FIFA 07 (Xbox)
- Wow.
System: X-Box
Year: 2006
Developer: EA Sports
The Skinny:
•The newest and greatest FIFA installment receives a wonderful gameplay
make over
The Good:
•Improved ball physics, easily the best in the series
•Greatly improved attacking AI
•Excellent audio
•Solid, enjoyable gameplay
The Bad:
•Graphics are not as clear and vibrant as FIFA 06
•Shooting from distance and free kicks are a bit too easy
•Will probably be overshadowed by its Xbox 360 sibling
Overview
While it’s true that the Xbox 360 version of FIFA 07 has been built from the ground-up with a brand new game engine, the current-gen versions weren’t ignored and received much more than the customary mild improvements to the same old FIFA formula.
Table of Contents
1) Graphics
2) Sound
3) Options
4) Gameplay
5) Replay Value
6) Overall
Graphics 78/100
While FIFA 07’s gameplay received an impressive make-over, the graphics, unfortunately, did not. When the players in FIFA 07 first ran onto the pitch my initial thought was; “Huh? Does this look crappier than last year’s version, or have I been playing too much 360?” After going back and checking out last years version, FIFA 07s visuals definitely aren’t as clear and vibrant as FIFA 06. The bloom lighting has been greatly toned down yet the graphics still maintain a fuzzy appearance and as a result everything looks a bit dull.
Player models, however, are pretty much identical to FIFA 06 i.e. muscular zombie midgets. There was a time that FIFA had much better player models than Winning Eleven but that period has definitely passed as WE 10s players look far more proportioned and realistic. It’s as if everyone in the FIFA universe is on steroids; even beanpole players like Crouch and Kanu still look buffed! Player faces are also a disappointment and though you can still identify the big names they don’t look nearly as realistic or detailed as the faces in WE10.
On the positive side, the game’s animations have been improved which is no doubt to accommodate the new gameplay additions. The animations have received upgrades in both quantity and quality. There are a lot of new animations for the new ‘skill’ moves, player jostling, passing and shooting. All of these animations are impressive and the all-important transitions between them are, for the most part, smooth. There are still some clipping issues which particularly stand out on replays, but to be fair, they’re not as bad as those in World Cup 2006 for the Xbox 360.
As expected, FIFA 07 features an impressive number of different stadia and this year the census is up 2 to 46 (FOURTY SIX!!) different grounds;
Amsterdam Arena
Anfield
Ataturk
Azteca
Bay Arena
Bessa
Calderon
Camp Nou
Closed Square Style
Constant Vanden Stock
Deagu Sports Complex
Delle Alpi
Div1 Euro Style
Div1 UK Style
Div 2 Euro Style
Div 2 UK Style
Div 3 Euro Style
Div 3 UK Style
Dragao
Emirates (!)
Estadio da Luz
Felix Bollaert
Generic Modern
Hamburg Arena
Jose Alvalade
Mestalla
Millennium Stadium
Modern Euro
Modern South American
Municipal de Gerland
Old Trafford
Olympic Stadium Berlin
Olympic Style
Open Square Style
Oval Style
Parc des Princes
San Siro
Santiago Bernabeu
Seoul Sang-Am
St. James Park
Stade Velodrome
Stadio Olympico
Stamford Bridge
Veltins Arena
Wembley Stadium (!)
Westfalenstadion
Of note are Arsenal’s new Emirates Stadium and the yet-to-be-finished new Wembley Stadium! The stadiums are all modeled nicely and are instantly identifiable during the intros to matches. Unfortunately, the pitch textures are definitely worse than last year’s game – I don’t know who the groundskeeper is but these pitches are ugly as sin. Speaking of the pitch, a major difference in FIFA 07’s visuals is the size of the field – the pitch is noticeably smaller than last year.
As you’d expect from a FIFA game, the TV style presentation is top-notch with score overlays, highlites, instant replays and solid player celebrations (including Peter Crouch’s ludicrous robot celebration!). Another nice addition is the choice to have the radar ‘disappear’ when the ball goes near that part of the screen. Regrettably, there is some noticeable slow-down and stuttering during some instant replays, particularly when there are more than 5 or 6 players on-screen.
Sound 88/100
As expected, FIFA 07 excels in the audio department. Andy Gray returns to do the color commentary (replacing Andy Townsend, present in World Cup 2006) alongside Clive Tyldsley. Both do an excellent job of following the play and also providing good insight and contextual awareness. That said, there are problems with repetition and some inconsistency when describing scoring chances – I’ve hit the post from 35 yards out only to have Andy Gray tell me I should have done better!
FIFA 07 features a solid soundtrack with a wide variety of international artists. I like FIFA 06s selection of music to be better but that’s strictly a matter of personal preference and I’m sure there something for everyone here.
