Like last season's Manchester United team, FIFA 13 took the iOS footy title through efficient play and a lack of serious competition.
A shortage of new contenders means that EA could have coasted home with FIFA 14.
However, following the old football adage that you need to move forward
in order to maintain your position, the company has made some fairly
notable changes.
Those changes could be equated to restructuring
the club's finances and making a risky new signing with a slightly dodgy
touch rather than improving its skills.
Route one
What hasn't really changed is the simplified game at FIFA iOS's core. This is still a stripped-back, streamlined, and - yes - dumbed down version of the console series that spawned it.
And
necessarily so. As has been well documented, a lack of physical control
inputs poses a bigger problem to virtual footy than pretty much any
other genre.
So you get the same sedate game of footy with the
same functional virtual joystick and buttons. Once again, these controls
handle passing, shooting, and sprinting when you have the ball, with a
second virtual stick-of-sorts representing the console version's 'trick
stick.'
Again, you can initiate advanced techniques through
various touch-and-swipes. A touch and upward swipe of the 'shoot' button
initiates a lofted through-ball, for example.
These combinations
work well at lower difficulty levels, but once the pressure's on in
tougher modes or online they can prove to be a little inconsistent to
pull off.
Possibly the most glaring issue we found in general
play was a sluggish and somewhat unreliable player-switch feature, which
enables mobile forwards to burst between centre-back and full-back a
little too easily.
Heavy touch
It's a
shame EA hasn't really tightened up or rethought these virtual controls
to any significant degree. We're also surprised that it's stuck with
some of the half-baked touchscreen elements that we criticised in the
previous version.
There's still the impractical option to send
players on runs by touching and dragging them, and the flick-to-kick
free kick system remains a write-off.
EA has introduced a major
new element to the controls, but it's not a successful one. You can now
play the game without virtual controls - a noble gesture, but the
execution is unsatisfactory.
Here you can pass to players simply
by tapping on them, and sprint with the ball by pressing and holding the
screen - which proves to be joylessly precise and frustratingly vague
respectively.
It is possible to take direct control of your
player, but only by holding on them and then dragging them lethargically
around the screen, like a parent pulling an uncooperative child around a
shopping centre.
Well-run club
FIFA 14's core action hasn't really moved forward sufficiently from FIFA 13, then, but that still means that it's a more-than-competent kick-about.
EA has ploughed more of its attention into the structure of the game,
with pleasing results. You've no doubt heard that this is the year that FIFA iOS goes freemium, which probably made you as apprehensive as it made us.
There's
absolutely no need to worry. You'll find a surprisingly generous amount
of content available for free here, including quick online matches and
Game of the Week, which provides a constantly updating selection of
scenario matches that mirror real fixtures.
You also get access
to Ultimate Team mode, which lets you assemble a team of nobodies and
trade, win, and purchase new superstars, Top Trumps-style.
Unless
you want to invest heavily in that mode, the only IAP you'll need to
make is £2.99 / $4.99 to unlock the traditional tournament and matchplay
modes. This is the same cost as previous versions of the game, so EA
has essentially laid on a very generous demo here. Well-played.
Breakdown in communication
FIFA 14's online element was disappointing during our test period. Playing several games against PG's biggest football fanatic, Rich Brown,
we both noted that performance was sluggish (he was on an iPhone 4S, I
was on an iPad 3) and that, somewhat oddly, it degraded after half-time.
We also experienced a few total crashes when trying to set up online games.
Hopefully EA will sort out these issues before too long, as online play was one of our favourite features of FIFA 13.
The
heat of online competition also highlighted a couple of AI
deficiencies, including one or two occasions where our defensive line
from an attacking corner was so high that it left a counter-attacking
player with literally the whole attacking half to himself.
Then
there's the performance of the ref, who made a number of suspect
decisions. In particular, he doesn't seem able to judge that there are
players covering when a defender brings down a breaking attacker,
defaulting to an instant red card.
Creative player needed
All of these niggles in control, AI, and online play have been there in some form in all of the iOS FIFAs to date. FIFA 14 isn't any worse in these respects. In fact, it's undoubtedly the best mobile FIFA yet.
It's
just that EA hasn't made enough progress in these areas - the areas
that really matter - for our liking. Its attempts to make the game more
accessible are laudable, if only partially successful.
But the
fact remains that we're still yet to see a truly great, free-flowing
approximation of footy on iOS. Maybe that's not possible on touchscreen
devices. Maybe it is.
All we know is that FIFA 14 retains the iOS footy title for another year almost by default. It's a slightly hollow victory, but a victory nonetheless.
