[DoctorEldritch]

Hello Legion Gamers!

The start of the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup is almost upon us! Whether you will be watching it or not, it is a perfect reason to focus our attention on FIFA games!

And there are many, the evolution of FIFA games has many chapters and began as early as 1993 (I was just a kid back then...) Here, take a look:

Certainly interesting to follow the development of mechanics and visuals over the years. To be honest, I never played any of those games, sports simulators are not really my thing, so I can only enjoy this examination as someone who can appreciate the technological advances but never tried to play the games.

But maybe someone else here is more versed in FIFA games and can shed some light on how they evolved from a gamer perspective? So how about it, has anyone here tried any FIFA games?

⚽

[GoLLuM13]

I played a lot of those 😅
my favorites were FIFA 98 and FIFA World Cup 98 because on the FIFA 98 there were this indoor mode that I liked.
FIFA 2000 because "Robbie Williams - It's Only Us" as an intro 😜
I kinda stopped the regular FIFA games for a long period except FIFA Street (street mode instead of stadium is a lot of fun) and came back for FIFA 10 and FIFA World Cup 2010 than another pause 🤣 and recently I started to play FIFA again 21 - 22 and 23
FIFA 23 is available for those with a subscription to EA Play or Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and there's an update for Women's World Cup (and yes most of my time I play with Women's teams with my friend) 👀

[DoctorEldritch]

@GoLLuM13 That's a lot of FIFA games under your belt! Though I somehow get the impression a bit that you give extra points for changes in location if new games have it. Nothing wrong with that, goes to show that FIFA games are like real estate, it's location, location, location! 😅

Originally Posted by GoLLuM13

FIFA 2000 because "Robbie Williams - It's Only Us" as an intro 😜

This one?

Did FIFA games evolve a lot gameplay-wise, or was it always more of a graphics improvement than anything else?

[GoLLuM13]

@DoctorEldritch I prefer the Indoor or Street versions because things goes faster (also why I prefer women's selections, they're so much faster than men's teams, at least that's how I feel it 👀)

Yep "She's the one" sorry another Robbie Williams reference 🤣 I remember back then I used to think that it was so photorealistic 🤣 I also liked this intro with Footix (the mascot)

And to answer you there weren't a real difference gameplay-wise from a year to another, the changes were so slight if any, what changed the most is the list of teams, players, maybe a team got better after a year or two. Even graphics haven't changed that much from a year to another, you had to wait at least 2 iterations to feel a real change for example from 97 to 99 it felt the same to me, but 2000 the AI kinda got better it was still easy to score a goal but not as easy as the previous ones where you can sometimes shoot from mid-stadium and score a goal 🤣 obviously nowadays it changed a lot, and it's kinda sad to see that there won't be a FIFA 24 per se instead we will have a game called EA Sports FC 24 (because of a FIFA license issue)

[DoctorEldritch]

Originally Posted by GoLLuM13

@DoctorEldritch I prefer the Indoor or Street versions because things goes faster (also why I prefer women's selections, they're so much faster than men's teams, at least that's how I feel it 👀)

Sorry, when you say "faster" here you mean the game is paced faster or it is faster to find opponent to play online?

Nostalgia is an interesting phenomenon, I remember thinking how realistic some models were from 20 years ago. But when I try those games now, it makes my eyes hurt. And it is interesting how FIFA has changes so gradual it is not always obvious where the improvement is, but putting first and last game next to each other it can be seen how drastic the laep actually was.

FIFA is prone to licensing difficulties, I think they had a few of those before. But it is to be expected in an organisation that operates with multiple athletes likeness, I guess. Still, sad how license-oriented today's world is...