My favourite part of FIFA 07s audio comes from the improved crowd sounds and crowd reactions. If you score a goal away from home the home fans are instantly silenced and its really neat to experience. Another of my favorites comes when you’re at home and three or more goals up – if you start to pass the ball around the home fans start to do cheers/olés! I wish there was more work put into the 5.1 surround (particularly the localization of the away fans) and a few more crowd chants, but for the most part the crowd sounds are great.
Options 90/100
Just like last year’s edition, FIFA 07 features a staggering number of game modes and options. The major modes of play are;
Kick Off (exhibition)
FIFA 07 Lounge (for multiplayer matches on the same Xbox)
Tournament Mode (you can play in any single competition featured in the game i.e. FA Cup)
Create Tournament
Interactive Leagues
Practice/Training
Xbox Live
Manager Mode
The Interactive Leagues feature is new to the series and entails online versions of the EPL, Bundesliga, French First Division, and the Mexican First Division. Basically, gamers select their favourite team and play online fixtures that correspond to real-life fixtures taking place in the same 2-3 day window. For example, if Tottenham are playing Arsenal on Saturday then in the few days leading up to the fixture Tottenham and Arsenal fans can log on XBL and play each other. At the end of the allotted time period the results are tallied up and the team with more fans that were ‘winners’ receive 3 points in the virtual EPL. Its neat idea though I’ve yet to try it out myself.
The excellent Manager Mode returns with a few new additions. Player growth is now more fleshed out and more apparent after each match (much in the same was as Winning Eleven’s Master League). There are also nice graphical predictors and projections of player growth over the years and now every few months your Youth Team will produce a young starlet that you can chose to sign. Team Boards seem to be more demanding this year and are explicit in their demands across a season. The only downside to this magnificent (and still utterly engrossing) game mode is that the front-end is still a bit shoddy and it would be nice if things were laid out in a more logical and user-friendly fashion – in the midst of a grueling league campaign I shouldn’t have to cut through 3 menu tiers just to take a look at the league table!
FIFA 07 features the following leagues for play;
England (All 4 professional divisions)
France (The top 2 professional divisions)
Germany (The top 2 professional divisions)
Italy (Serie A and Serie B)
K-League
Mexican 1st Division
MLS
Norwegian Tippeligaen
Polish Ekstraklasa
Portuguese Liga BWIN
Scottish Premier
Spain (The top 2 professional divisions)
Swedish Allsvenskan
Swiss Axpo Super League
Turkish Super League
Austrian Bundesliga
Belgian League
Brazilian League
Danish Superligaen
Dutch Eredivisie
Also featured are a list of ‘Rest of World’ club teams that include Sparta Prague, River Plate, Boca Jnrs, Olympiakos and a few more.
There are also 42 international squads included for play but unfortunately there are some glaring omissions in the roster that include an absence of Holland, Togo, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Iran and Japan! Those absences are particularly baffling since all those teams were in EA Sports’ recent World Cup game!
As you’ve probably heard, the rosters are only up to date till the 27th of August 2006 which means Van Nistelroy is still playing for United and Ashley Cole still ply’s his trade for Arsenal. Fortunately, there’s an extensive player and team editor and you may want to use it when you see a few of the silly player ratings in the game! Wayne Rooney is the highest rated outfield player in the game with an overall score of 92/100 while Ronaldinho and Henry trail him with scores of 91 and 90 respectively. Perhaps that’s just nitpicking but other problems arise when you see that Jesper Gronkjaer has a higher rating than Damien Duff! Meanwhile Watford’s Danny Webber must have a friend in the programming team because he has a rating of 81/100 making him as good as Craig Bellamy and better than Peter Crouch at 78/100!
FIFA 07 also features plethora of ‘Challenges’ to conquer and upon doing so you receive points which can be used in the Fan Shop to unlock goodies. The ‘Challenges’ are not discrete scenarios per-se but rather things that you accomplish as you play in any game mode. For example, winning 10 games in a row completes a challenge and unlocks points. As does scoring a hatrick or winning the EPL. The challenges are divided by region; UK, Western Europe, Southern Europe, The Americas etc. Completing all the challenges from 2 zones unlocks a 5th difficulty level.
The Fan Shop (where you spend your hard earned Challenge points) includes unlockables such as a Classic XI Team, twenty three different types of soccer balls, the Third Kits for 35 different teams (including, funnily enough, Accrington Stanley), EPL and Bundesliga highlite videos, and much more.
Continue To: Gameplay
FIFA 07 (Xbox)
- Wow.
