FIFA2007 XBOX (regular)

FIFA 2007 Xbox (not 360) Review

Essentially this is a review focusing online. I haven’t really experienced offline play. The last time I played an xbox game was Winning Eleven 9. The last FIFA on regular xbox I played was 2005. Since 2005 a lot has happened. The new FIFA 2007 on regular Xbox is phenomenal.

The physics of the ball are great and have a very realistic feel. Players aren’t glued to the ball like years past. The player and ball seem like two distinct entities. This makes for very realistic passing and receiving. Gone are the days of pinpoint through balls and crosses. Every time you initiate a pass you have to be mindful of your player’s direction, speed, passing abilities, defenders proximity, and your teammate’s direction. I often feel like the game play is spot on to what I watch in the premiership. The goals that are scored are all unique in feel because of this independence of ball/player/pitch. I don’t think I have seen many duplicate goals. The shooting control is a little bit funky and I haven’t masterd it yet but I can score and hitting 4 goals is not out of the ordinary.  The free kicks are easier than FIFAWORLDCUP2006 (360) but maybe this is the down side, it’s sort of easy to score on these, not a give every time, but you can make them.  The defense has more emphasis on positioning and the computer doesn’t help you much putting your players where they need to be so running back is sort of not useful. It’s more helpful to charge at people and try and poke the ball out. Basically you need to defend and switch a lot instead of relying on the computer to place your teammates in advantageous positions. Defending doesn’t come easy so you need to work at this.

Overall the game has a great feel with real physics and very nice presentation. The lag is infrequent at best. The skill moves are here and its great to see and use. My controller is shit so I haven’t mastered them yet. There are online Leagues which I don’t use because you are locked into one team for the season. There are online 4-8 team tournaments. Its nice that EA sets it up with a bracket but I couldn’t connect with my match so I never found out how fun it could be. All the major leagues are in it. We even have the Orlando Pirates! You can have champions league with all the teams. I use BOCA Juniors quite a bit as I like to use teams that wont be in the 360 version. I did play WE9 for a week straight and that is a great game for sure. This FIFA game has better graphics, control that is as good as, and in fact I think the two games are really similar. FIFA does blow away WE in the online options though. WE9 feels like a Nintendo 8 bit game. All in all very nice work EA, this is a great game that I enjoy playing while my 360 gets fixed and I get FIFA 2007 on 360.

I certainly recommend FIFA2007 on Xbox (regular)