This kind of controller thrashing moment used to be common to the FIFA series. Not anymore. The gameplay niggles that often frustrated players and lent believability to the trope that FIFA was for the license only, while Pro Evolution Soccer was for the ultimate gameplay experience, are all but eliminated from FIFA 09. No longer do players stupidly act in a variety of stale and predictable moves. No longer do players have no physical effect on each other as the outcome of tackles are decided by seemingly random factors. No longer are games won and lost within tiny percentages of the pitch.
What EA Sports have crafted with FIFA 09 is an experience where no personal failure feels like the failure of the videogame. Every lost opportunity, every missed chance feels like your responsibility. Not only does the game feel more realistic and less constraining, but EA have opened up the back-end this year, giving players control over all the whirring levers and controls to even further tweak the experience. Custom tactics are a revelation, allowing players to change the play style and mentality of your team down to fine details, like how often players position themselves for crosses, or how much pressure your defence is putting the opposition attackers under. Once perfected, these tactics can be assigned to the directional pad, which means in practice, complex tactical maneuvers are only one button tap away during a match.
Kick it to me!
The style of play is much faster and paced than in previous years. This would usually be equated with outdated, arcade-style soccer, but in FIFA 09, it means that players respond when you want them to, and how you want them to. They’re also intelligent, and will respond creatively to certain situations. Players will raise an arm, calling for a pass if they believe they’re in free space, and defenders will appeal for an offside ruling if they’ve caught a striker wandering. There is also a hefty physicality to FIFA 09 - going for a contested possession will often result in a tumble, and even an injury of the collision was forceful enough. Players can be knocked off the ball and their run through brief contact, and will stay down long enough to be realistic without reaching the diving levels of the real-life Italian team.
What all this means, apart from generally improving the mechanics of the game, is that every triumph, every perfectly timed through ball to a late run, every beautifully lofted cross feels fantastically rewarding. Though the game still holds your hand at points, the culpability you feel for errors makes triumphs seem equally achievable. FIFA 09 is a game that rewards good play and penalises bad play for justifiable and understandable reasons. The game, simply put, is just playable.
That’s not to say it’s perfect. There have been some shortcuts taken on development here: some player animations are too limited (keep an eye out for the synchronised jig of defenders waiting for kick-off), and the commentary recycles quite a few lines from FIFA 08. Locally, we had the gift of the A-League in last year’s installment, and while it again returns, the complete lack of Australian stadia is irritating. Playing through the A-League tournament with a handful of generic stadia is extremely unexciting to say the least.
Ow! My back!
Perhaps the biggest problem with FIFA 09 is its hostility to newcomers. At this stage, the sixteenth game in the core FIFA series expects players to have followed the franchise through thick and thin, and be aware of basic mechanics. This is no doubt an advantage for the game, as it can therefore throw the player right into the action. But why isn’t there a training mode? There was a training mode as far back as FIFA ‘99. It’s inexplicable as to why it was removed - surely it can’t be difficult to create. As it sits, FIFA 09 only teaches through experience. The only way you’ll get to practice and perfect corners, or free kicks is by playing around with the real thing, and that’s disappointing.
One expansion that the FIFA series has taken recently is the ‘Be A Pro’ mode, and it receives a few enhancements in 09. Controlling a single player for the entirety of a match may be a culture shock for seasoned FIFA players, but here it works well as a nice distraction, as taking your player through four year’s worth of successes and failures is an engaging experience. The manager mode has also quietly received a few upgrades (you won’t find them in the manual or advertising material), and while not as deep as Konami’s Master League, is still an excellent way to squeeze more out of the FIFA package. Trading and budgets have never been more exciting.
The most immediately obvious enhancement to FIFA 09 comes in the shape of the Adidas Live Season, free for one league out of the box, which updates form from real-life games. So, if Michael Owen has had an off week (not entirely unlikely, given The Magpies’ current form), his virtual self will also suffer a form drop. It’s an interesting idea, and further blends the line between reality and virtuality in soccer, but we can’t help but wonder if some players will be lunging for the ‘disconnect’ button after a particularly bad match.
Players are now more human, and more intelligent.
Features, though, is probably the direction that FIFA should be going in now. There was certainly a period where the gloss outweighed the substance of the series, but now, we feel safe in saying that the core grunt of FIFA is well established and going well. So, if what goes on inside the pitch is all peachy, for next year, we’d like to see FIFA expand outside the pitch, rather than continue to reiterate in the same direction. And it might just be us, but has it ever occurred to EA Sports to include female leagues in the game?
Soccer videogames rarely play like their physical counterpart, and FIFA 09 is no exception. The flow of the game is somehow lost in translation: where there would be space on the pitch of Wembley Stadium, there are seemingly hundreds of players all pressing for the ball inside gaming consoles the world over. In terms of graphical quality, a passing observer could be forgiven for mistaking FIFA 09 for the real thing, but only the most inexperienced sports fan would claim that the games move in the same way.
Despite this, FIFA 09 is a videogame with such internal consistency, freedom and sheer playability that it’s just as addictive and involving as the real thing.
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