It’s that time of year when EA rolls out the sports titles fast and furious, and there’s no bigger sports title that FIFA Soccer 11. While Madden may rule the roost here in the US, worldwide the FIFA series is the dominant brand. And this should come as no surprise. Soccer is the most popular sport in the world. So with a very strong outing last year, the expectations for FIFA Soccer 11 have to be high. Does the game live up to them? Read along and find out.
The first thing we noticed when we loaded up the game for the first time was the new Hospitality Settings. Now when gamers boot up FIFA Soccer 11, it will offer to save the player’s preferred settings for future versions of FIFA. We think this is a great idea that should be brought to all of the EA Sports titles, as it will allow players to jump right into the game without having to go in and recalibrate the settings to suit their playstyle.
Returning to this year’s FIFA is the Arena, which starts up immediately after you launch the game and also serves as the load screen while waiting for a new match to load. The Arena allows players to practice their skill moves, set pieces, and more. This year’s global cover athlete Kaka is the default player in the Arena, but gamers can choose any player or training pitch to be the new default. In our case, we put our Virtual Pro out there to help level him up.
As with any sports title, the meat of the game is in the gameplay. Players have a number of gameplay types to choose from, starting with the traditional “Quick Match” or Kick-Off Mode where players will pick two teams and have a go. Other modes include the Career Mode, Tournaments, Live Season, and Online play.
It's derby day in Manchester
In FIFA Soccer 11, Career Mode is broken up into 3 different game types: Player Mode, Manager Mode and Player Manager Mode.
Player Mode is the new version of the “Be a Pro” mode found in most EA Sports games where gamers are locked onto a single player and must control that player throughout his career. Gamers are allowed to either use their Virtual Pro, an actual player, or a new created character. The computer will decide if the player is selected to the squad based on performance and fitness levels. As such, it’s up to the gamer to play well enough to keep making the team. The biggest addition is the ability to play as a Goalkeeper. However what we’ve found is that since a large percentage of the action can happen at the opposite end of the pitch, this mode isn’t as fun as we’d hoped for.
Manager Mode gives gamers the ability to manage a full squad and take control of all of the action. However, the Manager Mode has seen big changes this year. Gone is the ability to purchase upgrades to scouting, coaching and stadiums. Instead, the Manager Mode now places an emphasis on playing younger talent to allow them to progress. If gamers should find that their younger talent isn’t good enough to make the squads, gamers are encouraged to loan them out to get them experience at other clubs. This new approach is much closer to the actual system used in professional soccer. However, it does make it much harder to turn over a roster and build up a lower league team. Since we tend to enjoy the challenge of building up the lower league teams rather than playing with the world class clubs exclusively, we find this disappointing.
Player Manager mode is new and combines the previous two modes, giving the gamer the most direct control of the action. Really, there’s not a lot of difference between these modes as even in the Player Mode gamers can choose to play as the full squad. All that’s really different here is that each mode offers a different level of overall control to the user.
Tournament play allows a gamer to jump into any cup competition at the club level offered up in the game. This could be anything From the F.A. Cup tournament in England to the Sonata K-League in Korea. Players can also create their own tournaments with their own rules. This mode has been a mainstay in the FIFA Franchise and continues to excel.
Coverboy Kaka in action against Barcelona
The Live Season is a career mode that updates players from one of five different top leagues worldwide. However while offered as part of FIFA Soccer 11, Live Season requires an additional DLC purchase to use. Each individual league is offered for $5 (400MS Points), or $10 (800MS Points) for all five. We’re not particularly fond of paying extra for this, but at least it’s a one time fee and not a subscription. And there is a free trial for those who are curious but don’t want to spend the money. As such, if you’re interested in playing in more than one Live Season, we recommend you pick up all five rather than getting them all separately.
Online matches are broken up into Head to Head, Team Play, Friends League and Pro League. Head to head is the traditional one player vs mode where as Team Play offers up to 11 on 11 play, which requires that all players know and understand their roles and are willing to communicate with each other for best results. Friends Leagues allow gamers to hook up with others to play through a full online league season, and Pro Leagues allow Players to take their Virtual Pros online. Overall, the time we’ve spent with the online play was positive. However we’d be lying if we didn’t mention that the EA servers can be a bit laggy at times. And if you get dropped from a match because of server issues, all progress gets lost as well. It’s a frustration we’ve noticed with a number of EA’s sports titles this year.
Overall the gameplay in FIFA Soccer 11 is solid. We have noticed a couple of issues that need to be addressed,though. For one, the passing isn’t very crisp this year. At times we found ourselves passing to players we had no intention of passing to simply because they were in the vicinity of the player we actually wanted to pass the ball to. Adding to this frustration is that AI controlled players who the computer deems aren’t the targets of said pass, will often react as if the ball isn’t even there. This is particularly frustrating when they continue their runs rather than even attempt to chase down an errant pass. This leads to possession turnovers that send you heading back on defense rather inexplicably at times. Also, the Free Kick difficulty has been ramped up. It takes a lot of practice to figure out what part of the meter you need to hit to get the ball on target without sending it flying wildly over the top of the goal, and the sensitivity of the shoot button makes far too many shots overpowered. Lastly, how many years can we go without the game acknowledging handballs? It’s only a major part of the sport, and as such EA really needs to endeavor to get it into the game.
Chelsea Goalkeeper Petr Cech stretches to make a save
Something we’ve really noticed is the attention to gameday presentation. Players will come out and shake hands before the match, and the lead up to each match is exactly what you’d expect from a live broadcast. The understated style of Martin Tyler and Andy Grey on commentary is extremely refreshing in the sports genre. Far too often in other sports titles, bad splicing and repetitive use of the same lines makes us often want to turn the commentary off altogether. But the conversational style of Tyler and Gray works perfectly once again in FIFA 11, and continues to be the gold standard for sports game commentary.
In conclusion, we’ve enjoyed FIFA Soccer 11. However, we feel like it’s missing a few things. Some of our favorite features from previous versions ended up on the chopping block this time around. And there are some nagging issues with AI. The FIFA franchise is still a great one though and continues a hot streak for EA Sports titles this fall. If you’re a soccer (or football if you prefer) fan, you’d be remiss not to pick up FIFA Soccer 11.
Overall Score: 8.5/10
played the demo thought it was kinda glitchy
I’ll be honest, Other than Batman: Arkham Asylum I’ve never played a demo that made me want to buy the game. They’re rarely good sales tools and the game usually feels different in some way from the demo.