FIFA Soccer: Live out your football fantasy!

If you’re a die-hard football fan then FIFA football by EA sports is just the game for you to carry around in your pocket phone. FIFA football is yet another incremental update to the EA sports football simulation series.  

The game's graphical upgrades and new animation technology not only increase its visual appeal but further makes the game feel better with goals demanding a more deliberate and rewarding play style. The recently added minor but positive tweaks give the game an even better-upgraded look. This means that its microtransactions are just as eager as ever to get you to turn your pockets inside out.

If you’ve made the leap to the PS5 or an Xbox series X, you’ll definitely notice the aesthetic facelift. It's mostly the little things that stick out. Like how a football shirt catches a player's skin or the forehead sheen of a busy winger.  

However, there’s still a very evident gulf inconsistency between character models. If you’re a perennial FIFA player you’ll know that while graphical upgrades are enjoyable the real deal is the gameplay. This I believe is where FIFA football has made some meaningful progression. 

The game features an evident improvement in terms of its hyper motion, a new motion capture technology that helps to make the game more fluid by adding over 4000 new animations harvested from real-life matches. Much excited? Wait till you hear the rest of it.

During the gameplay, players seem to react more naturally to the blowback from a strong pass, while wingers with high dribbling stats feel more flexible in the box. If we talk about defense, there’s isn’t a lack of goals, instead, the user will have to earn them with careful passing play and a healthy dose of vision. Patience, however, often seems to trump pace which we felt was very refreshing.  

Players like Jack Greelish and Jaden Sancho are a real challenge to track with the explosive sprint mechanic letting them leave you in the dust with a knock-on if you don’t jockey to read their run. It can get hectic as the opposition closes in on goal and this is where player switching becomes a bit too frantic as the user tries to fill all the gaps in their armor and if the opposition manages a finesse shot from outside the box it's usually game over.

The career mode includes some new additions, such as the ability to create a club. In this separate mode, the user can replace an existing team as well as make their own crest, kit, and stadium, tweaking the board’s expectations to their liking. Once the user has the budget, they can even scoop up some top-tier players too. While the idea seems exciting, in practice it's much more fun to make a real club in a fresh direction instead of developing a squad of randomly generated androids.

Player career mode further offers RPG-style objectives in each match that the user must complete in order to build a relationship with their manager. Now, comes the best feature. The game allows the user to create their own player as it features a massive skill tree attribute to upgrade and perks to unlock that help the whole team. 

Some extra stadium customization options help make your club feel more at home and the division rival's framework has been made more forgiving with checkpoints and seasonal rewards. Though I believe it would be great to see a training mode that lets you play skill games with your ultimate team to get used to how they play together ahead of matches. 

The online multiplayer mode is a winner and it's worth sticking around for. It’s as palm wetting and foot twitching as ever with a meta-skill influx.

All in all, while keeping goal-keeping blunders and visual inconsistencies aside the FIFA football game is one nuanced and enjoyable multiplayer sports game.

Ratings: 4.4/5         

Pros:

• Amazing graphics
• Easy controls
• Multiplayer modes
• Compelling interface

Cons:

• In-app purchases

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