Not a match that lives long in the memory...
Written: Sep 08 '04
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Product Rating:
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Pros: It's playable, decent controls
Cons: Rubbish graphics, out of proportion players,tiny pitch,slowdown, just not fun,too easy to score
The Bottom Line: FIFA RTWC98 isn't the worst football game ever. But it isn't very good, and I wouldn't recommend it.
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| flash-hammer's Full Review: FIFA: Road To World Cup 98 for Saturn |
As a little celebration of Scotland beginning their qualifying quest for Germany 2006 tonight, which we probably won't make, I thought I would look at the FIFA title from the only year that I have solid memories of us making the World cup, 1998. While I know that there was actually a World Cup 98 game, I only own it for the PC, and it doesn't work anymore. Funnily enough, Road to World Cup 98 was the first game I actually bought for my at the time new PC, and this version I review here was one of the two games that came with my Saturn.
Road to World Cup 98 (RTWC) is a funny game, as I remember it actually coming out after the the teams had qualified, and the wait for the tournament was on. While I may be wrong here, and it might have just been that Scotland had qualified and I assumed Qualification was over.
The game's UK release featured David Beckham, which is also pretty topical I suppose, seeing as everyone is complaining about how poor a job he is doing of late.
The game, like any game with FIFA in the title, is a football, or soccer if you must, game, where the idea is to...eh, win matches. The game's main mode of play, and an addition to the usual FIFA staples of Exhibition,League and custom cup is a RTWC mode. In this, you choose a team, and play through their real life qualifying group for that year, and can go on to the actual tournament in France to try and win the premier prize in Football, the World Cup.
The game also includes a team and player edit mode, as well as transfer option so you can try to keep the teams as up to date as possible, and fix EA's mistakes, or even put yourself in the game over a player you don't like.
As well as the National teams who attempted to make France 98, the game also includes teams from a variety of domestic leagues throughout the world, from Scotland and England to Italy,France,Spain to the USA and Malaysia and back.
Graphically, the game is a bit "eh". By that, I mean it's hard to describe. The stadiums look pretty good, and the player models are decently motion captured and detailed, but they appear to be completely out of proportion with not only the stadium, but their own bodies are inconcistent, making them look like dwarves. Dwarves playing in a tiny stadium, because they are far too large for the pitch.
The other thing the players reminded me of, were the humans in the PC game Black and White, whose limbs were a bit out of proportion.
The pitch itself could have done with a bit more detail, and the less said about the goals, which look like the nets are solid, the better.
The sound in the game is pretty solid however. Commentary comes from the ever irritating John Motson, and Sky Sports uber-presenter Andy Gray, with matches being introduced by Des Lynam. The crowd sounds aren't exactly the best in any game ever, but they are competent enough for a 1997 release.
Sadly, the commentary quickly gets repetitive, and the commentators are often found to be talking about action that happened ten minutes ago. I once scored 7 minutes (game time) into a match, and they were still talking about the weather and other pre-match chit-chat.
The game's title theme is Song 2 by Blur, and it's still a great song after all these years. Additional in game music comes from the Crystal Method, and goes quite well with the menus.
The controls in the game are fairly similar to my other Saturn FIFA title, FIFA 96:
On the Ball:
A:Cross
B:Pass
C:Shoot
X:Sprint
Z:Jump a tackle
L:Skill
R:Skill
I don't really have any complaints about how they respond, but it certainly did take a bit of time to re-adjust to using these controls with the Saturn pad, mainly because I play the Sega Worldwide Soccer games a lot more on it, and my other football game controls Im used to are the newer FIFA controls for the Xbox pad and the Pro Evolution Soccer controls on the PS2, but on the whole, they don't take too long to get used to, and are easy enough to get to know and use well.
If I am being honest here, the Saturn port of RTWC98 really isn't all that good. While it is a marked improvement over FIFA 96, it still isn't a game that has stood the test of time very well. First of all, the game is far too easy to score in. The fact that the pitch is so small makes this all the worse, seeing as you will be scoring from roughly the halfway line on a regular basis.
The game is also pretty slow and sluggish to play, and still suffers the occasional slowdown issues that marred 96 for me. Exactly what EA were thinking putting a game like this out when Sega was putting out sheer gold like Sega Worldwide Soccer 97 is anyone's guess.
The game also inherits a lot of problems that were in all versions of the game. First of all, the players' faces all appear to have their eyes shut, and just look plain robotic. While this can be put down to age, other details in the players and kits department cannot. Players who are black in real life are white in the game with blonde hair. Strips are hideosly wrong, both in terms of colour and design. In my 19 years, I have never seen a half purple, half tangerine Dundee Utd. strip.
While details like this could be forgiven backed up by a good game, RTWC98 just generally isn't very fun to play. The matches, played on the horrible cramped pitch by the players with far too short limbs doesn't look, or feel like any sort of decent representation of the sport, or entertainment in general.
The game is even more embarassing for EA when you consider that not too long afterwards, Sega released Sega Worldwide Soccer 98, which included Club Teams and real player names, which was genuinely the only thing that this game has over the previous SWWS game.
At the end of the day, unless you are some sort of masochist out to collect every FIFA game on every platform, I would say that it is highly possible to give Road to World Cup 98 a miss. It isn't the worst football game ever, or even the worst on the Saturn, it will be a long time before another football game gets 1 star from me after playing Olympic Soccer, and while RTWC is much better than it, it still isn't very fun, and isn't really worth anyone's time.
For those looking for a good RTWC 98, I recall that the PC game was at least a more enjoyable experience, and even the N64 version being better than this. For those looking for a good Saturn football title, just go for one with Sega, Worldwide and Soccer in the title.
Other EA Sports Football reviews
FIFA 96 for Super Nintendo
FIFA 96 for Sega Saturn
FIFA 97 for Sega Genesis
FIFA 2003 for XBox
FIFA 2004 for Gameboy Advance
UEFA Euro 2004 for XBox
Recommended:
No
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flash-hammer
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