Gamernode: Reviews - FIFA 08

FIFA 08

• FIFA 08
• Xbox 360
• EA Canada
• EA Sports
• October 09th, 2007

I have to admit, I am at a bit of a disadvantage when it comes to soccer. I've watched the matches on television, talked to people who are fans of the sport and have even played my fair share of soccer video games. This casual association with soccer has made me the resident "expert" around here. But I confess, even with this knowledge, I pale in comparison to real followers of the sport.

But in any case, a fun game is a fun game and it's pretty easy to figure out if a game is or isn't, regardless of whether you're a diehard fan of a particular genre. At least, that's the theory Brendon told me.

The first thing that I noticed in FIFA 08 was the realism and wide range of game modes that are available. Are you the type who wants a quick match without all the intricacies of team management, arranging player positions and strategy? You've come to the right place by selecting the Kickoff mode. Here, you can get right into the thick of things by selecting your teams and immediately going into game play.

This mode is just fine for those who aren't that familiar with the sport or for people who want some quick gratification. The periods can be adjusted in duration and if you're in a bind for time, you won't have to play through a full 90 minutes.

At one point during Kickoff mode, the game froze when I tried to restart a match. The game took me to the interactive loading screen where you can practice kicking goals, but the loading screen somehow got frozen in a loop and couldn't reset itself. I had to restart my machine to get out of it.

For the dedicated football (soccer) fan, you'll have at your disposal the modes of tournament, manager, FIFA lounge, and one of my favorites, the challenge mode, where you are given assignments and tasks to complete. If you love tournaments, you'll have your hands full with 60 of them with 35 officially licensed ones, or the option to even create your own.

In addition, you can enter the "Be a Pro Offline Training," where you play as an individual player and follow "orders" by means of on-screen prompts. This is a nice idea, but it doesn't mean a lot of action, necessarily, as you'll be trying to just keep your position relative to the other members.

This was disappointing to me as a newbie in soccer, because I would have liked to see a more basic training mode that could explain the ins and outs of soccer instead of just mechanically trying to fulfill certain player attributes. At the end of these sessions, you'll be "graded" on your performance. You'll be able to accumulate points, cards and other bonus items in the "lounge" area of the game, and these can be used to upgrade the abilities of your players.

Although not really a part of the game, the manual for FIFA 08 was pretty lacking by anyone's standards. There are quick paragraphs that just touch on the game's depth but nothing really helpful if you really need to know how to use the various game features

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