Table of Contents
1) Graphics
2) Sound
3) Options
4) Gameplay
5) Replay Value
6) Overall
Gameplay 85/100
While I’m tempted to start my discussion of FIFA 07s plethora of gameplay tweaks and improvements with the ball physics I’ll start with the controls;
General:
L Stick – Move Player, Trapping
D Pad – Attacking Tactics
R Stick – One Touch, Skill Moves
Back Button – Team Mentality
Attack:
A - Pass/Header
B - Cross/Long Pass
Y - Through Ball
X - Shoot/Header
R Trigger - Sprint
L Trigger - Initiate Run/MODIFIER (for give & go, lobbed through pass)
White – Pace Control/Stop Ball
Black – Dummy/Chip Shot
B twice – low cross
L Trigger + B – early cross
L Trigger + B twice – early low cross
L Trigger + X – ‘finesse shot’
X + A – fake shot
B + A – fake cross
Defense:
L Trigger – switch players
B - Sliding Tackle
A - Conservative Tackle
X - Call 2nd Defender
White - Jockey
The controls aren’t set in stone and you can choose from a variety of configurations. As you can see from the above configuration you can have the controls set up just like in Winning Eleven! Even if you don’t have the configuration as above, the influence of Winning Eleven’s controls is evident in a lot of the moves. The controls for fake pass, fake shot, early cross and the low cross are all similar to WE/PES. The ‘finesse shot’ is similar to Winning Eleven’s L2 shot where you hit it with your instep and have a bit more accuracy.
‘The Physics of the Balls’
So what about those new Ball Physics? Well the ball physics and the game engine aren’t built from the ground-up (as they are in the upcoming Xbox 360 version) but there have definitely been some major improvements. For the first time in the series the ball physics are completely separated from the animations and as a result the ball moves with a fluidity and realism yet unseen in a FIFA game. Finally you get to see some realistic looking bounces, spins and ricochets! As a result of these largely unscripted ball physics not only does the ball move in a far more realistic fashion (no more ball on a string) but there’s a far greater variation in build-up play and goals scored.
That said, despite the massive leap progress, the ball physics in FIFA 07 still lag far behind those found in Winning Eleven 10. To be fair, because the physics are unscripted you don’t notice the differences until you go back and forth between the two titles. However, once I did go back to Winning Eleven 10 after a week of FIFA 07 I was struck by just how much more intricate the ball physics are and how many more subtle spins, ricochets and rebounds there are in Konami’s game. The ball just feels so much more alive in Konami’s game, but kudos must be given to EA Sports for finally getting with the program!
A.I.
The second major improvement in FIFA 07s gameplay comes from the AI, and in particular, the offensive AI of your CPU teammates. Frankly, the difference in intelligence (and usefulness) of your CPU teammates from the 06 to 07 versions of FIFA is staggering. CPU controlled players now make fantastic darting runs, move into space, drag defenders out of position and make overlapping movements that wouldn’t be out of place in a Winning Eleven game! Watching user controlled attacks in FIFA 07 is like watching Wenger’s Arsenal side in their pomp; the quick, fluid passing and flowing overlapping movement is a joy to behold (and to control as well)! Unfortunately, this applies to pretty much EVERY team and a user controlled Accrington Stanley may as well have Rosicky, Henry, Van Persie and Fabregas playing for them!
Also unfortunate is that the CPU-controlled teams don’t exhibit the same creativity and passing movement. The CPU teams rarely play from the back and there isn’t a detectable difference in playing style between Brighton and Barcelona. There’s also very little difference in how individual CPU players act –Ronaldinho may be more difficult to shake off the ball but he doesn’t seem to do more tricks, make more dribbles, and be more incisive than anyone else on his Barca team. This is in stark contrast to Winning Eleven 10 where the top players are noticeably more dangerous than average ones.
On the defensive side of the AI things are a bit too passive. While it’s nice not to have the ‘headless-chicken’ defensive pressuring you see in the Winning Eleven games, the CPU defenders in FIFA 07 are too happy to watch you pass around the ball. As a result, your front men are frequently given the time and space to collect a pass from midfield and turn. Through passes along the outside channel are rarely contested (or blocked off) and if you have a moderately pacey forward he’ll be able to get to the ball before even the quickest defenders. Putting your back to a CPU defender and spinning around him is also far more successful than any skill move.
The end result of the mediocre defending AI and the excellent CPU teammate AI is that that the game is a lot more skewed towards attacking play which is very exciting, but at the same time not as realistic nor as balanced as Winning Eleven.
Nutmeg!
The ‘Skill Moves’ in FIFA 07 have also had a bit of an overhaul and I really like the new changes. In previous games a simple flick of the Right Analog stick would initiate a move. Now, however, you have to make specific movements with the RAS to pull off a ‘skill’ move. You can see some of the RAS movements required to initiate moves in the diagram (taken from IGN’s Developer BLOG). The best part of these new skill moves (despite being more useful) is that for the first time in the series they actually require some modicum of SKILL to perform! It’s also important to note that none of the moves work even close to 100% of the time and pass and move is still the best option to unlock a defense.
