EA Sports FC 24: Brand New Name, Same Old FIFA

EA Sports has announced FC 24, the first non-FIFA soccer game since the once-famous split last year. But don’t expect a virtual pitch revolution with this huge budget rebrand. In exchange, expect a welcome quality of life improvement, some positive gameplay tweaks, and significant changes to Ultimate Team that could shake up the competitive online meta dramatically. please give me.

After experiencing FC 24 hands-on, it’s safe to say that this year’s game looks and feels pretty much what you’d expect from FIFA 24. FC 24 has a lot of new animations and there are always new animations. You will notice them during gameplay. For example, Erling Haaland’s stunning karate kick goal against Man City’s former club Borussia Dortmund in last season’s Champions League will feature in the match. Harland’s distinctive running style is similar, swinging his long arms behind his arched back.

FC 24 has a long list of playstyles that further improve players in certain areas. They’re also on the Ultimate Team, which is the inevitable Team of the Week Haaland (I don’t blame EA Sports for drenching FC 24 with everything, given the season he just spent). may contain a Power Header PlayStyle. The world’s most powerful goal machine needs more power.

Brand-wise, the FC 24 ‘PlayStyles’ logo has a diamond between ‘Play’ and ‘Styles’. This is reflected in-game. When the player has the ball, you’ll see the player’s Play (insert diamond here) Style pop up overhead. It’s a bit distracting and rather pointless. A player, especially his Ultimate Team fan, knows what playstyle his player has. When you get tired of this visual indicator, it’s best to turn it off.

Will these PlayStyles, especially the special PlayStyles+, eventually overwhelm you? It is hoped that the sheer number of them will help keep the gameplay balanced. Of concern is the encouragement of a single scoring method, especially seen as integral to online play. The hands-on build only included two men’s teams (Man City and his PSG) and two women’s teams (Chelsea and Lyon), each packed with highly rated players. , it was difficult to determine whether any particular player benefited more. Added PlayStyle. But these power-ups will probably make a difference in high-level online play.

More interesting on the pitch side is the addition of precision passing input commands. There are 3 types (I’m using PlayStation controls here): Precision Pass (R1 + Through Ball). Precision Rob (R1 + Rob). And swerve precision pass (L2 + R1 + through ball). Each type draws a line on the pitch that indicates the direction of the upcoming pass. In-game, these passes feel like old-school manual passes, so they’re not a completely new idea. Difficult to land, especially Swerved His Precision Pass forces you to take a slightly clawed stance when used with the DualSense controller. But they are very rewarding. EA Sports took inspiration from Kevin De Bruyne (yes, another Man City player. Senior Game Design Director and Man City Lifeline Matt. He liked this one too. must be). According to EA Sports, the midfield maestro’s delicious pass, a pass that splits defenses that confuses cameramen as much as unlucky opponents, is now possible. Perhaps here lies the real skill gap of FC 24. It’s not found in big-brain tactics or meta-positive Team of the Week cards, but in mastering the wrist-straining swerved precision pass.

The new Controlled Sprint deserves your attention. Thankfully it’s triggered by a simple input command (Hold R1 on PlayStation). This dribbles the ball at a slower pace than sprinting, but fast enough to get the attention of defenders. Again inspiration comes from Man City players with a knack for touching the ball at the last millisecond from a defender’s outstretched leg. Consider the dribbling expertise of Bernardo Silva, Phil Foden and Jack Grealish. Controlled sprints on the virtual pitch are very comfortable and satisfying to escape a tackle at the last minute. An equally powerful frustration arises when you are on the receiving end.

When it comes to stretched legs, we can see defenders having more impact on the ball than they did last year. This is a trait of some defenders known for their interceptions and blocks. Imagine Liverpool’s Andrew Robertson tucking in front of an attacker trying to slam the ball into an empty net (finally leaving Manchester’s blueside behind!). You’ll also notice that successful sliding sticks to his tackler’s legs instead of bouncing in random directions, as is common in FIFA 23. Goalkeepers also tend to keep a stabbing shot close to the goal instead of parrying it. Away, as is often the case in FIFA.

