The World Cup is great, isn’t it? Three games of football on every day, showcasing the best talent in the world. A party atmosphere that makes you want to go and buy ice cold beer and join in, albeit in your living room with some friends and not the blistering heat of South Africa. In some ways 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa hits these highs, capturing the fun and frolics of the occasion. In other aspects, however, it’s still just plain old frustrating FIFA.
The base gameplay mode is obviously the 2010 World Cup, allowing you to play through the real group stages or create an alternate present by playing your own qualifications. EA have even gone one step further with that thanks to the Story of Qualifying game mode. Once you get past the huge Coca Cola Zero image, you find yourself with a list of scenarios from each region in the world. These scenarios place you into a losing situation with only minutes to change the outcome. For example, Scotland against Holland, 86th minute, a win would see Scotland with a chance of qualification – and yes, I played this one first, and still lost it.
Play enough of these and you get to do the same for the 2006 World Cup, and during the 2010 World Cup itself you will be able to change the outcomes shortly after they have happened – should be handy when England go out! I was pleasantly surprised with this game mode, a nice addition and a respectably tough challenge to keep you busy after you’ve lifted the trophy for the seventeenth time.
Lifting that trophy is actually bloody exciting, something that I did not expect from the game. From the added crowd effects – face-paint, dancing, etc – to the new commentary and bolstered audience sounds, it really does create something different. Different to the standard FIFA tournament modes, anyway. When winning the cup the players all sprint, hug and dance around the pitch. Even the manager comes and joins the fun, well, the teams that have the in-game managers anyway.
These are usually the big teams, the group leaders, and when I won with Argentina the commentators even waffled on convincingly about the team’s history and the expectations going into this World Cup. Another nice touch to help the thing feel more authentic.
The ‘real’ feeling does fade, however, when the usual FIFA based shenanigans rear their ugly heads. For me it was on a few occasions, most notably on my first attempt to win the cup with Spain. I got beat 3-2 by Switzerland. Switzerland. I managed to turn the group around by winning my next two games but the lovely game managed to scupper me by deciding to injure both Torres and Villa. The real kick in the teeth comes when you find out that was not during a game but during a menu screen, where I have no control over the actual players. Stupid training ground injuries.
These silly things aside, it’s generally just the same things that would have frustrated you with FIFA 10; teams scoring two unstoppable goals in the last five minutes to beat you or England being stupidly good in football games – I’m not joking.
The other mode besides the online is Captain Your Country, a Be-A-Pro based game mode specifically set around the World Cup. In this mode you can take control of an existing player, create a new one, or import your FIFA 10 pro; which is a great idea but the game levels all your stats for some reason, so you might as well create a new one. The mode is much the same as FIFA 10′s except from the presentation, that includes a nice pre-match note from the manager telling you what he expects of you.
In fact, I think I prefer the bold, colourful design of this game to the functional design of FIFA 10. It’s refreshing. The whole game is exceedingly well polished, and with a good choice of game modes and over 100 international teams, it may just be worth a full price purchase.
VideogameUK verdict: 7/10
