FIFA is a video game developed by EA Sports and published by EA Games and has been around for a long time. FIFA is one of those games that you naturally had to have heard of in the video game world. Every year, since 1993, FIFA has had an installment and has been renewed for another year.
2018 is no different, when you look at all the previous years, except in the fact that the game got better and better. What more can FIFA get better at? Is it going to be able to stand up to its competition Pro Evolution Soccer 2018?
FIFA History
FIFA has been around since 1993, and every year since that, there has been a FIFA title among the sports titles of the genre. It started as FIFA International Soccer, changing its name to either FIFA Soccer or just FIFA with the year’s name to the right. There have been spin-offs of the series, called FIFA Street, where the action takes place on local, improvised football fields.
The games have migrated from 2D sprites moving on a 3D, pre-rendered stadiums, with the characters, gradually migrating to 3D, once the technology was able to implement it, meaning late 1997. The game was called World Cup 98 and was the first of its kind, developed by EA Games. It not only featured 3D models of players but was the first World Cup game. Having obtained the license from FIFA, the game featured the countries that competed during that World Cup, including the names of the players.
Further on, FIFA pretty much got better and better, with some notorious games like the 2002 game which had flaming balls and motion blur for faster players, or FIFA Street, which took things to a more urban environment.
But, the game always had competition, well, not always, but since 1996, especially on the consoles at first. Konami’s Pro Evolution Soccer, at that time known as Goal Storm or Winning Eleven in Japan. The game was known as ISS Pro Evolution for a while until it rebranded as Pro Evolution Soccer in 2001. PES and FIFA were competing for the number 1 spot as a footie game ever since.
As the years went by, the games got better, yet FIFA seemed to be struggling a bit in the recent years. They came back by implementing something that PES lacked, called the Ultimate Team mode. The Ultimate Team mode was introduced for FIFA 2009, which released in late 2008.
This mode allows players to assemble their ultimate team with various players from around the world, by purchasing the players’ trading cards, then meshing them together to make the team based on “chemistry.” Chemistry involves a couple of things, such as nationality, position, and the players’ abilities. You can also purchase coaches and the entire coaching staff.
This mode propelled FIFA forward, in ways where PES could not compete.
FIFA 2018 – A New Competitor
Since the introduction of the Ultimate Team mode, FIFA had something somewhat unique which was a straight-up victory in the sense that it had been made with so much detail in every game, that the player base kept on increasing.
This mode is modeled on the trading cards of old, where you would buy a pack, and either be happy or disappointed when you would get 4 out of the 5 cards that you already own. While this mode provides you with the option to buy the said packs with real life currencies, the game enables you to earn the so-called FIFA Coins or FUT Coins (short for FIFA Ultimate Team) and buy players, their cards, then trade on the official online market. What you can purchase for real life money are FIFA Points, which are available through the official online store and trusted retailers.
People love the mode, with its player base increasing from 1 million players in 2009 to 11 million in 2014 and counting. FIFA 2018 had 1.6 million players online at the same time on the weekend following its release. The emotional connection to the players, players from all over the world, not just the most popular ones, and the fact that many of the people enjoying the game had usually collected cards in their youth make FIFA a game sold in millions of copies.
This is not without flaws, however, as many third-party retailers are selling FIFA Points and Coins, the latter being illegal. FIFA Coins can only be earned through in-game challenges, by competing in the Ultimate Team mode or by trading players for a fair price on the official online market. This is enforced by EA Games themselves.
This has not stopped the many people who want to sell coins and points online, some even criticizing EA Games and their decision to implement these kinds of microtransactions in the game, calling it gambling and addictive. This is also more concerning to some people, who know for a fact that a lot of children play FIFA 2018.
Even so, the game sold in millions of copies, and the 2018 title is especially recognizable because the game mechanics improved by a whole lot to match that of PES and even surpass it. What gives FIFA an edge is the fact that they developed the game on the Frostbite 3 engine, which is superior to the Fox Engine which PES uses. FIFA 2018 has stunning graphics, great gameplay and the Ultimate Team mode which is nowadays recognized as FIFA’s best feature.
A Football Game Worth Buying?
FIFA, as a video game, has come a long way since its inception, to the point where it has taken the throne of football games, with its superior graphics, lifelike models and stadiums, great gameplay and a management system which gets you into the heart of football and signing contracts and trading players. FIFA 2018 is absolutely a great game and is a must-have for any sport or footie fan.