Here is where it all kicks off. It’s not much of a spoiler to say that this is the first entry in a series I will be writing about a lot. Made in a Canadian studio of American giant Electronic Arts, it was put together on a relatively low budget and put out without too much in the way of expectations of popularity. In Europe, and the UK specifically, it very quickly exceeded those expectations.
FIFA International Soccer does not attempt to compete directly with the frenzied gameplay of Sensible Soccer. “It’s in the game,” the indelible words spoken in an American accent over FIFA loading screens forever, are a claim towards capturing the totality of the sport. Slick as its presentation is, though, FIFA International Soccer can’t offer much obvious authenticity upgrade on all of the other football sims at the realistic end of the scale around it. Especially when the only licence it’s using at this point is the one to the name of the sport’s governing body. The international teams you can play as are each sets of the familiar identical clones, and the clones don’t even have real player names. I played FIFA International Soccer back in the ‘90s, alongside many, many other football games, and didn’t end up giving it much of my time. So why is FIFA the series that made it? Partly it’s as simple as having created a memorable brand identity that wasn’t too tied into a specific event or team to extend over time, but there’s obviously more to it.
One factor was the rarity of being a quality football game specifically made for consoles, with the Mega Drive controller’s three buttons offering options beyond even the cleverest use of single button Amiga ones. The division of passing and shooting to separate buttons would remain standard. Even with three buttons, FIFA International Soccer makes each one do different things in different contexts. The box shows a couple of player animation sequences, laid out in a line frame by frame, a row of the same player at different stages of an overhead kick and diving header. This is indicative of where EA managed to set their game apart. The action is floaty and stodgy in a way that’s familiar from other realistic football sims, until all of a sudden it isn’t. FIFA International Soccer does a lot with animations worked out in advance, with taking your button presses and turning them into something depending on context. It takes away freedom and in return offer you assistance to the spectacular.
Italy 1990 and Manchester United Europe lent themselves to scrappy goals that took a lot of effort and still felt like accidents; FIFA International Soccer rarely offers anything else than fantastic goals, even if they are largely accidental. Playing it again, the first goal I scored was a long-range screamer. It’s not the first football game to put an emphasis on the show, but its commitment is deeper and more integrated and more effective as a result.
Ultimately, though, the question of FIFA’s world-beating success can’t be explained with FIFA International Soccer alone. There are still too many important steps ahead in any explanation. At this stage, if sequels hadn’t done more than this game does, it could have all gone very differently. EA had scored an early win, but the competition was just getting underway.
Historic all-formats console chart provided to Gamesradar by Chart-Track