FIFA Soccer
"Love Football, Play Football"
Another franchise of Sports Games from EA Sports and one of the most popular worldwide, alongside Madden NFL.
The FIFA Soccer, or simply FIFA, series is the first soccer game series to get a FIFA license. Being one of the few games (if not the only game) with licenses from various soccer leagues in the world, the game enjoys a wide selection of teams from the most prestigious to the downright obscure.
The series has come along way from it's initial outing FIFA International Soccer (FIFA '94) which boasted a unique isometric view compared to the standard top down or side views of it's competition. In a few years FIFA soon established itself as a major force in sports videogames and amassed a dedicated following that continues to grow to this day.
Over the course of it's history FIFA has had missteps. This was due in small part to stagnation having been around so long and the series early foray into next generation physics. However recent entries have proven very successful among fans and critics alike. A clear indication of the time developers have spent refining and tweaking each installment.
In addition to the yearly releases of the game, there are special edition games for soccer events which varies from the FIFA World Cup to the European Championship which serves as the Licensed Game of said tournaments.
- And Now for Something Completely Different: 11 allows you to play goalkeeper for the first time. Explaining: even when you play as your whole team, you usually don't get to do much with your goalie since the AI does pretty much all the saving for you. Playing goalie, though, you obviously have to do all the work.
- Announcer Chatter: This is a sports game, after all.
- Butt Monkey: The poor goalkeepers, in order to have realistic scores but to compress the games to only a few minutes, are made to be less competent than other players, in a way that even the best goalies can be easily scored upon.
- Averted in the Arena kickabouts. The keeper there is as competent as he can be.
- Cash Cow Franchise: Outside of America it's essentially the biggest selling sports title EA Sports develops. To put it into perspective Madden '12 sold nearly 5 million copies worldwide. Fifa '12 sold over 10 million.
- Department of Redundancy Department: Whilst in some regions it is now known simply as FIFA, it was and is still released in parts of the world (ie. North America) as FIFA Soccer/Football. So basically it's name would be Fédération Internationale de Football Association Football. Or in English the International Federation of Association Football...Football.
- The Dev Team Thinks of Everything: More and more every year with a different game mechanic. From simple things like the ref allowing the advantage rather than blow for a free, to the rare scenario of a defender running into a goal post. Notably it's the only game to have an option to toggle handballs on or off (if on, obviously, a foul is counted when it happens).
- Difficulty Spike: The earliest games had three difficulty levels: Amateur, Professional and World Class. While you could easily grow accustomed to Amateur level, to a point you could even curbstomp the other team effortlessly, the AI always took a level in badass when you moved up to Professional. And don't get us started on World Class. Thankfully fixed in later installments.
- Dueling Games / Fandom Rivalry: With Konami's Winning Eleven/Pro Evolution Soccer.
- Euro Footy: The main focal point of the games. Not only the gameplay is generally modeled after a mixture of the main playing styles of Europe, also a massive majority of the teams are from there. To give an idea, the only five countries to have their second leagues represented are England (which is represented up to their fourth level, League 2), France, Germany, Italy and Spain; also, only five countries who have leagues (as of the latest game) are non-European: Brazil, USA, Mexico, South Korea and Australia.
- They even had license from UEFA to produce their UEFA Champions League spinoff before Konami bought it from them!
- It's Up to You: The "Be a Pro" modes.
- Long Runner: At least one game per year since 1994 and still going strong.
- Mission Pack Sequel: Same deal as Madden, except every once in a while they add newer leagues into the mix. For Fifa '12 they added the entire Euro 2012 championship as an expansion.
- Multi Platform: Every yearly installment is released in every commercial console that year.
- Purposefully Overpowered: The Classic XI team is filled with legendary players and have maximum attributes on everything. Oddly, they lack people like Pelé and Maradona, but considering how powerful the team is without them...