In Tom Ewing’s Popular, the blog detailing every song to have reached #1 in the UK singles chart which is the biggest inspiration for this project, he has to write about fourteen Westlife singles. On reaching the first one, he called Westlife “this blog’s nemesis, the doom encoded in its premise”. I have a similar feeling as I look at the FIFA dynasty stretching before me. If only I had a mere fourteen ahead! With one notable exception I will be covering a FIFA game for each year I get to, plus more spin-offs besides, all adding up to more than twice as many #1s as Westlife.
There is a fascinating tale to tell, of a sport reaching ever-greater heights of global domination with Britain (or at least England) at the forefront, sold at a similarly increasing scale in video game form to the British by North Americans. That tale, though, plays out across the sweep of the games over the years more than in any individual one. Like most Westlife singles, between each year’s version of FIFA and the next there aren’t a whole lot of differences. To reflect this, I am going to use the same set of questions for each of my posts about them to highlight the changes, over the short and long term.
What’s new in FIFA Soccer 95?
No longer is it FIFA International Soccer, both in the sense of it no longer being in the name and in that FIFA Soccer 95 features club teams from a range of different countries, as well as more different modes to allow you to play the top-level domestic leagues of Brazil, England, France, etc..
What’s gone?
No more tossing a coin at the start of the match to determine who kicks off, a part of the sport’s ritual for which FIFA now fails to live up to the marketing phrase “if it’s in the game, it’s in the game”.
What’s stayed?
As will often be the case, the answer is pretty much everything. Despite the move away from unnecessary fripperies the tossing of the coin toss might indicate, the bowling alley-style scoreboard animations after each goal remain, and remain annoying. The camera view remains fixed and isometric, and the player you are controlling is still indicated by a rather unnecessarily showy star shape around their feet.
Who is on the cover?
Erik Thorstvedt, goalkeeper, of Tottenham Hotspur and Norway. I guess they just liked the sort-of-spectacular photo of him mid-dive. Since there are no real players in the game, it makes sense not to go for anyone too recognisable.
What’s on the soundtrack?
Some lively and inventive electro-jazz which nonetheless takes its role of sinking into the background very seriously. Composed by Jeff Dyck, a Canadian like most of those working on FIFA 95.
Who is the best player in the game?
Again, FIFA 95 doesn’t have real players, even if it has real club teams with vaguely correct colours. I’m also not sure if it gives its players an overall ability rating. Skill is the first one of many attributes that comes up and sounds like it could be, though. A quick perusal of FIFA 95’s top rated international teams found the following players with the rating of 99 which I assume is the highest:
M. Pitzos (defender, Brazil)
B. Millano (forward, Brazil)
J. Santamaria (midfielder, Italy)
M. Pizol (midfielder, Italy)
H. Schmidt (goalkeeper, Germany)
S. Reicher (defender, Germany)
There may well be more; there were certainly a lot of players in those teams rated 98, with no sign yet of the idea of particularly distinguished stars.
Who is the worst player in the game?
Turning to the worst teams in the game – Qatar, India, Angers – there are any number of players with a rating of 60, so no one stands out on this front.
What do the players look like?
FIFA 95 doesn’t pull away from the identical clone approach to footballers, with team-mates interchangeable with each other in build and appearance. Not necessarily interchangeable with their opponents, though – there is some variation between teams in skin colour, if nothing else, which is an improvement on the all-white days of Italy 1990.If you hammer the C button to go through the menus as quick as possible and get to the default match-up, you will get a rematch of the 1994 World Cup final featuring an entirely olive-toned Italy team against a much darker-skinned Brazil team. As an example of the accuracy as far as what teams are wearing goes, let’s note that the turquoise shorts and yellow socks Brazil are depicted in are close but distinctly off-brand.
How does it play?
Much like the original, FIFA 95 doesn’t lend itself to a particularly free-flowing type of football, but makes use of canned animations and a bit of blatant artificial assistance to let you pull off the spectacular with ease. Overhead kicks are all very well, but if passing to another player without running out of space is more of a challenge and it feels like you’re constantly travelling through treacle, it’s still not particularly satisfying. Fouls are turned off by default, which suggests someone learned something from Speedball, and the button combo which allows you to commit more blatant off-the-ball shoves is a guilty joy.
How does it score on the sepp-blatter-rain-of-banknotes.gif greed index?
If you paid for FIFA 95, you got a game, which was unambiguously a new game despite obvious similarities to its predecessor. It scores zero sepp-blatter-rain-of-banknotes.gifs.
If FIFA 95 was a football team at the time, who would it be?
Stodgy with sporadic acts of violence – Vinnie Jones-era Wimbledon.
Historical console chart supplied to Gamesradar by Chart-Track