zRandomBlog

The Fifa series is renowned for it arcade style game, from the very first Fifa game i have played, Fifa 97 which had indoor football believe it or not, to date each Fifa has been distinguishly different either in gameplay or just the UI. But as a football game that is always being heavily updated the game has always been missing one major feature which this year EA have brought into the game bringing a whole new gaming experience which its rivals can only dream to have, Third Person Football aka “Be a Pro”. EA officially makes the switch to become a real football sim.

Visual Effects

I personally feel that EA Canada got the camera effects spot on. When your off the ball the camera is zoomed out giving you a overview of what is going on at the same time keeping your own player in view to keep in position, or to stay just onside. As the ball comes closer to you the closer the cam is to you but still not having you the player as the target on-screen but as soon as your passed the ball the camera comes to your feet the camera turns into a real third person shooter view only without the shooting of course, very much like Gears of War in fact I’m sure the developers must have based it on Gears of War because its camera effects are very similar. Once your player begins to sprint the camera’s field of vision increase’s and a slight but noticeable blur is added to the surrounding environment i.e. chasing players. The camera view makes the gamer feel one is the character as it is fixed with the player so when your character is sprinting at high speeds, challenged or even falling over from a slide tackle your camera is being affected. When you activate the skill button on the controller the camera field of view decreases which in turn increases the “all eyes on you” effect putting more pressure on you to succeed in the skill you are attempting but also making it harder to see if an opponent is coming to challenge you. My only criticism of the camera is the inability to look around, in football the basic rule is to look for a player in space to pass to, yes the 3d radar, helps but its just not the same as literally looking around, if EA manages to get this into the next iteration of Fifa that would be excellent.

Physical Feedback

Here is where to me Be A Pro lacks big time, the force feedback vibrations are very basic, it comes with the usually slide tackle against you and that’s pretty much it. I could personally think of a better use of the force feedback such as in Be a Pro mode to immerse the gamer into the game when you and an opponent is battling for the ball you should be able to feel some sort of vibration on the right side of the pad if the opponent is on your right or vice-versa, same with little things such as 50/50 headers, something small like this could have helped with bringing the game into the game.

Sound effects and their impact on the user

The commentary in the game as usual is triple A it goes very well with what is happening on the pitch except for the obvious repeats now and again. The fans also chant real life recognisable chants for all the high profile teams in each league. The player calls on this iteration of fifa is so much better than the previous versions so good that when you turn off the commentary and have just the crowd and player calls on along with the sounds of what is happening on pitch e.g. someone kicking the ball, or just simple sprinting (be a pro mode) the sound is very immersive especially with surround sound.

Psychological Factors

The game is very simple to understand. It has a health sign on a player status to indicate that a player is injured but can still play if not you are forced to substitute the player, it is nice that the player can actually “walk off an injury” but my only issue is that the actual player doesn’t show any sign of injury, still runs at top speed, controls the ball the same. If a player has a received a temporary knock he should then have a temporary lapse of skill and control or else there is no point in having a health cross sign on the player status.