EA Sports’ FIFA franchise has been one of those games that was strong out of the proverbial gate and has been tweaked and fine-tuned over the many iterations, culminating with last year’s release – which was one of the best of the series so far.
But the folks behind the title won’t rest on their laurels, and for the 10th title in the series, they have drawn from community input as well as going back into the core of the game and making changes. During EA’s recent media event in Vancouver, B.C., Canada (which was called Playing with the Pros), it was evident that FIFA 10 may well be the best yet.
It was explained that the title is still about 3 � months from release and the team working on it wanted to not only refine the experience but innovate it as well. To that end, 70% of the work has been spent on refining the game, while the remainder of the work has gone toward innovation.
So what is new in the refinement department? How about diagonal and curved runs, and 360-degree dribbling … if that doesn’t not suit you, then more work has gone into the positional AI to give it positional priority (if a defender moves up with the ball, a midfielder or striker may move back and won’t return to their original position until the player that left the position returns to it) … there is better trapping skills in place and face-ball logic has been implemented (defenders will square their hips to attack the ball carrier when possible) … tackling skills are more powerful, but if your player has performed a slide tackle, it will take a couple more moments to recover.
And that is merely a few of the refinements. A huge amount of work has gone into the goalkeeper AI, allowing for secondary saves and making them a bit more aggressive in coming off the line to tackle a break-away ball carrier. The crossing pass, to switch fields, has been tweaked and those passes are more driven and not quite as “floaty.”
As far as innovations are concerned, the cornerstone will likely be the set-piece creation system that allows players to design and record up to four set pieces in eight identified free kick zones and then assign those designs to the D-pad. At this point, it seems doubtful that players will be able to share those runs as uploadable/downloadable content.
Fifty key components of the manager (GM) mode have been improved to make player development and player transfers more believable. And there is now a practice game as well for local multiplayer.
The game looks as good as ever and the controls are intuitive as well as quickly translate input. The sound is first rate, as always.
FIFA 10 is not slated to release until mid-October, but from the glimpse given at the EA event, this will truly be a title to watch for in the fall.
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