FIFA 07
REVIEW
Tech Info Publisher:
EA Sports
Developer:
EA Sports
Genre:
Soccer Sim
Release Date: Oct 3, 2006
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Minimum System
Requirements
System: 1.3 GHz or equivalent
RAM: 256 MB
Video Memory: 64 MB
Hard Drive Space: 3300 MB
Other: ATI Radeon 7500 , NVIDIA GeForce3,
GeForce 4 Ti or Intel 915, 945, 950
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Game Information
Connectivity: Broadband Only
Resolution: Widescreen
Offline Modes: Competitive
Online Modes: Competitive
Number of Players: 1-2
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Visit the official web site at:
www.fifa07.ea.com
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Almost a year to the day since the release of FIFA 06, EA
Sports has released that game's inevitable sequel, FIFA 07
for the PC, the PlayStation 2, and the Xbox. Last year's
game could only be described as the best FIFA game to date;
so the question, of course, is whether or not EA Canada has
improved upon that game in any meaningful way. Not all of
the changes that have been implemented since last year's
game have been for the better, but there are more than
enough improvements here to make FIFA 07 worth a look.
On the pitch, for example, you'll find that FIFA 07 plays
a quite different game of soccer to its predecessor, though
initially it can be difficult to figure out exactly what has
changed. One of the few obvious changes to this year's game
is that players accelerate and decelerate more
realistically, which means that they can't turn nearly as
quickly when they're moving at speed. This results in your
needing to pass the ball more, and depending on your play
style, you might find that your trick (right analog) stick
gets a lot more use than it did last year when you're
attempting to beat opposing players in one-on-one
situations. Both passing and using trick moves are a little
more challenging in FIFA 07 than they were in 06, and
because that's true for both teams (and because tackling
when you're on defense is still relatively easy), the result
is often that ball possession changes more frequently.
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Trick moves have become more challenging not
because they have a lower success rate, but
simply because the controls for them are a
little less forgiving. The section on trick
moves in the FIFA 07 instruction manual bears
more than a passing resemblance to a
special-moves list for a fighting game, and the
tricks available to you vary according to
whether your player is running or standing still
at the time. Passing the ball hasn't become more
difficult per se; you just can't take it for
granted as much because the accuracy of your
passes is now dependant on the positioning of
your player in relation to both the ball and his
intended target. A pass to a player directly in
front of you when you have the ball at your
feet, for example, is more likely to succeed
than a pass to a teammate who is barely in your
players' field of vision, particularly if you're
trying to make that pass on your first touch
after receiving the ball at waist height.
Lengthy strings of one-touch passes, then, are
more difficult in FIFA 07 than in previous
games, which adds a nice risk-versus-reward
mechanic any time you attempt one rather than
take a moment to get the ball under control.
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The success of passes and shots now depends on
your player's positioning and balance. |
Shots at goal are also greatly affected by the
positioning and balance of your player, as well as by how
well he has the ball under control. If you try to play the
game just like FIFA 06, you'll watch a lot of your shots fly
wide of the goal and into the crowd. This can be frustrating
at times, but the flipside is that spectacular, almost
unbelievable goals in the game are now the exception rather
than the norm, which is certainly a good thing. That's not
to say that scoring goals in FIFA 07 is difficult, though,
because it isn't. Defenders generally back off attacking
players a little too much, and the goalkeepers, although
good at stopping shots for the most part, are a little too
prone to spilling the ball when they do. Worthy of note is
the new "finesse shot" feature that, using a modifier button
that needs to be held down when taking a shot, lets you
unleash shots that are more accurate but less powerful. It's
not a feature that we've felt inclined to use a great deal,
but if you've already beaten the defense and rounded the
keeper it's a great way to avoid embarrassing open-goal
misses.
Another way that you can avoid potentially embarrassing
mistakes, though in a much more subtle way, is to keep your
team's momentum up. Your momentum, as indicated by a
performance meter in the top-left corner of the screen, is
an indication of how well your players think the game is
going, as determined not only by the current score but also
by recent events on the pitch. It's entirely possible, then,
for your team to be a couple of goals down but your players
will still be playing their very best football or, by the
same token, to be winning a game but struggling to contain
their opponents. It's difficult to quantify just how much of
an effect momentum has on your players' behavior, but it's
definitely noticeable, and we've enjoyed numerous matches in
which the run of play has shifted between the two teams
several times.
