In any given week I’ll play at least five different videogames. Most are promptly deleted without a second thought; others, however, survive the weekly digital immolation for quite some time. Regardless, playing a specific game to completion is somewhat of a personal rarity, and provided that I only review games I have finished, I don’t write about my direct experiences as much as I’d like. Every so often, I’ll choose one game to focus on for several hours and share what I took away from that time; it might be a new title or one which has been collecting dust on my shelf.
FIFA 09 and 10
Football might be the world’s sport, but as an American I’m not privy to much exposure of the game. My Saturdays and Sundays are filled with college [American] football, rough-but-predictable NFL games, and the occasional basketball competition. Every now and again, at some obscure time (Tuesday at 2.30 in the afternoon, for example), ESPN2 might air a big-time Premier League match; otherwise, we’re left in the dark on this side of he pond. But that doesn’t stop a resourceful fellow like me from firing up FIFA and taking control of the mighty Hammers in manager mode.
I explained my relative newness to the sport as a precursor to my stating that I don’t fully understand the fundamentals of the game. I can comprehend positions, crosses, corner kicks, tackles, and so on, but the actual flow of the game is strange to me –even though I played midfield in the junior leagues as a young ‘un (in two years I believe I scored zero goals). FIFA 10 does not take kindly to football outsiders, harshly chewing us up into food for sharks and moving on to tougher competition. As opposed to the ’09 iteration, this year’s game plays a bit more akin to the real deal; cheap tricks like running the length of the pitch with a striker, evading every defenseman, and chipping it past the goalkeeper don’t function well here. Unfortunately, even on the easiest settings I got my butt handed to me. In a game versus Sheffield, a vastly-inferior team to my loaded West Ham United F.C., their strikers combined for eight goals.
The actual gameplay in FIFA 10 is more fluid and exacting than its predecessor, with the artificial intelligence reacting to passes and moves with dynamic speed rather than cheats. Still, there is a distinct feeling of cheapness with the ability of the computer to see downfield players and make perfect passes…not to mention entirely biased refereeing. After five games –and five lopsided losses- I called it quits and relegated myself to 09.
After assuming control of Karlsruher SC in Bundesliga play (though at the time of this game’s release they hadn’t been relegated, so competition was of a higher quality) and winning every match handily, I switched back to English play with Blackpool. Excepting strikers Gow and Kabba, the team was a misfit collection of Barclays castoffs who couldn’t hit a goal from two meters away. My first five matches featured scores such as 9-7, 7-5, 8-4, and even 10-3 against Wolverhampton, along with three red cards and too many yellow bookings to effectively recall. Fifteen games into the season, Gow had 34 goals and Kabba a nifty 16.
I might have been undefeated, but clean sheets are nigh impossible to obtain. Frequently I would be into second-half stoppage time when a miraculous shot from an incompetent player would roll delicately past my keeper to erase 91 minutes of prior perfection. In fact, ten games into the season, my first clean sheet came 4-0 against Manchester United in a Cup match. How does that compute? Against Ipswich or Cardiff I concede four, even five goals, but against arguably the best team in the world I come up with a spectacular defense?
Both this year’s game and the favorable ’09 version have irregularities such as this. For example, tackling is absurdly refereed in favor of the computer, and on a basis of several per minute, the A.I. pulls off ridiculous passes or ball steals. It’s too bad the game is so uneven, it could have genuinely been fun. As it stands, I only play it because I enjoy the sport.
