Twenty professional footballers from world-renown clubs are locked in for the head-to-head tournament and prepared to take their talents to the virtual pitch and in front of a global audience.
EA has seen a dramatic drop in its Metacritic publisher ranking for 2017. The website puts together lists every year of all of the biggest publishers, putting them in order of how well their games performed in terms of reviews. This gives a good idea of how well a publisher and its titles performed over the last 12 months.
For 2017, EA actually fell out of the major publisher category altogether. This was due to the fact that they had a smaller release schedule than usual. To qualify as a major publisher on Metacritic, a company must release at least 12 games. However, EA also fell in terms of its ranking scores. These use a variety of measures to determine how successful a title was and rely heavily on whether a game was considered good by reviewers, which is judged by if they scored 75 or more on average.
With EA having less games to release in the previous year and the poor critical reception of both Star Wars Battlefront 2 and Need for Speed meant that they were only ranked fifth on the mid-tier publisher list. Nicalis, Paradox Interactive, Devolver Digital, and Warner Bros. Interactive all outperformed the California based company.
Bethesda and Nintendo led to the way for the major publishers. They had an average Metacritic rating of 79.9 and 78 respectively for their 2017 releases, with 90% of Bethesda’s games considered good.
FIFA is one of the most popular sports games in the world, mainly because it’s the “Worlds’ Game” in regards to Soccer/Futbol. And every year, EA tries to make its popular title bigger and better, and FIFA 18 will be no different. As the game will not only look amazing, play amazing, and be amazing, it’s going to be the most complete soccer experience possible in a video game.
When Electronic Arts arrived at the Nintendo Switch reveal event and noted that FIFA 18 would be coming to the system, people were excited. But then, some rumors were spreading that this version would be a “dumbed down” port instead of a true FIFA experience. At the EA Play event yesterday, that was proven to not be the case. As many features were coming to the Switch version of the game, and EA themselves noted that this version was custom built for the Switch.
When the Nintendo Switch was officially unveiled a few weeks ago, EA confirmed that they would be working on a custom version of FIFA specifically for the console. This led to concerns that the game would not be the fully title as will be available on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One but rather a cut-down version as was the case on the Wii. Peter Moore has moved to allay those fears, confirming that FIFA 18 will be coming to the console.
A prominent YouTube user who was known for his videos on EA’s FIFA series has been fined after he pleaded guilty to gambling offences. In a first of its kind, Craig Douglas, better known on YouTube as NepentheZ, has been ordered to pay $112,000 for running an illegal website that let players gamble virtual currency from FIFA Ultimate Team on real world sporting events.
The FIFA series is one of the most popular franchises in the world so it should come as little surprise that the latest instalment will have sold particularly well. However, few might have expected it to break the sales record for the series.
The summer is now over and that doesn’t just mean that the weather is set to get colder over the coming months but publishers and developers are now beginning to prepare to get some of their biggest releases of the year out of the door. September often sees a gluttony of titles making their way to players across all platforms and it appears that this year will be no exception.
An interesting problem has occurred in FIFA Ultimate Team. In the game, there is an equation that will allow the members of a team to work better, and in effect play better, the more they play with other members of a team. This is because they would be “familiar” with one another, not unlike an actual team.
The past few years have seen the FIFA series emerge as the standout football game for gamers. While Pro Evolution Soccer has sometimes offered a credible challenge to the EA developed titles, they have largely faded away in recent times and left the studio behind FIFA to concentrate solely on improving their own experience rather than having to watch to see what the competition is doing. You might think this could mean that EA would rest on their laurels and just pump out a marginally improved experience with squad updates every year.
You’d be surprised the difference in popularity and respect given to male and female athletes. While some make millions for sometimes not doing so well, others make very little and still win on the world’s greatest stages. Take, for example, the 2015 US Women’s Soccer Team, a team that just recently won the World Cup 5-2 over Japan, avenging their loss from the previous World Cup. Their victory was seen as a beacon for change to come to sports and to the world at large in regards to equality. And though it may not happen immediately, things are happening and shifting right now. For example, the upcoming FIFA ’16, one of the most popular video game franchises in the world, is going to feature Alex Morgan from the US Women’s Soccer Team on the cover alongside Lionel Messi. When Morgan heard about this, she stated:
EA has revealed through their forums that the latest patch for FIFA 15 is now available for PC and PlayStation 4. Xbox One users will have to wait a short time before being able to download the update and there was no word about whether it will be coming to Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. According to the patch notes the second title update brings a number of important changes to the annual soccer game, including modifying the behaviour of goalkeepers and improvements to the shooting mechanic. This will be good news to long-time fans who felt that only the very best players were able hit the target on a regular basis, while goalkeepers have demonstrated a number of problems in catching the ball and being lobbed frequently.