I like to think of myself as a very dedicated single player user of this game, and used to be for Madden and NCAA football. FIFA has frankly abused us as customers for a long time now, and I won't further indulge it. Let me explain.
The single player experience in FIFA, specifically career manager mode, is past due date. It's long since expired and is stale beyond belief. Ignoring the myriad of problems such as transfer scouting, recruiting, buying and selling players, loaning, etc etc... these key issues continue and make me unwilling to spend more money on fifa:
Teams play alike This is the biggest, most serious sin of the game series to date. Who cares about the rest? When you're on the pitch playing Barca or Bayer or America, all the teams play the same. Tika taka passing and the EXACT same playstyle. Full stop, the rest of my rant can end here. If you're in year 4 of your manager mode, this becomes tedious and boring beyond belief. There's no teams that play long ball, or play a counter, or play a hard attack with risky passing. Nope. It's all careful and perfect passing until they blow a cross (dont even get me started on AI crossing) or until they miss a pass by 5 yards. Or if they shoot and you save it. That's it. That's the extent of the AI. And I would be willing to wager my home on that staying the same this year.
Transfer logic is broken and bad Even on the computer, with a mod to increase transfers, simming ahead 5 years will show that all teams are basically 90% the same. Boring. Stupid. Lazy. Pick your word, EA is guilty of it. No thanks.
Superficial Like the gals and guys on the Jersey shore, this series manager mode is vapid and uninteresting. Stat tracking is a joke. There's no depth, no trophy room, no reason to do anything. You cant turn off firing and the board is insane. There's no career stats or stats for leagues outside of yours. At all. You cant easily see whats going on in your league or outside your league... basically it's like the rest of the world ceases to exist. Its you and your team and who you play next. Boring. lazy. Again, pick your word ... Ea is guilty.
Now look at Madden. Do I prefer video game American football to Soccer? No. I think that video soccer is better, but good lord, is Madden ever impressive in these areas. The franchise mode is deep, always worked on, and being focused on of all things this year.
What? Yes, you read that right. They're literally focusing on franchise mode. It was already much better in all sorts of ways to FIFA's, and yet they're still working on refreshing it. Having played the trial I'm shocked at how engaging the mode is, how much they tweak and improve the game year to year, and listen to the community. Night and day to what we get.
FIFA sells 150 million to Maddens 120 million copies. Money isn't an issue. I for one won't be a part of that 150 million this year, or, next, until they begin respecting their customers again and put some work into the mode that so many of us love.
Shame on you EA.
The single player experience in FIFA, specifically career manager mode, is past due date. It's long since expired and is stale beyond belief. Ignoring the myriad of problems such as transfer scouting, recruiting, buying and selling players, loaning, etc etc... these key issues continue and make me unwilling to spend more money on fifa:
Teams play alike This is the biggest, most serious sin of the game series to date. Who cares about the rest? When you're on the pitch playing Barca or Bayer or America, all the teams play the same. Tika taka passing and the EXACT same playstyle. Full stop, the rest of my rant can end here. If you're in year 4 of your manager mode, this becomes tedious and boring beyond belief. There's no teams that play long ball, or play a counter, or play a hard attack with risky passing. Nope. It's all careful and perfect passing until they blow a cross (dont even get me started on AI crossing) or until they miss a pass by 5 yards. Or if they shoot and you save it. That's it. That's the extent of the AI. And I would be willing to wager my home on that staying the same this year.
Transfer logic is broken and bad Even on the computer, with a mod to increase transfers, simming ahead 5 years will show that all teams are basically 90% the same. Boring. Stupid. Lazy. Pick your word, EA is guilty of it. No thanks.
Superficial Like the gals and guys on the Jersey shore, this series manager mode is vapid and uninteresting. Stat tracking is a joke. There's no depth, no trophy room, no reason to do anything. You cant turn off firing and the board is insane. There's no career stats or stats for leagues outside of yours. At all. You cant easily see whats going on in your league or outside your league... basically it's like the rest of the world ceases to exist. Its you and your team and who you play next. Boring. lazy. Again, pick your word ... Ea is guilty.
Now look at Madden. Do I prefer video game American football to Soccer? No. I think that video soccer is better, but good lord, is Madden ever impressive in these areas. The franchise mode is deep, always worked on, and being focused on of all things this year.
What? Yes, you read that right. They're literally focusing on franchise mode. It was already much better in all sorts of ways to FIFA's, and yet they're still working on refreshing it. Having played the trial I'm shocked at how engaging the mode is, how much they tweak and improve the game year to year, and listen to the community. Night and day to what we get.
FIFA sells 150 million to Maddens 120 million copies. Money isn't an issue. I for one won't be a part of that 150 million this year, or, next, until they begin respecting their customers again and put some work into the mode that so many of us love.
Shame on you EA.
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