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FIFA 06

While soccer is growing in popularity in the US, it still isn’t anywhere near the level the sport has achieved throughout Europe, Central America, Africa, the Middle East and, well… pretty much everywhere else but America. Known globally as futbol, EA Sports’ latest foray into the only futbol title that John Madden’s never slapped his name on is a solid entry for the series. The new game features tons of teams from six areas around the globe, and you can play using any of them. So how does the game stack up? Let’s strike at the details.

Graphically, FIFA 06 is a big step up from the last version of the game I had a chance to play extensively, which unfortunately was a few versions ago: the first PS2 FIFA title. Okay, so I’m not a monster soccer fan and the FIFA series sometimes runs a bit low on my list of “must-have” sports title. But it’s nice to return to the series and see how it has progressed. As one might expect, the graphics are a lot better this time out; still, as seems to be an endemic problem with all of EA’s sports titles lately, the graphics do seem a bit dated and scruffy-looking. The 3D models have a relatively low polygon count compared to sports titles from other developers, or even compared to top EA Sports BIG titles like the SSX series. The textures are also fairly low-res compared to other current titles.

Also, the default camera angle may make a large portion of the field visible, but it keeps the players REALLY tiny onscreen, which gives the whole endeavor a retro feel that makes the graphics look worse than they actually are, since the players are so small that there simply can’t be a lot more detail to them. However, the most disturbing aspect of FIFA 06, from a graphic perspective, is the persistent troubles with collision-detection that, on replay highlights and other non-in-game situations, has celebrating players walking through non-celebrating players like they were ghosts.

Sure, it doesn’t affect in-game play, but it’s freaky and reminds you you’re watching and playing a game, breaking the illusion of the gaming experience. It also makes you feel like maybe EA Sports doesn’t really care about fixing this problem, since it pops up in ALL their sports titles and has from the very beginning of the PS2 era. Is it really that hard to fix? It can’t be, since in-game models don’t experience the same problem; thus, the only logical conclusion is either that no one at EA is listening, or they just don’t care about fixing it.

Musically, FIFA 06 follows the same model of all other titles under the EA Sports banner, including a lot of EA Trax music. While the songs are fine for the most part, it’s annoying that there wasn’t more of a push to include music from other countries; it just seems odd to be playing a team in the Middle East, for example, and hear hip-hop music. Also, the endemic problem of all EA Sports titles pops up here, too: namely, that when one song ends and another begins, a little credit box pops up to announce the new song, but at the expense of blocking your view of the menu for up to five seconds or more, and often freezing your menu until the stupid credit box disappears again.

Isn’t there a way to show a music credit without completely blocking the main menu and freezing things up? C’mon, EA, make the credit about 50-percent opaque so you can see what’s underneath it, even though it’ll be like looking through gauze; and smooth out the dang thing so it doesn’t freeze you up. How hard can that be? At least the play-by-play is spot-on, saving the game from being an audio Titanic.

One nice aspect of this year’s FIFA 06 is the sheer number of not only teams, but leagues you can play in from around the world. My only real complaint is that when selecting North America as your territory and MLS as your league, I’m pretty sure some teams are missing. Sure, the Chicago Fire are there; but I’m relatively confident the Minnesota Strikers are still around, yet they’re nowhere to be found in this game. Hmmm. Still, with six territories, each with multiple leagues and tons of teams each, FIFA 06 has a lot more options for teams to play as since the last time I played the game, and probably has a team count that reaches close to what EA Sports’ NCAA College Football title boasts. There are plenty of game modes to be found here, including online play that supports both dialup and broadband access, single-game, playoff, situational and season modes.

The lifeblood, for me, of FIFA 06 is of course the career mode. This mode gives you something like 16 seasons to build yourself a career as a club manager. Build a winner and you will enjoy the praise of your team owner. However, unlike most EA Sports titles, owners in FIFA 06 have a VERY short fuse for losing; even if you manage to play to a lot of ties and avoid outright losses, if you don’t produce some wins and your popularity drops, you could be fired as early as six games into a long soccer season. Yikes! In fact, after playing through close to 10 seasons, I only survived to be invited back for a second season with the same club a grand total of once! Harsh!

Of course, it doesn’t help that when you take over a club, morale levels are already set fairly low to begin with, rather than reflecting the club’s “real” stats. You’re also expected to build up staffing at these clubs, but most clubs are set at unrealistically low, “train-wreck” levels whenever you’re brought in. Of course, you can’t spend too much of your money on upgrading staff, since you draw your payroll from that same pool; if you finish a season without getting fired and don’t have enough money to retain your free agents, there’s no failsafe to prevent you from going in to a season without the minimum number of players, and there’s no pool of “cheap” free agents to sign journeymen at minimum wage. The only season I survived to a second season presented me with that situation, so I was quickly fired because I had to forfeit EVERY game for not having the required number of players. Hell, I had no money to SIGN anyone! The game’s punishing me for that? A little warning would have been nice.

I suppose the actual soccer playing is pretty good if you’re an avid videogame soccer player; however, I found the interface a bit frustrating. For example, the player you control constantly switches automatically, depending on where the ball is on the field. Sound good? Well, it’s not necessarily so; I’d be chasing down some striker from behind and suddenly I’d get switched to a player in front of him, which wouldn’t be so bad except that now I’m running the WRONG WAY because I had my analog stick pressed hard right to catch up with the guy from behind, not hard left to rush him. Ugh.

Another frustration was that while some players are fairly talented and hard to steal the ball from, others seem like sieves and surrender the rock whenever an opposing player gets within 10 feet of them. Also, NPC AI had any players you didn’t control playing STUPID, running away from plays and clearing away from the goal rather than defending it against an oncoming striker. Yeesh, get a clue from your NHL development team, guys! You want to group AROUND the goal to protect it from those creepy strikers, not step aside and give them free access. Yeesh! In the AI respect, at least, when it comes to your own team (the opposing, CPU-controlled teams seem to play rather effectively), FIFA 06 plays worse than the first PS2 FIFA title!

Still, despite many of these frustrating aspects, the challenge of succeeding in the career mode is a welcome thing; too often in games like Madden, it’s not that hard to take over a bad team and win it all; FIFA 06 is far more challenging, and a more entertaining game for the challenge it presents to master. A rare EA Sports title that’s actually pretty hard to win out with, even on the easiest skill level, FIFA 06 is worth a look, even if there are a lot of disappointments and niggling problems that should have been addressed long ago.

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Posted by Craig "American Idle" Hansen on Oct 25th, 2005 and is filed under PS2 Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.

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