Every four years, the world comes together in kinship to celebrate EA releasing two FIFA games in one year. Those years coincide with a much lesser known and popular event, the FIFA World Cup, which is presumably an event designed to cash in the popularity of the video game franchise. Joking aside, it is another World Cup year, and with that we get a new iteration of the FIFA World Cup series from EA Sport. Traditionally, the World Cup (and UEFA cup) games have had a focus on international football, while the regular game focuses primarily on club football. 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil is being released in a year where EA Sport tried to make some changes to the formula established with FIFA 10, a move that was received with critical acclaim, but was far less popular with the community. This year’s world cup edition will probably not change anyone’s mind, as it does have some of the same core design decisions as its sibling game.
The fact that the World Cup happens to be in Brazil this year, has been great for this game. The menus use the official theme, which is beautiful and colorful, and the Brazilian soundtrack helps. Little details like those make up some of the best things about the game. The shots of people in each playing country reacting to the match, the shots of coaches, the actual coaches, reacting to a play all augment the experience significantly. The commentary between matches discussing performance and the tournament, are all great. And of course, there are few moments as exciting as watching the captain of your country of choice lifting the World Cup in a gorgeous re-creation of the Maracana stadium.
The gameplay remains largely the same. If you’ve played a FIFA game since FIFA 10, you more or less know what to expect. There have been some changes, many of which I have some mixed feelings about. Through balls seem to not be as effective as they used to be. They are more easily intercepted, and if there are defenders close to your target player as you make the pass, he will get tackled, and the AI seems to be more aware to use the offside trap to seriously cut down on situations where you may find an attacker alone against the keeper. This is a positive change, as it now requires more thought before sending a player on a run into space and makes the through pass a useful tool rather than an overpowered tool to cut through defenders. Less positive has been the diminished usefulness of headers. Even with players known for heading, crossing and heading the balls seems to be effective very seldom, which leads to frustration, and makes some teams less effective than they should be without some tinkering of the formations and rosters.
The main issue with the game is the AI. Specifically the problem is the AI’s movement off the ball in both defense and offense. Many times you will pass the ball to the other players not particularly interested in following it, or making weird positioning choices in relation to the man who has the ball. The same is true of defense. You will find many times players around an attacker with the ball don’t seem to be particularly interested in covering them, or covering players that he might pass to. Rather they seem to hang around the attacker jogging pleasantly. It is worth mentioning that these issues can work for the players as much as they can work against them. You can benefit from sloppy defending and attacking AI as much as you can be hampered by it, but even when it benefits you it hurts the experience. It is not as exciting when you realize you are winning the final not because of a great play, or good planning, but rather because the opposing AI decided maybe it didn’t feel like Lionel Messi running the ball in their box was a big deal.
If these issues are annoying in the main game, they are even more glaring during the Captain Your Country mode. Captain Your Country is the World Cup’s version answer to the Virtual Pro in the main game. You create a player, and rise through the ranks from an unknown to being the captain of your team, improving your skills along the way. This sounds great on paper, but the gameplay is where it falters. You only control your player in this mode, which means you depend on the AI to play the rest of the match, which means the glitches mentioned in the previous paragraphs are even more frustrating. Even without the glitches the gamplay focus is not very interesting. In order to progress in this mode you must have a high match rating so the coach will pick you for more matches. The game places a huge emphasis on positioning, making sure you are in the right place at the right time for your position, it even rewards that over taking chances, even if they do make a positive difference on the game. For example, playing as a right winger, I moved to the center to tackle a player, which resulted in me recovering the ball and giving pass that resulted in a goal, but the game seemed to punish me for staying out of position rather than rewarding the play. It is entirely possible to obtain a great match rating just by running back and forth as possession changes, and giving the occasional pass. It is true that this emphasis on position is realistic. For a professional team to be successful is crucial that every player knows where they have to be, what they have to be doing, and when. It is just not very interesting to play in a video game.
The game is filled with content. You can play the World Cup Finals (as in the tournament) by choosing one of the 32 teams that are participating with the correct fixtures and venues. You can also swap up teams, alter the groups, and customize the teams to your liking. You can take your country of choice and play through the whole qualifying campaign into the world cup. If that is not enough there are also scenarios. These are specific matches with requirements to fulfill to be successful, which serve as a challenge mode of sorts. For example, a scenario tasks you with taking the lead in a tied, or score a certain number of goals before time is up. They are interesting and varied, and will add challenge if you want to test your skills. There is also a slew of On-Line options, including the Ultimate Team, which is back to make you spend your money. You can still get a lot of mileage out of the game without resorting to the paid content.
This summer, there will be thirty-two teams in the World Cup, these are the teams that even made it to that stage. Of those, only one of those will win the tournament, and the fans of the other thirty-one teams will be left to dream that maybe someday it will be them. That is really what 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil Sells, a dream, a chance to rewrite history somewhat. It is by no means perfect, and it is true that it is not really worth your money if you already have FIFA 14, but at its best it does deliver solid football action and on the promise of helping most of us live out something we probably won’t experience. If you don’t usually play football games, and are looking for something to scratch your gaming needs during world cup fever, it is exactly what you need.
