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FIFA 14 next-gen might be the game that finally pushes FIFA into Call of Duty territory. Every year it gets bigger, if not always better. This time around, the next-gen version is very good, (if a little rough around the edges in places, which I’ll get to in a bit). And it’s definitely getting bigger, because it’s going to be on pretty much every pre-ordered Xbox One sold in Europe.
That is a massive coup for Microsoft, even if they probably paid all the world’s money for it, and FIFA 14 next-gen isn’t going to disappoint. It feels faster, but also a little more intricate than the current-generation version, and the added visuals offered by the Xbox One (and, presumably, the PlayStation 4 version) brings the new animations – runs, flicks, passes – to life. It feels like the next step FIFA has really needed to take for years but couldn’t, hampered by the elongated console cycle.
It means there’s been a mitigation of the traditional FIFA problem of animations ‘locking’, causing frustration, and although some of that persists, it seems far less prevalent than before. Crossing, heading and shooting are also more responsive, weighty and realistic. Passing is still inferior to PES, but on the whole it’s a good recreation of the sport.
FIFA 14 on Xbox One would have been massive without all of that, of course. But even if it was literally the worst game ever made, if the disc contained nothing more than an image of Lionel Messi fellating himself wearing tutu made out of shit-stained Jim Davidson masks, it would still be a hit. It always is. But this is different.
FIFA 14 could very well be Xbox One’s Wii Sports.
