New Name, Same Game

So a few weeks ago at the end of September, EA Sports released their annual football game offering, usually under the FIFA monika that we all know so well, but after licensing renewal negotiations with FIFA broke down, EA have now dropped the title and gone with their new name EAFC 24. So FIFA 24 then.

I dont know how many of you, if any, have picked up the new game or what your thoughts on it are, but mine are pretty disappointing, as expected.
With a new name, EA obviously had to go with a new look and feel to distinguish the first of their ‘new’ games from the old, menus, fonts, graphics, navigation etc are as per usual with EA, sleek, efficient, and work well, but that’s pretty much all just a gloss over to divert away from the fact that nothing much else has changed at all from the last incarnation of the FIFA series.

I don’t care about online modes, Ultimate Team or any of that, I had more than enough anger and frustration playing FUT last year in what were blatantly cheated, scripted , biased matches, where the absolute goal of the mode is pay to win, nothing more and nothing less, so all my observations are based on career mode, which was advertised as getting, not quite an overhaul, but a number of marketable changes and additions.

There’s the new tactical view, in which you can view matches as a manager from the sideline, but the camera view is so poorly implemented that you can’t actually see most of what’s happening on the pitch in this mode, there’s the new training and coaching functions within Career Mode, which purports to give you much great control and flexibility over how you coach your team as a whole and individually, but is really just the old system the same, and spread over several new screens.
The new, and probably biggest addition, is the ‘Tactical Vision’ function whereby a ‘detailed’ coaching analysis of your opponents is given before each game, their play style, how they like to defend, how they create chances, highlights strongest players etc, all in a meaningful attempt to add realism and variety to match day experiences, but there are only about 3 of these ‘visions’ so every team pretty much ends up having the same report, so after a few matches you just end up ignoring it.

On the pitch, again, its all very much the same as last year, with the addition of a new commentary team ( I really don’t like female commentators), and a few new animations, gameplay, and how it looks and feels is very realistic, and the stadium atmosphere, as with any FIFA game previously, is very good and immersive, but just feels very much ‘same old, same old’.
I did notice that the game feels stupidly fast, very arcade like, and playing on the slower setting doesn’t feel right, it feels unresponsive and laggy.
The difficulty settings also feel awry, playing on World Class, as Brighton in my Career mode, i was conceding 4 and 5 goals regularly to the likes of Notts Forest, Luton and Bournemouth, every team felt super powered and unplayable, so I dropped down to professional, the level below World Class, and immediately beat Liverpool 6-0 at Anfield, there is no balance.

Another very annoying thing are the post match press conferences, these have been broken for years, and EA have made no attempt at all to fix these, regularly being presented with ridiculous questions that have no baring to the actual match, reporters asking how I plan to turn this poor run of form around when I’ve won 3 and drawn one of my first 5 games, asking if a player is on borrowed time with his poor performances, when he’s played in every game, scored and played well, it just all detracts from the realism experience and is lazy.

One nice feature is that you can still create a custom fantasy career mode club, and there are more options for badges, kit styles, designs etc, but still no ability to add either custom or in-game sponsors to the kits.
One nice addition though is now the ability to rename and customise every player on your team, so you could have a team full of your mates, with their own custom appearances and boots etc.

All in all it just feels like another roll out of the same tired money making machine, with a different name and a half finished lick of paint. I haven’t rushed back for more, addicted to my career journey like I used to with every new footy game, in fact I pre-ordered the game months ago, and being an EA play subscriber, I got access to the game 10 days before release, but didn’t actually get round to playing it until 3 days after release, where I started a Brighton Career, played a handful of matches over 2 or 3 days, and haven’t returned to it since, for about 3 weeks, think that pretty much sums it up.

Be keen to hear your thoughts, if you have tried, or bought the game, if you are balls deep in a career mode, then lets see the videos and stories in the comments 🙂