An eternal challenge.
As every year, the challenge between the two football rivals par excellence is repeated: Pro Evolution Soccer 2018 (which we reviewed a few weeks ago) and FIFA 18. As we have already analyzed in our comparison, the two titles are conceptually oriented towards the same result, that is to offer a football title, fun, rich in content and faithful or almost faithful to what happens on real football fields. The concept is therefore the same, but the idea behind it is diametrically different. PES 2018, has maintained its arcade nature, with simpler games (although more reasoned) to be made and few, but useful, tactics, which makes it a product suitable for everyone, even for those players who play from time to time . FIFA 18, on the other hand, makes (or rather tries to make) simulation its strong point, thus seeking a realism, which in the end, especially in online competitions, sometimes cannot be defined as such, which makes it more complex to play. , precisely because there are a series of tactics and game mechanics that must be assimilated in order to compete better with our opponents.
Online and non-online opponents, although the trend of Electronic Arts has been to make FIFA a competitive multiplayer game. Here someone could have something to say, telling us: but there is the mode The Journey, Alex Hunter, the career to play ... In part we could also agree, but in our opinion, the path taken for about 2 years now is undoubtedly that of multiplayer. It is useless to fool us, those who buy FIFA do it to play online. FUT has now become the most played mode, I admit that I have dedicated 99% to the latter for at least 6 years now. Not that it is without flaws, far from it, in Ultimate Team they are amplified to excess, but the possibility of creating your own team, and then compete online, facing divisions, FUT Champions, Draft, the new Squad Battles mode (the only offline), well they alone are worth the price of the ticket. Personally, I practically never played offline, my career was not something that could keep me attached to the screen and also Il Viaggio, although it was a "brilliant" gimmick, as nothing like it had ever been seen in a football title. she managed to exalt me. This year, however, especially the career and the new Squad Battles mode, which we have already talked about in our guide, have managed to get me closer to the game locally.
But let's find out how much the new FIFA 18 has to offer in our review!
Is FIFA always the same?
The title of the paragraph was not placed there by chance. Many, especially those not passionate about this sport, believe that football titles practically since the human being invented the video game are always the same. Kick the ball over there, pass this way, tournament always the same, the graphics are the same as 10 years ago etc. Nothing more wrong. FIFA 18 is not a photocopy of the previous chapter, the changes are evident. First let's talk about the graphics engine, the much hyped Frostbite. Which was already present on titles of the caliber of Star Wars: Battlefront and Mirror's Edge and just last year it was introduced on FIFA 17. The evolution was significant, as it was possible not only to make the game better from the point of graphic view, but also from the point of view of gameplay. Here, the experiment worked and therefore it was continued with FIFA 18. “But the graphics are the same come on, does not change one iota and the playability? They never change it ”. Graphically FIFA 18 reaches the highest levels ever in the series. Nothing was overlooked, the pre-match presentation, the atmosphere of the stadium, the fans, the staff on the sidelines, the photographers, the cameramen, the benches, the turf. All elements that in recent years had never convinced. The story this year is different, you can feel the vibrations, the emotions of the fans who no longer behave in unison but every fan or almost every fan has their own reaction to what is happening on the pitch. The atmosphere is truly magical, it feels like watching a game on TV. These are certainly graphic or outline charms, for the most trivial, but in the overall formula they are fundamental. Combined with the gameplay, they go on to package a product that almost borders on perfection.
The gameplay turns out to be rock solid as never before. The overall formula has not been upset, being practically the same as last year ... or almost. In FIFA 17 you ended up reaching the opponent's goal, in Holly & Benji style, or ball and chain, run as fast as you can and GO. This year, in part and I repeat, only in part, this defect has been resolved; there is always that tendency to slip from the clutches of the defender on duty, but to a limited extent compared to last year. By now I think this is a deliberate and conscious choice of the Canadian developers, if you miss the intervention unless you enter with a straight leg tackle from behind, you will hardly be able to stop the player shooting on the wing. This is definitely the one they like least; it may happen that Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar, the "flea" Messi, Bale, Sterling and other sprinters, manage to overcome our interventions almost easily, it cannot happen instead that a Kalinic with 73 speed ends up being unstoppable. It just doesn't go down there. For the rest, the game speed has been slightly adjusted downwards, now, except for some runners who may inevitably present themselves during the match, the maneuver will be built, step by step, tiki taka and touches from before and you will be able to penetrate in the opposing defense.
