FIFA (Second Review)


Title           FIFA (Second Review)
Game Type       Sport
Company         Electonic Arts
Players         1 or 2
Compatibility   1 Mb RAM
HD Installable	Yes
Submission      Kristian Hesketh

Review
FIFA is an isometric football game that looks good in screenshots. The
sprites are reasonably big and all the players can perform incredible
acrobatics on the pitch. All the world cup teams are included, but with no
real names.

Everyone should really know this game, or at least it's sequels. A massive
success on the MegaDrive and when it arrived on the Amiga in 1993 it was
hailed as a Sensi beater. Magazines at the time refused to give it a low
score (even Amiga Power) and a great travesty was commited, as you will
soon discover.

When (if) you manage to load the game up you are greeted with a lot of
options. There are far too many and it is confusing, especially if you
just want a quick game. Once the menus are out of the way the game itself
loads. The pitch appears and you select heads or tails at the coin toss.

When you try to control your players it all becomes a ridiculous mess. The
animation is awful and the whole thing jerks about in an incredibly
annoying way. You don't even have full control of your players. You can
easily prove this fact by playing a 2-player game without anyone else
controlling the second team. The computer moves the players around and
will even tackle for you sometimes!! If you don't control what is
happening on the screen it isn't a poor game, it's not even a game anymore.

Even with control the game only seems to run at about 5 fps. A replay can
clearly show the ball moving from a players feet to the goal in about 2
animation frames. Whilst playing the "game", you might just a see glimpse
of the ball somewhere between the player and the goal for a split second
before it goes in. What on earth were the coders doing with this game?!?

Even if you ignore both these flaws it isn't even half fun. I played with
Germany against Bolivia and I could score goals from the Kick-off. You
can't pass or dribble easily and so tactics go out of the window so you
just find yourself shooting from any distance. Having a 2-button joystick
doesn't really help because the game is not just poor, but it is
unemployed with a huge overdraft and currently living in a cardboard box.
Everything about the game is wasted because of the game engine.

If you want an arcade football game that isn't Sensi, please go for Total
Football by Domark. It is actually playable. And a good game too.






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