FIFA 99 brought to an end a run of several FIFA games that actually represented a significant advancement on their predecessor. FIFA 2000 gets back into making real changes, albeit in its most popular form limited by the aging hardware of the PlayStation.
What’s new in FIFA 2000?
Let’s go with the most important first: Through. Ball. Button. Press L1 and your player will pass the ball ahead of a team-mate rather than to them. It’s not surprising that this opens up an array of new options and improves gameplay no end, because International Superstar Soccer 64 already demonstrated that two years previously, but it’s still great to have. Allied to that is a slightly over-engineered pass advisor where arrows in traffic light colours indicate whether passing to a teammate in a particular direction is a good idea or not. And there are more celebration animations on scoring goals too.
Those don’t make the back of the box, whereas pressing different buttons to pass to specific players at set pieces does. Whatever. Also on the list there: shielding the ball (hold R1 for that one), ‘Physical Play’ which is a bit more abstract but I will get onto later, classic teams (a slight return for the bits in World Cup 98 where you could play as teams from past tournaments) and fully integrated seasons, i.e. playing through a club’s fixtures in both the league and cups. Sensible World of Soccer had that one too, never mind its more developed career mode.
What’s gone?
No more dive button.
What’s stayed?
The creaking menu presentation that’s been around since FIFA 98 is essentially unchanged. It’s fiddly for a PC with a mouse, never mind a console controller. Team and player editing still hasn’t gone yet, and FIFA 99’s semi-automatic goalkeepers stick around.
Who is on the cover?
Behind an even huger logo than FIFA 99‘s is Sol Campbell (England, D) chasing a ball in a staged way and wearing what looks like a cheap knock-off England kit due to the absence of the Umbro emblem and the simple design of the time. He becomes the first Black player to appear on the cover of a FIFA game, and as a young England star was kind of equivalent to David Beckham circa FIFA 98. Also since I didn’t note it for either of the last two, let’s point out that he wasn’t the cover star everywhere, with other European countries that also got the PAL region version of the game having their own localised choices.
What’s on the soundtrack?
Providing the main song is Robbie Williams with “It’s Only Us”. This was actually a new song specifically released to tie-in with the game (“it’s all kicking off”, he sings before launching into the chorus). After a short period of being exclusively available through the game, “It’s Only Us” was part of a double A-side with “She’s the One”, and reached the top of the UK singles chart alongside FIFA 2000’s third week at the top. It was also the first single I ever bought, and I did so for this charming if straightforward bit of pop-rock rather than the more famous ballad.
FIFA 2000 also marks the point where the licensed pop music soundtrack really becomes a thing for FIFA games, with the back of the front inlay advertising FIFA 2000: The Album, featuring Underworld, Supergrass, Bentley Rhythm Ace, Alice Deejay and others alongside Robbie’s song and video. For anyone who played FIFA 2000, the words “Stop the rock. Don’t stop the rock.” may bring back a lot of memories. The whole lot paints a picture of a game very squarely aimed at Britain above all.
Who is the best player in the game?
Thanks again to YouTuber Shade doing the work adding up the individual attribute ratings, I can tell you that it is that well known Inter striker… Number 9. The 1998 World Cup, where Ronaldo ended up not being the star, wasn’t so fresh in people’s memories, and FIFA 2000 reversed FIFA 99’s approach to his absence. This time, it draws further attention to it by not even giving him a proper name and also making him the best player in the game.
Who is the worst player in the game?
Probably one of the fine representatives of Singapore or Egyptian club Al Ahly, the latter from the game’s assortment of clubs from outside of its featured leagues.
What do the players look like?
The player edit screen now features a super-zoomed-in view of each player, the better to see… how similarly distorted and terrible everyone looks up close. Any chance of recognising anyone is by hairstyle alone. In-match, the players have a washed-out appearance that goes for the entire look of the game. This is probably a PS1-specific issue as I remember the PC version looking so much better; that may also be nostalgia speaking.
How does it play?
The addition of the through ball would be enough in itself to make the range of possibilities more enjoyable. FIFA 2000 has a lot more than that, though. The pass indicator isn’t essential but is useful often enough to be a happy addition, if only for a red arrow indicating a through ball is a better idea than another pass. More importantly, the game feels more balanced and it’s possible for a much wider range of strategies to work, with dribbles, passes and crosses all feeling worthwhile.
Best of all is the much increased sense of physical presence (I told you I’d come back to that one). Players seem more like they’re exerting actual movement rather than gliding along, and the ball moves and ricochets in a much more convincing way which again offers up further possibilities. Take a shot at a crowd of players and it might deflect off several rather than passing through them or sticking to one of them. That’s not totally new — I once scored a crucial goal in World Cup 98 by hitting a long range shot into the last defender’s forehead and knocking him over, leaving me with the ball and a clear path at goal — but it’s much better and more consistently realised. On the downside the new set pieces are needlessly fiddly, but that’s not a big setback. FIFA 2000 is the first FIFA game to stand up against the 3D International Superstar Soccer games on the merit of the gameplay alone without having to rely on all the extras it can offer.
How does it score on the sepp-blatter-rain-of-banknotes.gif greed index?
It’s a yearly update, but it makes a real effort to improve key gameplay elements and looks quite different (if not necessarily better). 0.2 sepp-blatter-rain-of-banknotes.gifs.
If FIFA 2000 was a football team at the time, who would it be?
Rejuvenated, formidable, almost all the big names – let’s go with the Champions League winners for the year, Real Madrid.
FIFA 2000 spent nine weeks at #1 (in two runs separated by the next game I’ll cover). Chart-toppers in other charts during that time after the page break…
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