The aspect that characterizes this new Electronic Arts production is the improved mobility of the players. Every centimeter of their body will move in a very likely way, every change of direction, every stop, every movement of the ankle will affect, positively or negatively on the control system. All this is most noticeable during running, dribbling and ball management. There will be small flaws but it is natural that there are otherwise we will be talking about the best sports game ever. Now everything is even more reasoned, having players with a low center of gravity will not automatically give you an advantage over who has the highest levers. Personally with Insigne last year I drove the opposing defense crazy, this year Insigne is less decisive and less inclined to discard players as if they were pins. Of course it's good, otherwise what simulation would it be? The pace of the game will therefore be less hectic overall than what we saw in FIFA 17. Game after game it will be increasingly perceived that tactics are of vital importance and it will be necessary to better analyze the formation fielded by the opponents. Don't be fooled if your opponent has a poorer line-up because it could give you a really bad quarter of an hour.
On the contrary, try to weigh your choices in the best possible way, possibly when replacing players. Just to make you better prepare for the match or possibly "adjust" during the match, there are a series of options with which you can set your offensive and / or defensive tactics to which, new dynamic replacements are added which will allow you, by pressing the R2 button and confirming with X, to replace a player on the fly when the game is stopped. The introduced option, except for some recommended changes that are not exactly right, is very useful as in addition to not breaking up the game, it will avoid letting us lose focus. This year, the defense has also undergone a change, CPU interventions are minimal and it will be up to you to practice to better control the defenders. You will easily happen to find yourself in situations of numerical inferiority but it is not said that the opponent's attack goes easily in port. Now it will all depend on you, on the speed with which you will be able to press the right buttons and levers. It will also take a lot of spirit of adaptation, as, as you can experience in the Squad Battles, the formations we will face will always play differently.
At the beginning of the review we said that the path taken by EA is that of a competitive multiplayer. The basic idea is this but fortunately, for those who want to experience a local experience, the renewed Artificial Intelligence it will make you happy. Forget infinite ball possessions, especially at the extreme level, it was not possible to recover the ball. Now the CPU plays as an online user or almost, always setting various actions, defending or making mistakes like a real person and punishing us when we are the ones to make mistakes. This change is felt in the Squad Battles introduced in FUT this year. In practice, we will be offered 4 teams of real users but controlled by the CPU; each team has its own scheme and tactical way of playing and after selecting the level, from beginner to extreme, we will be able to face the game to get a certain amount of points and climb the weekly ranking. In these matches you will touch the renewed AI with your hand. It will be more likely to win against teams on absurd paper than with teams with a rating of 76, as they will tend to defend themselves, practically covering every passing line and restarting as soon as we lose the ball.
This is where local play offers a new and rewarding challenge rate forcing you to adapt match after match. Despite the improvements, the CPU appeared to us on more than one occasion aggressive beyond the limit, practically not letting us breathe and managing to perform steps and maneuvers at the edge of science fiction. Often stealing the ball will prove to be a mission impossible feat, especially against players with an important physical size. The detentions to stop them are practically useless and compared to last year, in which the tactical foul gave that certainty of being able to stop an attack, this year even a repeated detention will not cause the opponent to go to the ground. It must be said, however, that some improvements have been made in our favor; the work had started last year, but it worked on and off. Now our players, not controlled by us, will tend to better analyze the possible choices to be made, attacking the possible spaces and offering new passing lines. The game maneuver is therefore more dynamic and varied.
They will think about helping our attacks the new crosses. Forget the year 2014 and Balotelli capable of scoring from every cross that came to him. Crosses represent an extra weapon capable of putting the entire opponent's defensive department in difficulty but they will not always be effective. If your opponent's defenses are poorly equipped, you will certainly be able to get on many high balls. Reverse discourse if you are in front of Sergio Ramos or Chiellini, with these two, not even Luis Nazario from Lima Ronaldo will be able to have an easy life. Almost everything seems perfect but unfortunately among the major flaws we have noticed a real turnaround in goalkeepers. It was not possible to do worse and instead EA has succeeded. In some situations, they look like non-paying spectators. It has happened on at least 3 occasions to concede goals at the limit of, I put down the joypad and turn off everything. Reina who on a back pass of the head remains motionless, Advice that while sweeping gets in front and scores an own goal. Is it possible that every year is always the same story? Leaving aside these events, just a shot per turn (99% will also score) or a power shot at best calibrated, sometimes not even so angled to put them in extreme difficulty. Not to mention the exits, sometimes you don't know how to behave, stay in goal or try to sweep with your fists. It seems that the duck is always around the corner. We are sure that after certain aspects have been improved, the Canadian developer will promptly intervene to resolve this age-old problem.
Road to Division One
Moving on to the contents, the FIFA 18 offer is really substantial. We have the classic Online Seasons, Pro Clubs, Co-Op Seasons, Online Friendlies, Skill Tests, Tournaments and Kick-Off modes that remain essentially unchanged. Among the big news, however, we have the renewed career, which maintains certain characteristics unchanged but has benefited from an overhaul that has really been missing for years. The result? New negotiations that replace the unreal ones of the last 4/5 chapters. The transfer market is no longer relegated to a marginal role but assumes an active role. All this was also possible thanks to the Frostbite Engine which allowed to introduce new animations during the buying and selling of players. In fact, the scene will move to our offices where we will be able to discuss the terms of the agreement with the President of the other team and with the player's agent. The new proposals also include bonuses on a possible future resale, bonus on attendance, increased salary and the much loved / hated release clauses, Barcelona knows something about the players. Just like in reality, if interested in a player with a release clause, we can decide to override the wishes of the club and deal directly with him. In addition, the ability to find an understanding with a player throughout the season has been added.
