FIFA 13 Review
Before we start here, yes I am aware that this game came out a whole year ago and yes, I know the new FIFA will soon be out making this review pretty much redundant, but may I counter those fine points by saying “NYAH NAH NAH NAH NAAHHHHH!”
For those of you who don’t know, I’m an Everton Fan. Supporting Everton can sometimes be the equivalent of dipping your nether regions in jam and then wandering past a school of wasps at lunchtime. However, in FIFA world, managing Everton can be quite nice, even life affirming. I don’t know why but there’s something viscerally pleasing about buying David Luiz and seeing him run around in Everton’s immediately recognisable Royal Blue.
In fact, one of the things I’ve always enjoyed about FIFA is making esoteric transfers from one club to another. Want to see Gianfranco Zola playing for Stevenage Borough? FIFA will do it. Want to see Eric Cantona play for Ipswich? FIFA will do it. Want to see Neil Shipperly calmly put out of his misery with a long range sniper rifle by Martin O’Neil on a grassy knoll? I’m sure FIFA will think of a way of adding it at some point, probably as DLC.
Ultimately, FIFA hasn’t really changed that much over the years. It’s essentially like having a high res Subutteo set that you can edit and play with to your heart’s content. Granted, there are games that let you edit in more detail than FIFA, but it’s always one of the aspects I’ve most enjoyed. It certainly adds life to the game experience. Most of my FIFA games start off grounded in reality as I try and use the real stats and teams, but by the end pretty much all of the teams are beyond warped. I usually load up Everton at some point in the edit mode. I also loaded up Arsenal with a front 3 of Suarez, Rooney and Walcott, only to crash to a 5-4 defeat to Spurs. It was fun though.
FIFA is quite easy for a non-football fan to pick up. Well, any non-football fan who has played a video game before. The defending system is overly difficult but you can switch to “Legacy Defending” which is a lot easier. You essentially just have to press “A” or “X” (Depending on the console you’re using) and the players will run right at the opposing player with the ball. If you’re rubbish at games, like I am, it becomes pretty easy to get to grip with after a game or two.
The in game difficulty mode is something that really winds me up though. There are 5 levels of difficulty on FIFA. The problem is that levels 2 and 3 are so far apart from each other, they might as well be in different solar systems trying to contact each other with two plastic cups and a piece of string. I went from killing teams 10-0 on level 2 to getting beaten handily 2-0 by the computer on level 3. Now I’m all for a challenge when it comes to gaming but, as Lisa Simpson once so eloquently put, I want a challenge I can actually do!
Smashing teams 7-1 every time is ultimately unsatisfying but after having 3 or 4 games on level 3 I would have rather of gone 7 rounds with Mad Max in the Thunder Dome. And I’m a football fan! I can only imagine what non-fans were thinking at that point. They’d probably already switched the console off and were balls deep into a game of Mario Party or Call of Dead Space Splinter Halo: The Bloodening.
That being said, there’s enough challenge here that gamers of most skill sets will be able to find a difficulty level which isn’t the gaming equivalent of shooting paraplegic fish in a very small barrel, which has to be a positive thing. Challenge does add length to a game. Despite my previous paragraph of whining, I do regularly play at level 3 now and it’s gotten to the point where the matches are quite close. The game can still be infuriatingly cheap at times, but so long as I restrict myself to only a few games per session, I can still enjoy a decent challenge without tearing my curtains off the wall and hiding underneath them softly sobbing to myself.
There’s also online play on FIFA, and I hear it’s quite good. Online play has never really been my thing outside of Crackdown and COD 4, but if it’s your thing then FIFA does it well, apparently. I have no idea what on Earth “Ultimate Team” is but I’ve spoken to people who love it so much they want to cook it dinner, mow its lawn and tickle is nipples, so there’s that to think about as well
At the end of the day, it’s FIFA. Graphically some of the players look like mince but that’s to be expected when a game has such a huge database of players. FIFA 13 is a game that has enough about it that it can appeal to both casual football fans and hardcore footy lovers. It does it with a generally slick presentation and it’s possible for pretty much every gamer to find his or her level while playing it.
You can get it now on the cheap, and the edit mode will let you make the transfers that need to be made so it may be worth a pop. I certainly enjoyed it, despite some of the misery it dropped on me at times. At the end of the day, that’s football.
9 out of 10
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