Visually, the latest FIFA is, by and large, the finest installment to date. If you're unfamiliar with the series, you should know that FIFA 2004 is uncannily reminiscent of a televised world-class match. The game features 500 teams from 18 leagues and includes a truly grand total of 10,000 players, each modeled after his real-life counterpart. EA Sports boasts that it has secured 500 official licenses, and it shows. Corporate logos are everywhere--from uniforms to stadiums and even to off-field interfaces.
Bone-crunching tackles, like this one, can come in a wide variety of ways in FIFA 2004.
FIFA 2004 players are downright spectacular. Certainly they're the most lifelike to ever grace a PC soccer game. One of the obvious high points are the player faces, which have now lost any remaining cartoonlike detail and now look eerily similar to the real thing. Player bodies are perhaps even more impressive, simply because they are capable of so many fluid humanlike movements. The development team has really gone to town in developing appropriate arm and torso animations, and the results are phenomenal. Now, when players bump and tussle, they do so using their arms for balance and as weapons. Post-whistle scrums are particularly delicious, what with all the new yapping and pushing going on. And when your little players finally emerge from a long half or contest, they sometimes do so with dirty uniforms.
The game's stadiums are as wonderful as always, only now EA Sports has supplemented them with incredible sun glare and lens flare effects. Sadly, you may not always see what you should be seeing. Your experience may vary, but we initially found that FIFA 2004's graphics were too dark to be considered playable. We maxed out the brightness control on our monitor and searched for a nonexistent gamma correction tool, but the game continued to look as if it was being played at night with no artificial lighting. Then, suddenly--and without warning--all was well. We were never able to replicate the lousy lighting of the first few forays. We did try the game on a second PC, where it looked fine for the first few sessions, then--once again--assumed its darkened alter ego. Thankfully, the game reverted to its more-playable self after that and has remained that way ever since. While it's true that some stadiums offer different lighting than others, surely no stadium was intoned to be this ludicrously murky.
Unfortunately, the game's interfaces are bad from beginning to end. They're a confusing mess that seem to make efficient navigation as difficult as possible. In fact, this may well be the worst menu structure of any recent vintage EA Sports product. Furthermore, the selection of gameplay options is woefully minimal. You can't, for example, adjust graphical minutia like lighting, on- or off-player detail, grandstand detail, or environmental effects. You can't increase the length of a half to more than 10 real-time minutes. And you certainly can't request to play in rainy conditions, because, despite early marketing to the contrary, the game does not support precipitation or dynamic weather of any sort.
Incoming! A goalkeeper makes his move toward a powerful shot that's just been delivered from just outside the penalty box.
The menu does hold some pleasant surprises, not the least of which is a career mode. In career mode, you'll undertake a five-season struggle to lift your team from the depths of the soccer world to the top of it. Along the way, you'll transfer players, initiate training sessions, earn money and, hopefully, increase your prestige to such lofty heights that you'll be hired away by a better, more-celebrated club. We had an issue with the training routine, which simply involves clicking a few mouse buttons rather than rewarding you for the skillful new moves that you've developed on the pitch. Certainly, the career mode isn't as deep as it could be. Nevertheless, it's otherwise a welcome new amenity.
Rookies and anyone who feels the need to work on the finer points of their game will certainly appreciate FIA 2004's practice mode. This feature has been bounced around quite a bit during FIFA's history. Sometimes it's included, sometimes it's missing in action, and sometimes it appears without an option to practice alone on the pitch. This year's version has it all, going so far as to offer "urban" and "rural" settings, complete with appropriate neighborhood sound effects.
Speaking of audio, FIFA 2004 is wonderful in this regard. For starters, the game ships with more than a dozen cool musical tracks that run the gamut from Brit pop to golden oldies, electronica, and world music. Back in the broadcast booth for another go is John Motson, this time with Ally McCoist. Though the game has trouble pumping out the phraseology quickly enough for frantic action sequences, both Motsen and McCoist deliver a good flow of dialogue that seems less rigid and more improvised than that found in prior editions. Laughter and good-natured bantering are not uncommon. For the 2004 edition, EA Sports has recorded 300 individual crowd chants that really add local flavor to the contests. Too bad the crowds don't wave banners and flags as they did in previous years.
It should be noted that FIFA's normally superb replay component has been downgraded. Most critically, manual camera control has inexplicably become more difficult to operate. Furthermore, replay saves are not permitted without downloading and installing the first of what are likely to be several patches. You'll also need to download this patch if you want to customize your controller. If you don't, you're stuck with EA Sports' preconfigured button setup. With any luck, future patches will address some of the game's other issues.
Three players bask in the afterglow of a well-driven shot.
Multiplayer fans will undoubtedly rejoice over FIFA 2004's EA Sports Online compatibility. Sure, it will cost you a few bucks after your 14-day trial has expired, but never has finding human competition been easier. We logged-in and sourced a likely candidate within 30 seconds. Granted, we were annihilated 5-0, but we were able to start up another game, following the conclusion of the first one, within another half-minute. Of course, one of the benefits of playing another human is that you won't have to endure a fully AI-controlled side. In this respect, it's a wholly different game. Happily, our frame rates remained reasonable and lag times were bearable in both our online jaunts. That's not to say the game doesn't slow down some. It does, but it doesn't slow down so much that you'll want to pull the plug.
All in all, FIFA 2004 seems to take several steps forward, while at the same time it takes a few steps back. It definitely does not push the gameplay to the high level that so many FIFA fans have waited for it to reach. Still, it is in many ways the best soccer game to be found on the PC. If you're a soccer buff who's never played the game on your PC, it will surely be a positive experience. If you're a returning veteran, you may want to weigh the game's new perks against some of its downfalls before you set down your hard-earned cash.