Matches like those, along with one-sided goalfests, are
perhaps the ones that best show off one of FIFA 07's most
improved features--in-game sound. The commentary from ITV's
Clive Tyldesley and Sky Sports' Andy Gray isn't nearly as
repetitive as it has been in previous years, and it's both
accurate and well delivered to boot. Complementing the
commentary team's efforts perfectly is the noise from the
crowd, which changes dramatically according to what's
happening on the field and which of the teams is playing at
home. Many of the teams in FIFA 07 have specific crowd
chants (it's generally just the name of the team being
shouted over and over again, but it's still neat), and these
will give way to thunderous applause and cheering or
venomous boos and whistles as the action dictates. One
especially nice touch is that if a home team is winning
comfortably and passing the ball around without their
opponents getting a touch, the home crowd will start to
cheer every completed pass individually--mocking the away
side in exactly the same way you'd expect them to in real
life. Furthermore, when the crowd is quiet, you'll
occasionally hear the players calling to each other, though
it's far easier to make out what they're saying if you're on
the practice ground with no crowd at all. |
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Defenders and goalkeepers don't behave as
realistically off the ball as their attacking
counterparts. |
As was the case
in FIFA 06, the players on your team other than the
one that you're controlling are adept at making
off-the-ball runs and such. You'll often need to
trigger offensive runs manually, but this is
achieved via only a single button press, and the
subsequent pass or through ball invariably feels
more satisfying as a result. CPU-controlled players
are less proactive on defense than they are on
offense, unfortunately, which is especially
noticeable when they continue to back away from
attackers well into the penalty area. You shouldn't
be relying too much on any defender that you're not
controlling yourself anyway, and the good news is
that when you switch players on defense, you'll
usually be given a defender with a chance of
intervening rather than one who's chasing back from
a forward position, even if the latter is closer.
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If the defender
in question happens to intervene with a sliding
tackle, you'll probably notice that the ball
physics in FIFA 07 are even better than those in
FIFA 06. Perhaps for the first time in a FIFA
game, the ball feels like it's an object
reacting to external forces rather than one with
physics that are fudged for certain player
animations. The ball physics are best
demonstrated by shots on goal that do something
out of the ordinary when they strike one of the
posts or the crossbar. One of our most memorable
goals, in fact, was a free kick from Bolton
Wanderers' Kevin Nolan that hit the underside of
the crossbar really hard and bounced straight
down at an angle that resulted in the ball
barely crossing the line. This kind of goal
doesn't happen in real life often, but it does
happen, and it's great that it can now also be
said of FIFA games.
The
aforementioned goal was a particularly
satisfying one because it was scored during an
interactive league match, interactive leagues
being a major new feature of this year's game. |
The ball physics in FIFA 07 are a big
improvement over those in last year's game.
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Interactive
leagues are league tables that are generated using
results from players who have pitted their teams
against each other online according to the same
match schedule used in real life. Four real-life
leagues are supported, including England's F.A.
Premier League, France's Ligue 1 Orange, Mexico's
1st Division, and the German Bundesliga. It's really
little more than a new way to get matched up with
opponents online and for results to be tracked, but
because you're contributing to your favorite team's
league position every time you play, it definitely
adds to the experience. Predictably, fashionable
teams like Chelsea and Manchester United have far
more online players than many other clubs, so if you
choose to commit to one of those, it might be more
difficult for you to find opponents. If you're
unable to find an opponent in a timely fashion, you
have the option to participate in a fixture
involving one of your rival teams instead--taking
control of the opposition in the hope that you can
indirectly benefit your team by beating its rivals
in another match. You can also just choose to find a
regular online game in a lobby.
We found that
the Xbox version of FIFA 07 afforded us the best
online experience, not only because it was the one
with which we experienced the fewest disconnects and
the least lag, but also because playing it didn't
require us to sign up with EA Nation and go through
the usual ritual of agreeing to let a soccer-related
Web site send us spam (for the record, we've never
knowingly received any) in return for waiving a
small subscription fee. The PC game was also
lag-free for the most part, but the EA Nation lobby
system is somewhat unwieldy when compared to that
used in the console games. The PS2 version of FIFA
07 uses the same online menus and lobby system as
the Xbox game, but we experienced lag to some degree
in every match that we played, and on more than one
occasion we were abruptly disconnected and
subsequently very disappointed to see a statistic
next to our name to suggest that we were quitting
out of games intentionally--which no doubt deterred
some potential opponents from playing against us.
While we're on the subject of differences
between the three versions of FIFA 07, there
really aren't too many that are worthy of
note. The PS2 game suffers from noticeable
slowdown on occasion (especially when
playing in widescreen), which the other two
rarely do. A unique feature of the PS2
game's manager mode is that it boasts
connectivity with the PlayStation Portable
version. The handheld game's manager mode
boasts all of the features found in the PS2
game, and transferring the data between the
two consoles takes only a few seconds. The
PS2 game does support progressive scan, but
doesn’t look nearly as good as the Xbox
version in 720p if you’re in a position to
take advantage of it. The PC game's controls
are the most customizable but don't let you
re-create those of Konami's Pro Evolution
Soccer (Winning Eleven outside of Europe)
series perfectly, while the Xbox game uses
its controller's badly positioned black and
white buttons to perform some important
functions, like chip shots. Where those of
you playing FIFA 07 on a PC are really going
to miss out is the lack of a FIFA Lounge
mode, which remains one of the most
enjoyable ways to play the game if you're in
a room with up to seven of your friends,
although some questionable changes have been
made to the feature this year.
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Four
real-life leagues are supported in the new interactive
league online mode. |
In case you're
not familiar with the FIFA Lounge mode, the idea is
that a group of you can play each other across
multiple gaming sessions and have the game keep
track of your results in a league table.
