This is the first time in about five years that I’ve not played FIFA (or 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:EA’s annual football game, given the name change) e💯arly for review or other cover🅷age. TheGamer’s review will be coming soon, but it’s not going to be from me as I’m still yet to get my hands on it. It’s technically kinda sorta out now, as part of the unnecessary trend of getting games one week ‘early’ if you preorder, but from the outside, it’s only reminding me why these games have lost their shine.
The new gameplay updates seem solid. I played the beta a few months ago, and it was enjoyable enough then. Not ‘spend £20 for an extra week’ enjoyable, but few games are. This isn’t born of frustration from getting it late (on time) this year - there are plenty of games where the review or early access period has only heightened my interest. I 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:had to wait a month for 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Baldur’s Gate 3, and that’s🐲 sitting pretty as my Game of the Year so far.
Instead, it&rsqu🔯o;s that not playing EASports FC early has allowed me to gain some perspective. I feel a little bit like the auld lad in the bookies who sits and watches the dogs with a plastic cup of lukewarm coffee while everyone around him uses their ෴cards to bet on the virtuals, sinks money into the electric slots, or just stays at home and builds accas from the Moldovan leagues on their app. I’m a coal miner in a ghost town. My way of life is dead.
Literally every single thing I have heard about EA Sports FC is connected to Ultimate Team. When player ratings were revealed, it was via Ultimate Team cards. Every bit of promotion linking up with real players or fan interaction is 🌜based around Ultimate Team cards. Every clip of the game or commentary from content creators has been built around packs and SBCs and other accoutrements from Ultimate Team. EA Sports FC 24, like the FIFAs before it, is just an Ultimate Team game.
I’ve never understood it. I’m a veteran of the Xbox Live dongle ban from the very first wave of Ultimate Team, but in the years aft🅷er that, I was strictly freemium, and dabbled less and less. I don’t see the appeal in either grinding or paying so much extra money into an already expensive game just to unlock players who already exist in the game for free. If I want to play as Messi or Mbappe I can just play as Argentina or PSG. I have never understood why paying so much cash year on year just for it to be wiped out next year is even vaguely tantalising.
It might come from a lack of appetite in other online arenas - most of my games are single player titles, so the battle pass grind mentality is alien to me. I play FIFA through regular online matches, and I’m good enough to win more than I lose. But despite there being a million clips from the🦄 game online already, I have no idea what online mode is like away from Ultimate Team. And everyone is so miserable too - why is eve♎ryone so angry?
Aside from my limited experience with the beta, I have no knowledge of anything fresh in the g✃ameplay at all. I don’t know if Career Mode is different, or if there ෴are any additions around creating a club or other game modes besides. I can assume pace is important, as it always has been, but how is tackling? Are crosses worth it? Can you shoot from range? Has EA finally caught up to using a trequartista just as the art form dies out in favour of mezzalas and inverted full back systems? All I know is what numbers exist on what cards and that Jude Bellingham is rated too low. Nothing on how he plays, just that his numbers are wrong.
Year in, year out I play Career Mode. Usually, this starts with my own team, Newcastle UTD, but given I signed Joao Pedro, James Maddison, and Moussa Diaby, only for us to go for and then miss out on all of them in real life, I might be cursed. I spend a couple of seasons with the Toon then head out to the continent, and eventually get bored and start another s🥃ave elsewhere, sometimes as a custom team. I’d love to know what awaits me in this new game (that seems the same as the old game), but despite the pinnacle of a sports game surely being taking your own team to win the lot, nobody wants to talk about it when Ultimate Team is in town.
I’m still going to get EA Sports FC 24, because it&🌃rsquo;s difficult to imagine a world where I wouldn’t, but I’m not playing the same game as everyone else. It feels like I’m in on a secret, one of a select club who knows you can buy the game once and then play it for free for a year, no other in🅷vestment needed. I used to feel a little foolish, paying full price for the roster update and minor tune up each year. Now I know I’m not the biggest sucker. No one has been able to tell me what I’d like about EA Sports FC 24, but I’m still gonna buy it anyway, so I guess I’m not too smart after all.