How nice - it's not even '97 and the new game's
come out already. EASports have released a
whole new series of new sports simulations - Triple Play, NHL
Hockey '97 and of course what I'm
reviewing now Fifa '97, plus a whole lot more. Perhaps some of
you might follow the general
rule of upgrading: buy every alternate upgrade, and you won't
miss much. Of course the games
could only loosely be construed as upgrades but you get the
picture. However that wouldn't be
wise in this case - the technology has improved greatly from last
year, just as it has from the
previous few years. The players are now modeled in 3D from motion
captured sequences, making
the action look superbly real. In a sense this has improved
player detail, but sometimes I'd
rather not see the close-ups: the players now look like clones of
each other. Perhaps they
might use proper texture mapping the next time. It's rather eerie
at times, if you know what I
mean. What's worse their expressions are fixed, so while a back
shot of the players
celebrating after a goal may look alright, it'll look extremely
disturbing from the front. The
revenge of the moving mannequins... yikes. All in all, it's a
good thing. However extra realism
also means that now there's a little less arcade action in the
game. Last year we could just
pass with the press of a button, shoot by just releasing the
shoot button. Now there's a time
lapse as the player draws back his leg; that little lapse may be
enough for the opponent to
steal the ball. Whether that's good or bad, I'm not deciding. It
says that there are now three
commentators; true enough, I guess, but it's still mainly John
Motton most of the time, with a
little and very repetitive insight from his Scottish colleague
Andy Gray, plus the introduction
done by Desmond Leighman. While improving the realism of the
commentating somewhat on the first go, the more lengthy
introductions get rather repetitive very soon. Network play is
now
supported - however the manual is still very skimpy on the
details. Porting this thing to
Windows '95 has been a really good thing for me; now I don't have
to reboot all the time - and
one more very very good point, this means that the Microsoft
Sidewinder Pro is now totally
supported - well 6 of the buttons anyway. You'll notice that I
did say something about the
pathetic joystick support in Fifa '96 somewhere in my other
SharewareJunkie reviews. Control
has also improved; I used to have plenty of trouble trying to
keep running in a straight line
with the joystick in '96, but now it's a lot simpler - just have
the joystick somewhere on the
mark for Semi Pro and straight goes the player. Really nice.
Players can also opt for complex
or simple sets of controls plus individual difficulty settings: a
new player might even the
playing gap by choosing a Beginner level with a seasoned Fifa
gamer with a Pro level setting.
Back to Win '95, EA Sports hasn't left the rest of you without it
out of the gaming: there is
another version for DOS users. There is hardly any difference
between DOS and Windows gaming
anymore. Oh yes before I forget, there are new features, such as
player transfers, but don't
expect Championship Manager 2, in case you were wondering. Plus a
new indoor mode, 5 on 5
(well 6 on 6 if you count the keeper) in something resembling a
basketball court. It's sort of
a mix between ice hockey and football - the ball just rebounds
off the walls; no throw-ins, no
corner kicks. Since the court is smaller, action is amazingly
frantic - and flank play won't
work as well as it does on a soccer field. Amazing stuff - they
could have made a whole
different game out of it. Play it with a friend with fouls off
and man that's a real blast. Oh
one more thing: the American league is now properly entered; last
year they only had 4 teams I
believe; now there're almost as many as you'd have in an NBA
simulation. Thumbs up here - it's
definitely better than '96 by a whole lot. I'll be hopping out
and buying this as soon as I
can: so, a network game, anyone?
(you need a high-end
Pentium though; no VGA mode.)
(very good but I won't rate anything full
unless I'm
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