their strategies were different. It was a close game, and literally had me throwing my controller to the ground, standing up and yelling ?GOAAAAAAAAAL!? as I scored the deciding point in the 78th minute.

If you are interested in the World Cup, or have an emotional investment in the team you are playing as, you definitely get caught up in it as you play through the game. The sound plays a massive part in this as well, as the huge stadiums have the ?roar of the crowd? to them, where you can hear them singing or chanting, then cheering when you almost get a goal, and so on and so forth. Like wise the commentators, who I?m told are respectable real life ones as well, offer great enjoyable commentary on the game. That said, they tend to be inaccurate sometimes. An example was when I slammed the ball into the goal in my game against Japan, and all they could say was: ?Well I don?t think that ones going to reach the back of the net, but it?s over the line?. Huh?

I wish they had other commentators for different countries that you could choose, because after awhile they do tend to repeat themselves, and the fact that they never call a team by their name or country makes it confusing to know who they are even talking about sometimes.

Being an EA game there is the varied selection of popular music as well. Of course you can always load up the tunes you have on your Xbox 360, if you really feel like reliving a bit of Ricky Martin from World Cups gone. Truth be said, though, the music selection is some of the best I?ve heard from a game, with songs that have a very dance/european feel to them and I quite enjoyed most of them.

The overall level of quality to the whole game is impressive, from the Google Earth style zooming into each stadium, to the little bits of trivia about each country during the loading screens. Although the other sections of the game (penalty shootouts, classic challenges) are interesting, realistically you?ll either be playing through the world cup campaign yourself, or playing the game with friends.

Over Xbox live, all my experiences have been positive. It has a weird match up setting that goes through the EA servers, where you have to agree to their terms and conditions, etc, but it is fairly painless once you?re in. The most surprising thing I found was that the matches weren?t one sided. I expected to be playing against 12 year old kids that had mastered the fancy footwork moves, but fact is that even the people I played that seemed to have a grasp of these moves still made just as many mistakes that could be countered in a similar fashion. Being able to see the cursor above the character that the other guy is controlling is handy as well, because obviously a human player is much more unpredictable than the CPU controlled ones.

To be honest, though, I find this game much more fun in the offline multiplayer mode. I?ve never been a big fan of playing multiplayer games on split screen, preferring games like Mashed or party games such as Mario Party or Kung Fu Chaos, because everyone participates on the same screen. FIFA is now added to that list, and especially now as World Cup fever grips the country, it?s great to sit down with up to 3 other mates, have a few drinks and play a few games.

The last point I wanted to bring up was the accuracy of the teams and the game itself. Not being a World Cup expert, I decided to invite my neighbour and a few of his friends round for some drinks and games, and to get their expert opinions on the game and how realistic it was. So special thanks to Russel, Mandeep and Duncan. Between the four of us we represented Australia, England and Scotland. These boys are passionate about their soccer (I know, I know, its football, but you know what, our team is named the SOCCERoos, so back off), so I knew they would be able to give me the final information for my review.

All in all, they gave it the thumbs up, giving special mention to the commentators Clive Tilsley and Andy Townsend being spot on. Although they were dubious about the fact that you could choose up to 40 players per team, since the official selections only allow up to 23. Towards the end, Russel was trying to tell me something about a problem with Astinvilla players ? I?m not sure, things got blurry, I?m not good with beer, so if that means anything to anyone, great stuff.

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Final Verdict

If you are FIFA crazy at the moment, there should be no doubt about picking this up right now. If you aren't, then just realise that it's actually alot of FUN to play regardless of your sporting preferances, especially when you have a few mates around.

Pros
Detailed realistical graphics, fantastic epic crowd sounds, accurate commentary, easy to pick up and play but at the same time still advanced enough to master, fun on xbox live, even more fun with mates around, the most fun when you all take a shot of vodka every time a goal is scored.
Cons
Controls can be fickle, clipping and pop-in textures, buttons tend to be misplaced for offensive/defensive switching, no tutorials or decent help to get new players started