Tuesday, 17 December 2013

The brilliance of Fifa online

I've never been one for spending a lot of time playing online multiplayer, for me, multiplayer should be sitting round a room with friends passing around a controller and knocking a few tinnies back. I miss this from my childhood (except for the beer). Times have changed however, at least, in most cases, and playing multiplayer with friends means you have to all connect online whilst all owning the same system and game(s). Everyone already knows this of course, so lets move on.

I got Fifa 14 free with my day one Xbox one, and having been a Pro Evo fan for the past couple of years, the difference is very noticeable. I tend to switch between pro evo and Fifa, depending which is better at the time, and in years past, about 09-11 it's what a lot of my friends were playing, so that was my choice so we could play together online, but since the interest fell away for most others, i made the jump to Pro.

Pro Evo is not a good game online, it encourages pace above skill, and no team level matching. meaning you have to be the same 10-15 top teams in the world over and over to even compete, because that's what everyone else does. The modes are very limited also, just friendlies, a knockout tournament and a poor ultimate teams copy. This is very dissapointing to me, because one of the first games I ever invested serious online multiplayer time in was Pro Evo 6 (the first one on 360) and I loved it at the time. Online was new and exciting, and there was just one games mode, a list of everyone playing it in the world, an a ranking, win and you would go up, lose and you would go down. Yes, it seems so simple now, but at the time i thought it was a great idea, and that method sort of exists in Fifa today.

Fifa is very diverse online, despite the fact that all you're ever doing is playing football. The thing I was referring to online relates to seasons mode, that is a 10 league system, get a certain amount of points and you get promoted and move on to face higher ranked (and therefore theoretically tougher) human opponents. Down and easier too of course. This also comes with the ranking system mentioned above, and a knockout cup tournament that pits you against players from a similar level to you. As much as I enjoy all of this, the best feature has to be the team level matching. If you want to play as a 3 star team, you will get pitched against another player who is also playing as a 3 star team, give or take half a star. This means that unlike Pro Evo, you can be whoever you want, and not just world-beaters, which is great, because I for one couldn't care less about big teams or Champions League, and would rather play as my beloved Aston villa, or Southampton, Crystal Palace, Barnsley, Sydney F.C. or Athletico Hulla (etc.). There is also a Co op mode available in this, but I haven't got around to trying it yet as none of my friends have Xbox Ones.

Moving on from that, there's the trading card style Ultimate teams, which is a nice change from seasons, whereby you have to buy packs to build a team, you can trade players, contracts, kits stadiums and all manner of other things with other players around the world. There is still the seasons mode available within U.T as well as tournaments and leagues with restrictions on which types of players you can play (e.g. one nationality, only 4 leagues represented.) against both human and AI opponents.

Then there is the last mode, Pro clubs. This is another mode which I haven't been able to try yet due to the aforementioned problem of being the sole owner of and xbox on amongst everyone I know. I will assume that the core experience is the same though. You make an avatar, create a club with friends, and you each play as your own player trying to pull off certain moves to increase their stats. (note, without 11 people on your team, someone should choose to control the rest of the team). I used to play this for hours with friends just a few years back and never got bored, annoyed? Yes, lots, but I get that all the time playing alone anyway.

Of course on top of this, the beauty of any sports game is that it remains a good game to play at home with a friend, or friends passing a controller around due to the nature of competitive sports and competing teams. And of course, all the single player modes you would expect are also available such as career mode, both as a manager, or just your avatar.

Compare this to the other game that I used to go between with friends online, Call of Duty (whichever one at the time) and Fifa is so much better. Granted, I haven't played a COD game for 2 or 3 years, nor have any desire to, but my outstanding memories of playing this, without my friends at least, was being taken down by campers, people who knew glitches they could exploit, people with such a high level that you wondered if they even had time to eat and of course, children insulting my mother (always a pleasant experience). I understand that people enjoy COD online, and that's fine, play whatever you want, playing with friends online I used to have a great time, until I was left alone, and if you turn down the sound and put some music on or just mute everyone, at least you won't have to be constantly insulted.

I know COD has some level matching too and varying game modes, i remember loving 'sticks and stones on whichever that was on. But just taking it out on COD seems unfair, but that is the juggernaut of console online gaming, so it is an easy comparison to make, these are the 2 series i have played the most with online, whilst having dabbled in many others, it's always nice to come back to play something familiar, especially when your friends are there.

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