The most popular mode (even by the writer) is still that Ultimate Team. Unlike last year, the year in which the news were called: FUT Champions (unchanged) and Squad Creation Challenges, the news in FIFA 18 are few. The new mode is called Squad Battles (we talked about it before and also in our guide to FUT in FIFA 18), while the Squad Building Challenges this year are called Expanded Squad Building Challenges and feature new interesting challenges and many, many rewards.
In addition we have the FUT Champions TV, a channel that allows players to review and analyze in detail all the games played by the strongest pro-players on the planet. What is it for? To steal the secrets of the best; it will then be possible to pause the match, zoom in on a specific player, change the camera view and watch the highlights in slow motion. The latest juicy news concerns the arrival on PS4 and PC of the Legends, renamed Icons, or 120 legendary players, each has 3 cards that relate to a specific period of his career.
The Journey: the return of Alex Hunter
FIFA 18 also marks the return of Il Viaggio (The Journey in English). The narrative mode of the EA Sports game finally comes to life, abandoning that weak structure that characterized the approximately 20 hours of the first act, to accompany us on a real "journey". The gameplay fundamentally doesn't change. The multiple choice dialogues of Alex Hunter's first season remain, which serve to shape the personality of the young talent, as well as the various training sessions to improve the now professional of English football. The bulk of the work, however, was certainly done on a narrative level. In the second season of Hunter, in fact, there is no shortage of twists.
Alex finds himself dealing with market rumors, with an increasingly complex father-son relationship and surrounded by media attention that exerts considerable pressure on a boy of only 19. There are many more cutscenes than in the first season, as well as the "crossroads" the narrative choices, which do not spare any twists that can make us jump from the chair. The carnet of stars involved is also richer: from Henry to the coaches of German, Spanish and French teams, there is also no shortage of new entries to be discovered. To praise the dubbing in the original language, which always proves to have an edge over our own.
As for the gameplay, EA Sports has introduced a series of not indifferent innovations. At a certain point of the season, Hunter will be joined by a companion (at our sole choice from a roster of established champions), with different objectives to be respected. In the testing phase we tacked for Thomas Muller, with the task of serving each other assists to be transformed into precious goals. In addition to this, EA Sports has also worked on the customization of Hunter, from tattoos to uniforms to the leisure outfit, with different elements unlockable only by completing some objectives (not Achievements or Trophies, just objectives proposed by the developers) during chapters of The Journey.
Basically, The Journey isn't just a new series of games and challenges. This is a rather important evolution. Although still a "minor", the FIFA 18 mode has certainly growna and is much more mature than in the first season. It goes without saying that with similar premises next year we expect even more news from EA Sports and obviously a much higher quality level than this year.
Championships for all tastes
There are many leagues present, about 30. There is not much to say, the licenses are almost infinite, the only discordant note concerns the Serie A, which presents all the licensed teams, but not the official logo of the competition (Serie A becomes Calcio A) while the cadet league features only two fully licensed teams. As for the purely technical aspect, in addition to the one already mentioned during the review, we still have to do a little examination on the faces of the players, some amazing, for example Cristiano Ronaldo, one of the players to have benefited from the new Real Player Motion Technology, a motion capture technique that made it possible to realistically reproduce every movement of the Portuguese ace. There is always a bit of perplexity on the faces. Even some well-known players, like Valero and Candreva, are unrecognizable, not to mention Felipe Anderson who gets worse and worse every year. We would have expected a much better work on polygons but it was not the case. Let's close by talking about the sound and commentary, the ambient sound is fantastic, there will be choirs and songs of the fans and official anthems, You'll Never Walk Alone for example. Good music playlist, very catchy and personally I find it one of the best used in a FIFA chapter. The commentary on the other hand is still entrusted to the duo Pardo Navas and is very convincing with various phrases and precise technical analyzes.
Final comment:
FIFA 18 represents the football title par excellence. Leaving aside some congenital defects, such as a ball physics not always convincing, goalkeepers not always brilliant and a persistent presence of shots and races worthy of the best Bolt, the gameplay remains convincing, more reasoned and tactical than in the past. Lots of contents present, the scepter once again belongs to the FUT mode, which thanks to the addition of Squad Battles and expanded Squad Creation Challenges, maintains a great appeal among the fan base. The career mode, after being relegated to an almost marginal role for years, is back in great shape thanks to the new additions. For all fans of football and especially video games, FIFA 18 is the very essence of football, so you can't miss it.
