Sunday 19 / May / 2024
The Details
Name: FIFA 17
Publisher: EA Sports
Genre: Sports
Platforms: Microsoft Windows, PlayStation, Xbox
Download: Origin (PC), the PlayStation Store, and the Windows Store (Xbox)
There wasn’t much of a difference in the FIFA series of games between FIFA 13 and FIFA 16, and EA Sports knew they had to act, responding brilliantly with their latest annual football offering. FIFA 17 is a game that will make newcomers fall in love, and make die-hard fans fall in love all over again. The game uses EA’s new Frostbite engine to power its graphics, and incorporates gaming elements previously used to construct some of its most popular role-playing games, such as Need For Speed: The Run, Medal of Honor: Warfighter, Army of Two, Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, and the overwhelmingly popular, Mass Effect. The new graphics overlay augments players’ experience of the FIFA series with gorgeously done up stadia complemented by impeccable renditions of players on the pitch, courtesy of EA’s new face-scan technology, which was used to incorporate every footballer presently in the game.
Hardly limited to the graphical overhaul, it is the subtle changes in team chemistry that make FIFA 17 ground breaking. Players are now able to time their runs to an unprecedented level of precision and analyse which opposition defenders are capable of anticipating new moves through better defensive shielding skills, allowing for a balanced, enthrallingly challenging game. While gamers will definitely enjoy the perfect reproductions of Cristiano Ronaldo facing off against Mesut Özil on a pristinely manicured Santiago Bernabeu, for the first time, FIFA has incorporated team managers into the game. Adding this small but significant detail with the presence of Zinédine Zidane and Arsene Wenger instructing their charges and chivvying them forwards from the side lines, takes the game to the next level. Another FIFA first is the introduction of the Japanese league and the national team, opening up another avenue of discovery in FIFA’s famed Career Mode. All this is fabulous, but the most significant addition to FIFA 17 is “The Journey”.
EA is known for the creation of some of the best role playing games around, including Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect, Kingdoms of Amalur and Dragon Age, and they have employed many of the same elements that made those games successes into The Journey. An immersive footballer experience, the game gives players a first-hand view of the rise (and fall) of professional footballers, chronicling the life of Alex Hunter, an 11-year-old English starlet who is encouraged to take up the sport by his grandfather, jumper-and-tweed-coat-sporting, Jim Hunter, a former striker who serves as his mentor after his father walks out on him. The player guides young Alex through his career, choosing which clubs he plays for and which sponsors he signs with. There’s no skipping matches here: Everything Alex does on the pitch will count towards the shaping of his footballing legacy. His off the pitch actions matter as well. Answer aggressively in press conferences and slack off in training, and you can expect to be dropped from the team sheet for the next match. Treat the press like your friends and have an early night instead of going out on the town and you’ll be one step closer to superstardom. Talk about living the fantasy. —[email protected]
