I've played a lot of football games in my time. FIFA 08. FIFA 09. A lot of FIFA 12. I even played FIFA 19, for my sins. I spent too much money on FIFA 21 and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:quit halfway through FIFA 22 - one of the best decisions of my life. I was there with Leandro and Doumbia. I've finessed and trivella-ed and dinked. You name it, I've done it. But how much 🍸of it did I actually enjoy?
There's an undeniable thrill to assembling your eponymous ultimate team. I enjoyed napping out the spiderweb of green links back when chemistry still mattered. But the grind always got me down. Late nights 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:sweating in Weekend League would cause me to be groggy and irritable the next morning. Getting beaten fair and square felt just as bad as losing to 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:a meta-abusing cutback merchant. I played with meta teams, silver teams, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Liverpool past and present teams. Each enjoyable for a 🃏period, until it's inevitably behind the curve once aga🧔in.
The Problem
The only thing I truly enjoyed was ripping packs. We all know that feeling. Whether your poison is Ultimate Team, Overwatch, or Pokemon cards, the feeling is the same. The eager anticipation. The slow reveal. The moment of elation or when you hit a Team of the Season or a secret rare. The gut-wrenching fury of a duplicate or M▨anchester United player. And then the urge to do it all over again.
I reali⭕sed I had a problem when I spent £20 on FIFA Points while sat on the porcelain 𒅌throne on Christmas Day. A brief reprieve from family socialising and cr*p BBC comedies, I lazily scrolled the FIFA mobile app until I saw a pack that took my fancy. I bought it without thinking. Before the confetti cannon had even been loaded, I knew I'd made a mistake.
.jpg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2)
What was I doing? Why? I'd done this same ritual a hundred times before, but this felt different. It was Christmas. It was a click on my phone. I didn't even get the an♑ticipation phase as flags and badges are revealed to hunt at the player who is soon to walk out of the tunnel. On your phone there is just a button to click buy, a Google Pay verification, and an underwhelming card that pops up on your screen. No animations, no excitement, just money wired di👍rectly from my bank account to EA's.
I don't know how much I've spent on FIFA over the years. I don't want to🥂 know. I don't think I was addicted as I always spent within my means, but was that a good use of hundreds of pounds? Pixel🌞s on a screen that were reset every year? A digital card with a slightly different border that would be redundant in a month? A player for a game I didn't even enjoy playing?
That's the po♍int. Loot boxes are gambling. Loot boxes stick their hooks in you and pull you in for 'just one more' time and time again. A tenner for a chance to use Steven Gerrard. 20 quid will buy you enough fodder to complete the Kenny Dalglish SBC. 50 quid gets you a shot at the Egyptian King himself. Over the years, I bought them all. And while that initial suspense and eventual rush of dopamine felt good, it was never enough. There was always another pack, a better player. The fear of missing out on this week's best virtual chess piece.
The Solution
2025 💧is different. EA FC 25 remains the same🔴, as will EA FC 26. The next FIFA game is being made by 2K and, while unlikely to release this year, will be similarly riddled with microtransactions if the developer's other games offer any sort of insight into its plans for the iconic license.
Instead, I'm looking to indie games. Earlier this year I played 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Despelote, a game about football rather than about playing football. Sure, you �💞�kick a few balls about the Ecuadorian suburbs, but this narrative tale is about the experience of being a fan. The communal atmosphere of watching the World Cup.
It's simultaneously nostalgic and a fresh perspective, autobi♈ographical and fictional. This journalistic, deeply personal love letter to the beautiful game came far closer to evoking the same feelings I had when taking my kids to see Liverpool's celebratory bus parade than FIFA has ever done.
Football might be about emptying your credit cards for billionaire owners of football clubs, but for fans it's about emotion. That’s something that FIFA has never undeܫrstood, has never tried to understand. It's a power fantasy with more similarities to Doomguy than Bob Paisley.
Despelote will be followed later this month by Rematch. If Despelote's narrative focus was too far away frꦗom the grit of Weekend League for you, Rematch is closer to the EA FC experience insofar as it's a football match simulator. But the execution looks to be very different from your annual EA affair.
Rematch is an arcade football game closer to Rocket League than EA FC. The ball can’t go out, there’s very little aim assist on passes or shots, and there are no offsꦕides. It’s a granular, mechanics-focused game that you’d expect from Sloclap, the developer behind Sifu. This isn’t a game that will let you score a screamer from outside the box every time you press a certain combination of buttons. It’s not about farming clips or buying meta players on a virtual stock exchange. Rematch is about positioning, skill, effort.
If EA FC is the Premier League – the face of football, and saddeningly focused on turning as big a profit as possible – Rematch is Sunday League. Ultimate Team is profit margins and coin farming, Rematch is crunching tackles and genuine teamwork. It’s gettin🅘g muddy knees and grazed elbows. Despite its stylised, almost science-fiction aesthetic, it’s more realistic than any FIFA game. It’s closer to ♉the real experience of having a kickaround with your mates than any other video game I’ve played to date.
My favourite feeling in the world is walking towards Anfield from Liverpool city centre bꦅefore a match. At first, you’re alone. The irony isn’t lost on me. Then you spot another red shirt, and another. Soon there are dozens of you, all walking silently in the same direction. Likeꦇ-minded. United. Dozens turn into a throng. Songs begin as murmurs and end as rousing anthems. More fans spill out of pubs, The Glenbuck Hotel, The Twelfth Man. By the time you're at the Shankly Gates you can hardly move. The crowd pushes as one, a writhing mass of singular mind and song intent on one thing only: supporting its team.
No game has come close to replicating that feeling in the previous 30 years of my life. But, in 2025, there might be a chance for that to change. Football isn't opening packs on a screen or £118m signings completed i♏n boardrooms, however exciting they may be. It's walking to Anfield and staying up past your bedtime to watch your first World Cup final. It’s getting muddy with your mates. In 2025, for the first time, video games have a chance of replicating that feeling.
168澳洲幸运5开奖网: 8 Best Soccer Games On PC
No matter if you call it soccer or football,🌄 these games allow you to get your goal on.
