Soccer fans such as myself have worshipped EA Sports ever since that company's 1993 release of FIFA International Soccer for console systems. After years of suffering through such abominations as Pele Soccer, which was so bad it threatened to make American football the most popular sport in the world, FIFA restored our faith in the basic premise that sports games - even soccer - can be entertaining.
Since 1993, EA has released two PC versions of FIFA. Given the fact that IE failed to cover the original FIFA game when it was released last year (the persons responsible for sacking the persons responsible for that particular mistake have been sacked), we're going to spend this time talking about FIFA Soccer 96 without any confusing references to the first PC game. If you really must know, the new FIFA has all of the features of the original, and looks and plays better.
The reason FIFA was such a godsend is that it was the first soccer game that allowed you to control the players well enough to employ basic strategies. For you American football fans out there who think Frank Gifford is an intellectual, the key to good soccer, on any level, is ball control. Whether you're watching your kid's 5th-grade team chase the ball up and down the field or watching Brazil humiliate the U.S. in a World Cup match, the team that keeps the ball the most usually wins. FIFA's design allows you to do this, which means you can move the ball up and down the field in any style which suits you - short, crisp passes; long passes to your wings down the field that you hope will catch the defense by surprise; or a variety of choices in between.
In and of itself, this makes FIFA worth buying, but the game's package includes a lot more than outstanding gameplay. You'll enjoy the music literally from the opening screen. The most joyous soccer fans in the world are the Brazilians, who treat every game they attend as a wild party. The designers made a very wise choice in selecting that samba style of music as FIFA's basic background.
The game's graphics are up to EA Sports usual standards - uniformly excellent. All of the game menus look clean and crisp, and there's a hi-res gameplay option which has to be seen to be believed. You need to have a P60 or better to enjoy this view without a jerky frame rate, but it's a joy to watch. Best of all, you can change back and forth between hi- and lo-res on the fly while you're actually playing the game. You can also jump back and forth between seven different camera angles on the fly during the game. Those same views are available when you're watching an instant replay.
Your choice of teams includes a wide variety of international sides, along with clubs from 11 different leagues around the world. They've even included a U.S. league, which is an act of faith since it isn't scheduled to begin play until this spring. These different teams are available for you to use in four different modes of play.
In friendly matches, you simply jump in, pick your team and the opponent, and square off. If you need some help, you can go to the "create team" option in friendly mode and build a super-team that will compensate for your lack of hand-eye coordination. League play puts you in charge of a club that is competing for a championship. Tournament play is similar to the World Cup in that teams are divided into divisions for the first round. The top two teams from each division, plus four wildcards, move on to a single-elimination playoff. If you don't want to play through an entire tournament to get to that point, you can set up your own playoff from the main menu.
All in all, there isn't much to complain about with FIFA. The biggest problem I had was that the game kept killing me when I first started to play it. This was particularly frustrating because I am the king of my SNES version of the game at home. If this happens to you, don't worry - you'll eventually get the hang of it. The best piece of advice I could give you is NOT to do what I did and dive right into playing. Take advantage of the practice mode and get used to the game. If you don't have some sort of four-button PC gamepad, FIFA is worth the investment. This game doesn't play nearly as well on the keyboard or with a joystick. If I have one major complaint about FIFA, it's over the fact that the designers included modem play, but didn't put in a network option. This denies me the inalienable right to crush my co-workers.
In case you haven't figured it out yet, I'm recommending this game very highly. Even if you aren't a soccer fan, FIFA Soccer 96 should appeal to you. The game's optional settings allow you to get rid of the oft-confusing rules and play it as more of a sports action title. Even if you think soccer is a sissy sport, get past that and buy the game. You'll really enjoy it.