If there’s one downside of the skill moves it’s the way they differ from player to player. Higher rated players are far more responsive to RAS movements than lower rated players. For example, if you perform the ‘lane change’ move while controlling Messi he’ll do it almost instantly. If you do the same thing while controlling Ayala there will be LAG between when you input the move and when it’s performed – and as a result a defender may take the ball off you. While it’s an interesting way of depicting differences in player skill, I prefer Winning Eleven where Messi and Ayala would have equal responsiveness with a special move, but Ayala’s lower ball control and dribbling stats will make him far less likely to hold onto the ball (and/or keep it under close control) than Messi.
FIFA 07 also has a hard time depicting a subtle variety of skills between different human-controlled players. Players like the aforementioned Messi and Ronaldinho are definitely far more responsive than most other players allowing for quicker movements, however, there seems to be no middle ground between the galacticos and the crap players. A player is either a super-responsive super-star or very mediocre.
Preferred foot, headers and set pieces
FIFA 07 also sees the series’ introduction of a preferred foot when passing or shooting! As expected, this aspect of play doesn’t exhibit the same degree of complexity as in Winning Eleven, but its nice to finally see a noticeable difference when you shoot on a player’s weaker side.
Yet another control change comes from headers. Now when the ball is played in the air and control switches to the nearest player, you have a split second or two to use the Left Analog Stick to actively jostle with an opponent. This control change makes contesting for headers in the midfield (particularly from goal kicks) much more involving and skill based than before.
Set pieces have been changed and are now very similar to Winning Eleven in that you hold pass or shoot and while the player is running up to hit the ball you can add swerve or spin to the kick. Corners can be whipped in a with a stunning degree of spin which causes all sorts of havoc in the opposition’s penalty box! Keepers also aren’t left out and I absolutely love the addition of a power-bar for the goalkeeper’s throw! Now, if you hold the pass button for a split second your keeper will underhand roll the ball to a nearby teammate, if you hold it down so the bar gets filled he’ll run and launch an overhand throw downfield!
Dialing From Distance
As you’d expect with the new unscripted ball physics there’s a much wider variety of goals that can be scored compared to previous versions. All a manner of deft curlers, drilled blasts, placed headers and ricochet goals are possible and it makes matches far more interesting and exciting than ever before. Its been a long time since I’ve had a real sense of satisfaction when beating a keeper in a FIFA game.
The only downside to the goalscoring is that scoring from distance is a tad too easy, particularly when you’re hitting a ball on the half (or full) volley. Case-in-point would be Momo Sissoko in my current Manager Mode season who has 7 goals thus far (none for Liverpool in real life) and all of them have been thunderbolt half volleys from outside the box when a corner was cleared! The first time I drilled one in I was jumping all over my couch! However, the ease at which this can be done (given the time and space) made subsequent stunners far less gratifying. The same applies for free kicks; although the new Winning Eleven-style system is more user friendly, free kicks are a bit too easy. Again, this takes away some of the sense of satisfaction you get when you do beat the keeper from a set piece.
Calamity James
The goalkeepers in FIFA 07 are a mixed bag. The CPU-team keepers are generally solid ; their only problems are with the aforementioned volleys from outside the box and deep swerving crosses (expect a few to be tipped up and bobbled). The CPU-controlled keepers on your team have problems with long-shots in general (on the volley or not) and there have been a few instances where I’ve seen my keeper fluff an entirely save-able shot. It’s not a game-wrecker but when it does happen you’ll want to chuck your controller out the window.
But How Does it Play?
While the ball physics and AI aren’t perfect, they represent such a jump in quality from previous versions that FIFA 07 isn’t just hands-down the best game in the series, it’s also by far the most fun! Though the introduction of the unscripted ball physics, AI changes, and controls that mimic Winning Eleven will no doubt bring even more (slightly unfavorable) comparisons to Konami’s masterpiece, EA Sports have done more than enough to carve out their own niche and create a very entertaining soccer title. It’s not exactly a simulation but it’s definitely no longer an arcade-type experience. Although matches are generally a more high-scoring affair, the variety of goals that can be scored and variation in build-up play keeps matches fresh and entertaining. I also love the fact that you actually feel a sense of genuine accomplishment when you do put the ball in the back of the net.
FIFA 06 was the first EA Sports football title in a long time that made you feel that you were somehow playing a representation of the beautiful game rather than an arcade-interpretation. FIFA 07 for the current-gen consoles takes this feeling a solid step further.
Continue To: Replay Value & Overall
