The most popular sport in the world is back to video game consoles as FC 24 Coins looks to bring the magic of the pitch into the hearts of gamers. It's something that entire communities talk about and, when it's working flawlessly, it makes the player feel like the athlete or coach they always dreamed of being.
Unfortunately, when it isn't working flawlessly, it can remind gamers that they dropped money on a game that feels incomplete or glitchy. Instead of feeling like a dream, it can become a nightmare that forces their consumers to look for alternative football/soccer games. If FC 24 wants to be the best of the best, these are some changes they'll have to make.
They say "If it's not broken, don't fix it" but I don't think whoever made that statement was much of a FC 24 player. What is the point of buying a new game every year when the controls, moves, animations, and general dynamic of the game remains identical?
Even Madden and NBA 2K will throw in something like a faster turn radius or a change in ball control. The player base isn't asking for colossal changes to the point where the game isn't recognizable. But there does need to be some kind of modernization.
Holding the right button and pressing a direction might be an easy way to shoot, but it's certainly not fun or accurate. What happens if players want to shoot a hard and low shot or lob a soft one over the keeper's head? Sorry, no dice.
There are criminally underused buttons on the controller ripe for changing up the shooting. Considering this is the most exciting part of the game, the actual gameplay should be equally exciting. The various nationality buffs don't feel that interesting when every club shoots the same way.
It is not an exaggeration to say that players who dribble the ball need to execute combos that would make veteran Mortal Kombat players faint. As if the complexity were not enough, the dribbling itself is not at all intuitive.
These moves all add a very important element to the game. In online play, when somebody knows all of these sequences and uses them properly, it's a thing of beauty. But when only a handful of people can actually execute them, the majority of players stick to choosing a team in career mode and ignore online play entirely.
This is not a fault against the announcers, who have clearly read every single line with inflection and energy. For the first five minutes of a game, the broadcast booth keeps the game fresh and alive with crisp narration. And then those five minutes end.
After that, the same lines start to repeat themselves over and over. For a game that is supposed to consume an entire year's worth of time, a few minutes' worth of announcements is simply not enough. The sport is too exciting to be bored to death by repetition.
I'm guessing that a player who scores a goal to cut a lead down to 10-1 isn't exactly going to be doing backflips across the field. And somebody who ties the buy FIFA Coins game in overage isn't going to beclown himself by acting like the second coming. Sadly, these video game characters don't seem aware of the scoreboard.
