I should mention up front that FIFA 08 is where I came back in as a FIFA player. More than that, in fact, it is the source of an achievement I have not managed since. I mostly played online games of it, and appreciated its ranking system, crude though it was compared to later editions. I made progress and for one brief time, I was officially in the top 1,000 players in the world. It felt good! The top 1,000 players in the world of the significantly-less-popular Wii version of FIFA 08, that is. Still, keep that in mind as I appreciate the game…
What’s new in FIFA 08?
The game presents its new control bits in a tutorial video, so they’re easy to check on. One is adding a bit more player control to through balls and crosses, which is just a further attempt at the the age-old football game conundrum of how best to balance helping you play well with giving you control. In FIFA 08 it’s not yet been completely sussed out, but there is at least an improvement, making for effective play without the feeling of a heavy virtual hand on your shoulder. In a similarly motivated but more pointless move, you can also take control of your goalkeeper at any time, regardless of whether there’s any really need for anything beyond the goalkeeper-charge-at-the-ball function triangle already fulfilled. Elsewhere there are some more tweaks to the game modes for those really into a specific one, for instance in adding co-op to the control-one-footballer Be A Pro mode.
Then there’s the best change in FIFA 08, which is that when you’re not on the ball you now have two ways of changing player. One is the usual L1 to change to whoever’s nearest the ball. The second is to take the right analogue stick — previously pretty useless when defending — and point in the direction of the player you want. This was not something anyone was particularly crying out for, but it solves a minor annoyance present in football video games for more than a decade, and does it in a way which to its further credit feels nothing but obvious in retrospect.
Who is on the cover?
Wayne Rooney of Manchester United and Ronaldinho of Barcelona. For a third year running, again reinforcing continuity. The added artistic effect this time is a kind of paint spatter thing which is a nice idea but looks worse the more you look at it. Although possibly looking at it in a post Street Fighter IV world isn’t helping. Other countries in Europe got a reversal with Ronaldinho facing forward, which is funny.
What’s on the soundtrack?
2007 was absolutely prime territory for what became known as landfill indie, a particularly endless stream of laddish British retro rock. Notably, and contrary to previous years, FIFA 08 has basically none of it despite pulling on several adjacent threads. Maxïmo Park and Art Brut are as close as it gets, but both sit at the artiest, archest end. And while some credit goes to the music industry more widely rather than FIFA 08 specifically, it’s nice to see it help expand who might be treated as cool indie, and that it could easily include Santigold and CSS and not just white British men.
Who is the best player in the game?
This time around the position in shared by three players, with a perfect bit of handing of the torch towards a world where “who is the best player in the world?” is a debate with only two contenders. Lined up on 91:
- Ronadinho (Barcelona, CAM) taking over from Wayne Rooney as the one from the cover.
- Gianluigi Buffon (Juventus, GK) for a third successive year.
- Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United, CAM), with Lionel Messi inevitably not far behind in ratings.
They get some special symbols on their profiles, but still aren’t yet the joker cards in game that Pro Evolution Soccer was doing a bit more with at this point.
Who is the worst player in the game?
Francesco Della Rocca (Bologna, CM) rated 33. Once again this role falls to a promising young footballer in a lower division who got added at a fairly young age, although he wouldn’t quite have been a teenager any more when the game came out. In reality Della Rocca had a decent, if not particularly consistent, decade plus career on the edges of top flight Italian football across a whole range of teams. Pleasingly for a notable video game appearance, he is one of a pair of footballing Della Roccas along with his brother Luigi.
What do the players look like?
While EA hadn’t really been demonstrating any new tricks on this front on PS2 for a while, I think their experiences with HD consoles may have fed back to the predecessor. On starting my first match I was immediately greeted with a startlingly lifelike Dimitar Berbatov, looking precisely the right level of ready to pull off an outrageously chip while smoking a metaphorical cigar. He did have something of the flat face to him which other players also suffer from, which only increased the uncanniness.
How does it play?
A bit goal-heavy than FIFA 07, a bit slower, that little bit more realistic and varied. I don’t know if it’s partly that this is where I can back in, or if it is a particularly wise set of changes, but this is a big jump up in terms of how much things feel like modern day FIFA. Which perhaps also makes the style feel all positive in a way which it wouldn’t if they’d come up with something better later, but I still like it. The basic feel of playing FIFA would see fewer changes in the 15 years between then and now than across the 5 previous years, never mind between the beginning and 08.
How does it score on the sepp-blatter-rain-of-banknotes.gif greed index?
The refinements are limited but smart, and at least there hadn’t already been other FIFA games the same year. 0.2 sepp-blatter-rain-of-banknotes.gifs.
If FIFA 08 was a football team at the time, who would it be?
Still rolling on with confidence, still Manchester United.
Top of the charts for week ending 29 September 2007:
Top of the charts for week ending 13 October 2007:
Top of the charts for week ending 5 January 2008:
