FIFA 2008 Hands-on Preview

BY Nicholas Rego | POSTED: 05 August 2007

A sneak peek at EA’s latest sporting number.



As 2007 draws to a close, the slew of ’08 games are almost ready to hit the market. Right on cue, Electronic Arts is gearing up to release the much anticipated FIFA 08, along with a host of their other regular sporting games. I sat down with a preview build of FIFA 08 for the PS2 to see what EA was bringing out in their latest installment to the FIFA franchise.

The FIFA games have long been a hit with soccer fans for their sense of realism and real-life playable characters. With each installment in the series, EA has tweaked their overall formula to deliver the best soccer experience for gamers. I was pleased to find that the 08 installment contained much of EA’s loyalty to the FIFA series, and even though this was an early preview, the game already looks quite promising.

The game is fairly easy to pick up and play, and helpful instructional videos direct new players on how to pass to team members, score a goal, etc. If you’ve played previous installments of FIFA, you’ll quickly pick up on how well the AI players react to your movements, so you’re going to spend a fair amount of time dodging opponents instead of just blindly running to the end of the field to score a goal. It’s worth mentioning though that you won’t be facing a barrage of AI players trying to take the ball away from you. Instead, you will find that rather than pursue your players, the AI team strategically moves around the field to create a better defense, so you really have to work hard to find a window of a chance to score a goal. Compared with other soccer games that have AI players constantly trying to rob the ball from your players, the AI in this game is more subtle, and in a way cautious.

Moving with the ball and passing to your team mates feels less clunky in this installment, and you can control the amount of force you apply when scoring, so you can aim for that perfect goal. But possibly the coolest feature of FIFA 08 is the ability to ‘freeze’ the camera when handling a free kick. In the past, it has been ridiculously easy for a second player to predict where you’re scoring, making the free kick somewhat useless. But with FIFA 08, the game allows you to freeze the camera so that your opponent assumes that you’re kicking in a particular direction. You can then move your player accordingly to tweak where you’d like to score, and your pad will vibrate if your shot is going to go outside the goal. Needless to say after a few tries, you can easily perfect this technique of scoring, and ensure that your free kicks aren’t in vain.

There are a slew of teams and leagues available for you to try out, and the game also offers in-depth tweaking for various player attributes, so professional gamers will really go wild. The two-player mode offers plenty of game hours, and you can hook up with other players online via EA’s online gaming network. You can of course take the game to the next level by deciding to become a manager and looking after your own team. This included everything from arranging friendly matches against other clubs to signing the right team sponsor – there is definitely plenty to keep you busy. Various other game modes are available, such as the ‘Lounge’ mode, where you can play a regular game but with ‘Cheap shots’ enabled. The Challenge mode is quite good, and challenges range from keeping ball control for a set period of time, to scoring a particular number of goals within a time limit etc.

Given the fact that this is a game running on the PS2, the developers have managed to pull it off quite nicely. Player animations and movements are smooth, though there were a few noticeable bugs when the camera switched to the goalie’s view, but given that this is a preview build, these are likely to be ironed out in the final release. From the way the game looks now, FIFA 08 looks set to be another worthy addition for the series, and a definite must-have for soccer fanatics.