But more than that, the gameplay experience of FC 24 is very similar to that of FIFA 23. The latest version of EA Sports’ motion capture technology is called HyperMotion V (V stands for volumetric data), but it’s hard to feel any significant impact from this in-game. The visuals are a little better, but to be brutally honest, FC 24 looks a lot like FIFA 23 when you actually play the match. Well, aside from the new augmented reality stats that pop up above the pitch when play is interrupted. Want to know where the last five shots (all Harland’s, no doubt) came from? You may notice it when the keeper prepares for the goal kick. Want to see the top five most tired players? FC 24 might highlight them as they prepare for throw-ins in the second half. Such overlay statistics are numerous and frequently displayed. The goal here is to provide useful information to the player in the flow of the match and reduce the likelihood of hitting pause and fumbling through menus. Great idea, but it can be a little distracting.

Graphical improvements are more noticeable in cutscenes such as replays. Here, player faces, especially those of famous players, are really close to photorealistic (the unintentionally hilarious Ultimate Edition cover was not indicative of in-game graphics). There is such a thing as “GPU cross”. This means that creases in the tops and shorts become more realistic as the player moves around. The player’s physique will be more realistic. For example, former Wolverhampton his Wanderers winger Adama his Traoré looks more like a bodybuilder in his FC 24 than in FIFA 23. Hands and fingers are more realistic. I get it, AI.

If you’re excited about the menus, you’ll find yourself overwhelmed by the gameplay changes. Anyone who has played a FIFA game for any length of time will tell you that the menus are annoying. It’s slow to load, cumbersome to navigate, and boring to watch. To EA Sports’ credit, EA Sports used his switch to FC as an opportunity to overhaul their menu. Given that the hands-on took place in an offline environment, it’s impossible to say if it loads faster at this point, but the new vertical orientation at least means it’s easier to navigate. You’ll also see “live video” within the menu, which is great.

EA Sports also deserves credit for adding women to Ultimate Team (this can’t be called FUT anymore…so it’s just UT?). This alone is a pivotal moment for one of FIFA’s most popular and most controversial modes, but the developers have taken it a step further by mixing men and women to play together in Ultimate Team for the first time. It’s a great decision, but it’s already sparked a vulgar, sexist, and misogynistic response online in the name of “credibility.” Yes, FIFA and now FC are pitched as soccer simulations, and EA Sports claims reliability is one of its tenets. But the developers also correctly recognize what Ultimate Team is really about: a fantasy. This is a mode where active and retired players (including dead players!) can play on the same team in stadiums filled with cartoon decorations. But it’s also the mode in which promo cards call for an end to disbelief. FIFA 23 has transformed some of the biggest names into Marvel superheroes. Argentinian legend Javier Mascherano has turned into an ‘Octobos’ and former England striker Peter Crouch has become a real robot. This is a makeover inspired by his famous goal celebration. Meanwhile, the Shapeshifters promotion gives players crazy position changes and massive stat boosts. A goalie can be an outfield player, or an outfield player can play inside the goal. One of the best strikers in the ultimate team right now is former Chelsea goalkeeper Petr Cech. TRUE.

So it should come as no surprise to learn that in FC’s Ultimate Team, the women’s card stats are related to the competition in which the player is playing. This means Chelsea star forward Sam Kerr, who dominates the Women’s Super League, has stats he deserves at 91. – Ranked WSL players to Ultimate Team. Of course, female players tend to be shorter than male players (no doubt the effectiveness of height in FIFA is ported to FC as well) and leaner in physique, but they are often just as agile. is. In fact, the preview build confirmed this. The games between the men’s teams felt slower than the faster games between the women’s teams.

It’s too early to make any definitive statements about the Ultimate Team meta before launch (there’s nothing better than having tens of millions of players flood a competitive video game to mock a well-intentioned prediction) , does not go beyond the realm of possibilities. Female players with high evaluation will dominate the front line. What about the front three guys Sam Kerr, Ada Hegerberg and Alex Morgan?

Despite leaving FIFA, EA Sports signed hundreds of official FC 24 licenses. Juventus.