A friend of mine bought FIFA 2004 yesterday for the XBOX, so I decided to drive him back home after work and to play a couple of games with him. Here's my impression:
When you insert the CD the intro starts (we've all seen that one by now) with the helicopter above the pitch, shining at the players. Nothing spectacular here.
The game starts with a teamselector, where I, off course, selected my favorite team AJAX. The menu that follows is quite cool, cause It shows the home- and the awayshirt of your team. The menu that follows is one we've all seen in recent screenshots. Clear and easy to understand.
I decided to play a friendly match with my friend. I noticed that you can only select these settings:
- Stadium
- Day/Night
- Minutes (standard = 6min)
I couldn't select the weather, which I hoped for, but maybe it'll be random when you play in carreer mode (haven't played that yet).
Graphics:
The game starts with a short intro where you can see the players walking onto the pitch, clapping their hands etc. The stadiums look quite impressive, much better than 2003! Especially evening matches look very cool!! The playermodels are also improved a lot. Some faces of players are really life-like. Same for the kits and the appropiate sponsors on the shirts!! Some faces though are still incorrect (why?????)!
The crowd still looks a bit crappy, but that's of course not the most important thing. The other thing that disappoints me are the ad-boards. They're a littlebit lo-res. Not that it's a shame, but everything looks very clean, except for the crowd and the ad-boards. It's like some company's didn't pay enough money to EA to put it in at a higher res
:P Same with the nets. The 'corners' of the goal move fluidly when scoring, but the rest of the goalnet hardly moves. Could've been improved over last year....... But it didn't.
Sound:
The sound is oke for what I've heard so far. The sound in a smaller stadium sounded different, which was very cool (you could hear the crowd mumbling, clapping, screaming etc!). The scoring sound also sounded different per stadium (volume). The crowd chants are also quite nice. You've really got the feeling you're playing in a stadium! I missed a penaltykick where I got a boooeeee from my crowd. Also when I hit the ball forward with no purpose at all, I get a booooee from the crowd. Sounds quite realistic!
Gameplay:
The game speed is just right! Not to fast, also not to slow. The players do their job. Where you couldn't run to a ball that was reflected in Fifa2003, you can run wherever you want now. So the gameplay is more dynamic. You can block shots etc. The shots where more realistic than in the PC demo for as I'm concerned. I didn't feel I was firing bullets. The heading system is definetly improved! I could even head the ball over my own bar when I was defending a corner! I've never seen this before in a FIFA (or other soccer) game!
The players react good! You can't pass a defender easily again. You can shoulderbarge your oponents by just walking and running aside of them. This is quite cool and it really depends on how the players abilities are.
When I played Ajax - Man. Utd. I lost 0-1 by a penalty by Ruud van Nistelrooij. When I played Barcelona against NAC Breda, I could feel that I was better. I could walk more easily and had more posession over the ball. This is also very realistic. More feeling that you are indeed playing a better team than your oponent, while it's more difficult when you play against a better team. The only thing that distirbs me a bit is the collisionsystem. In replays you don't really see why you made a foul! You didn't even touch your oponent When you're playing it looks okey though, but the replay just doesn't give you a good image of what happened.
Conclusion:
The game has DEFINETLY been improved over last year! Even more than 2003 was over 2002. Physics are better, game feels better, graphics have also been improved, sound is quite nice. You can notice the difference in player attributes and team strength now.... I just like the game!! It's not perfect, but it's nice to play!! Gonna wait for the PC version now
Graphics: 9
Sound:9
Gameplay:8.5
Game rating: 8.8
GreetZz!
When you insert the CD the intro starts (we've all seen that one by now) with the helicopter above the pitch, shining at the players. Nothing spectacular here.
The game starts with a teamselector, where I, off course, selected my favorite team AJAX. The menu that follows is quite cool, cause It shows the home- and the awayshirt of your team. The menu that follows is one we've all seen in recent screenshots. Clear and easy to understand.
I decided to play a friendly match with my friend. I noticed that you can only select these settings:
- Stadium
- Day/Night
- Minutes (standard = 6min)
I couldn't select the weather, which I hoped for, but maybe it'll be random when you play in carreer mode (haven't played that yet).
Graphics:
The game starts with a short intro where you can see the players walking onto the pitch, clapping their hands etc. The stadiums look quite impressive, much better than 2003! Especially evening matches look very cool!! The playermodels are also improved a lot. Some faces of players are really life-like. Same for the kits and the appropiate sponsors on the shirts!! Some faces though are still incorrect (why?????)!
The crowd still looks a bit crappy, but that's of course not the most important thing. The other thing that disappoints me are the ad-boards. They're a littlebit lo-res. Not that it's a shame, but everything looks very clean, except for the crowd and the ad-boards. It's like some company's didn't pay enough money to EA to put it in at a higher res
:P Same with the nets. The 'corners' of the goal move fluidly when scoring, but the rest of the goalnet hardly moves. Could've been improved over last year....... But it didn't.Sound:
The sound is oke for what I've heard so far. The sound in a smaller stadium sounded different, which was very cool (you could hear the crowd mumbling, clapping, screaming etc!). The scoring sound also sounded different per stadium (volume). The crowd chants are also quite nice. You've really got the feeling you're playing in a stadium! I missed a penaltykick where I got a boooeeee from my crowd. Also when I hit the ball forward with no purpose at all, I get a booooee from the crowd. Sounds quite realistic!
Gameplay:
The game speed is just right! Not to fast, also not to slow. The players do their job. Where you couldn't run to a ball that was reflected in Fifa2003, you can run wherever you want now. So the gameplay is more dynamic. You can block shots etc. The shots where more realistic than in the PC demo for as I'm concerned. I didn't feel I was firing bullets. The heading system is definetly improved! I could even head the ball over my own bar when I was defending a corner! I've never seen this before in a FIFA (or other soccer) game!
The players react good! You can't pass a defender easily again. You can shoulderbarge your oponents by just walking and running aside of them. This is quite cool and it really depends on how the players abilities are.
When I played Ajax - Man. Utd. I lost 0-1 by a penalty by Ruud van Nistelrooij. When I played Barcelona against NAC Breda, I could feel that I was better. I could walk more easily and had more posession over the ball. This is also very realistic. More feeling that you are indeed playing a better team than your oponent, while it's more difficult when you play against a better team. The only thing that distirbs me a bit is the collisionsystem. In replays you don't really see why you made a foul! You didn't even touch your oponent
When you're playing it looks okey though, but the replay just doesn't give you a good image of what happened.Conclusion:
The game has DEFINETLY been improved over last year! Even more than 2003 was over 2002. Physics are better, game feels better, graphics have also been improved, sound is quite nice. You can notice the difference in player attributes and team strength now.... I just like the game!! It's not perfect, but it's nice to play!! Gonna wait for the PC version now
Graphics: 9
Sound:9
Gameplay:8.5
Game rating: 8.8
GreetZz!