Furthermore, you'll collect power-ups (or opponent
power-downs) known as "cheap shots" as you play that
can be used to level the playing field in your favor
before a subsequent match. In FIFA 06, these cards
were allocated in such a way that losing players
generally had more cheap shots available to them. In
FIFA 07, however, the opposite is true, since
winning players are almost always rewarded with
better cheap shots.
It's still
possible to level the playing field to some extent
before FIFA Lounge matches, but doing so is now
achieved by awarding goals to a team before any
cheap shots are activated. It's neat that when
awarding goals to a team in this way, you can
actually see a visual representation of how much
it's likely to improve your chances of winning based
on previous performances, but the system feels like
a step in the wrong direction after last year's
game. Winning a match against a superior player
because you were able to bench his star forward or
give all of his players a level of fatigue before
kickoff is still rewarding, but beating that same
player with a two-goal head start is a hollow
victory at best.
When you're not playing online or against your
friends in the FIFA Lounge, you'll likely be putting
your management skills to the test in FIFA 07's
manager mode. The manager mode lets you assume
control of any team in the game (or even one of your
own creation) and then tasks you with leading them
to glory while making decisions that can affect your
club both on and off the field. After accepting a
job at a team, your first duty will be to select a
sponsor for the season. These sponsors won't replace
the real ones on your uniforms when you play, but
they're an important source of income, and you'll
find that the sponsors offering you the most money
are invariably the ones that will be the most
difficult to please.
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Next up will be an e-mail from
your club's board of directors detailing their
expectations for the season. Predictably, clubs
that are currently enjoying a lot of success in
real life expect it to continue, so choosing to
manage a top-flight team can be more challenging
than opting for one that's accustomed to
midtable obscurity or relegation battles. The
expectations are a little more varied in FIFA 07
than they were in FIFA 06, so in addition to
achieving certain league and cup positions, you
might find yourself tasked with improving club
finances, reducing player salary bills, or
extending the contracts of certain players. The
board will also let you know which players are
the fans' favorites, hoping that you'll find
room for them in your starting 11 as a result.
As in last year's game, your
three main considerations in manager mode are
keeping the fans happy, maintaining job security
by keeping the board happy, and having good team
chemistry. One of the new features for this
year's manager mode is the player growth system,
which lets you pluck upcoming players from your
youth squad and then, by playing them alongside
the first team, encouraging them to develop. |
In manager mode, picking and
subsequently pleasing a sponsor is crucial
for your club's finances.
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As in last year's game, your three main
considerations in manager mode are keeping the fans
happy, maintaining job security by keeping the board
happy, and having good team chemistry. One of the
new features for this year's manager mode is the
player growth system, which lets you pluck upcoming
players from your youth squad and then, by playing
them alongside the first team, encouraging them to
develop. Every player in your squad will gain
experience points at the end of a match based on his
performance, and you'll notice that the number of
points awarded to young players is generally much
higher than the number given to experienced pros.
The flipside is that to nurture a star for the
future, you have to spend multiple seasons fielding
a player who isn't really good enough to be playing
alongside the rest of your team.
The other significant new feature in manager mode
is the "visual sim" option for matches. If for some
reason you don't want to play a match yourself
(we're not sure why that would ever be the case,
frankly), the visual sim option lets you watch
play-by-play commentary of the match and intervene
with tactical decisions or by jumping in and
assuming control at any time. The text-based
commentary and match statistics that you have access
to while in visual sim mode are adequate rather than
impressive, and we can't help but wonder why there's
no option to watch the game being played out using
the regular, great-looking match engine. Fact is,
the management portion of FIFA 07 works well in
between matches, but it's not nearly deep enough to
play purely as a management sim, which makes the
option to "quick sim" games and get a result
instantly even more redundant than the
aforementioned one.
Regardless of the fact that the management in
FIFA 07 isn't particularly deep (though it can be
very engaging), to play the game without actually
playing the matches yourself would be to miss out on
some of the best soccer visuals that we've seen in a
game to date. The players in FIFA 07 are instantly
recognizable for the most part, but it's their
animation that really stands out as a huge
improvement over last year's game. In FIFA 06, the
player animation was difficult to fault, but in FIFA
07, it's nigh on impossible--you'll see players
controlling the ball with different parts of their
bodies, you'll see them losing their balance and
falling over occasionally, and you'll certainly
notice them bumping into rather than clipping
through each other when areas of the field get busy.
FIFA 07, then, is a game that undoubtedly
improves upon FIFA 06 in a number of ways, though it
also has a few quirks of its own. This is an easy
game to recommend if you have any interest in
soccer, especially since you can keep up to date
with the latest soccer news and results via a ticker
tape along the bottom of the screen anytime you're
online, but it's not a giant leap forward for the
FIFA series in the same way that other recent
iterations have been. FIFA 07 is a must-have if you
missed out on FIFA 06, and it's definitely worth a
look if you own last year's game and are ready for a
change. |
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Quite why you'd ever want to play out your
manager-mode matches in visual sim mode is a
mystery. |
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