Soccer Gaming

This article is penned by new Soccer Gaming Team Member and our official EA Sports Correspondant for the 2010/11 gaming season, Michael Restarick. Michael will be contributing the latest news and views from the EA Sports camp with the build up for FIFA 11 begining to take shape. His opening piece looks at an issue that has plagued many video game developers over the years, Goalkeepers. Michael’s contact details for the latest news will be made available in due course, but I would like to welcome Michael to Soccer Gaming.

Goalkeeping mistakes are part and parcel of the modern game, an argument no doubt strongly supported by Robert Green, Massimo Taibi and numerous other personnel who have endured the red-face treatment over the years. Yet there’s something about in-game mistakes that feel so…unnecessary.  A quick look on a certain video-sharing website will reveal the extent to which FIFA 10 and previous instalments in the FIFA franchise were plagued with goalkeeping bugs, errors and glitches. Yes, there’s something undeniably funny when it isn’t your keeper who watches intently as the ball bounces off his hands and harmlessly into the goal, or races out to save the day only to let the ball pass through his own legs, slip and leave the goal-mouth gaping wide open. But when it’s your own keeper who stands idle as a cross zips inches over his head, you find yourself growing increasingly agitated and screaming blue murder at the telly. In short, it hinders the enjoyment factor by provoking a frustrating experience of what is otherwise an excellent game.

Let’s get one thing clear, mind – I’m not suggesting that the goalkeepers in the forthcoming FIFA 11 should be one hundred percent perfect. Granted, it is arguably the most complicated position on the pitch for a football game to get right from a technical standpoint. What they should be, however, is a realistic interpretation of what a real-life keeper might do. For instance, whilst some players will confidently come and claim crosses that enter their penalty area, others will hesitantly flap in the hope of making some form of contact with the ball. The point is that they react appropriately to their surroundings, or at least try to. If it all goes wrong and the ball ends up in the back of the net then that’s life, but to not react at all just acts as a startling reminder you’re just sat in front of the TV playing a game. FIFA 10 all too often left you feeling helpless and inactive where goalkeepers were concerned. It removed that element of total control that made the outfield play flow so effortlessly in the direction you wanted it to.
Anyone will tell you that a game quickly loses its appeal when the challenge faced is too easy or too hard. Everyone loves smashing a few goals past a rival opponent – it’s an integral part of what makes the FIFA franchise so addictive - but you can’t help but feel you’ve cheated somehow when you score a cheap goal courtesy of a gaming glitch or poor AI.  The same can’t be said for when you send a screamer past your mate’s helpless goalkeeper into the top corner. It’s just a matter of careful balance. Thankfully¸ EA are taking note of this kind of thing. In an interview on the Official EA Sports Football World website, Creative Director Gary Paterson explains how the studio are looking to take heed of the feedback regarding goalkeepers in an attempt to improve FIFA 11:

“More feedback that we’ve had for FIFA 10 was around the goalkeeper and around the chip shots. A lot of people found it very easy to execute a chip shot. They found the goalkeeper didn’t help the situation by creeping off his line, and while creeping off the line is good in some ways because emotionally it forced you into a decision-making process…the chip was just way too easy, and the way the goalkeeper dealt with the chip wasn’t very good….[In FIFA 11] we’ve made it so that you really have to be composed before you execute a very good chip shot; you can’t do it off your weak foot, you can’t do it if there’s a lot of pressure on you, if you’re off balance and things like this.
…Further on the goalkeeper, it’s not just the chip shot we’ve re-addressed. There are loose ball situations with the goalkeeper that people have been commenting on and we’re reworking some of the AI on [those]…also the goalkeeper doesn’t deal well with balls that come across him; he’s fine if the ball comes towards him, but not if it comes across him. Again, we’re trying to address those situations. We’ve actually assigned an engineer on to the goalkeeper full-time for the whole year and we’re hoping to address a lot of those concerns people have raised.”

All sounds very promising then. At the very least, it’s good to know that EA are focussing their efforts more on goalkeeping issues this time around, when previously there’s seemed to have been a much greater focus on outfield, attacking play. It might seem like a minor issue to pick up on, but for all the pomp and ceremony about improved passing physics and new gameplay features, realistic goalkeepers can make or break a game. As frustrating as they are, though, goalkeepers make mistakes at crucial moments and always will. It’s equally as true to state that no goalkeeper is unbeatable all of the time. The challenge, then, for a game like FIFA 11, as always, is trying to achieve that perfect balance between mind-numbingly simple and infuriatingly difficult goalkeepers that has previously proved elusive to the FIFA franchise. With the addition of EA’s ‘Creation Centre’, achieving such a feat could be the key to cementing FIFA’s position at the top of the football gaming scene once and for all.  Here’s hoping that the latest instalment is a step in the right direction.

FIFA 11 is released on September 28th in North America and October 1st in Europe and Asia