Great game let down by not being all there
Written: Jul 19 '04 (Updated May 29 '05)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Great fun game
Cons: the Greed of EA and Nintendo
The Bottom Line: FIFA 2004 is a great game let down by needing more than a GBA.Dont pay full price, but footy fans should get it if its cheap
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| flash-hammer's Full Review: FIFA Football 2004 for Game Boy Advance (GBA) |
Football games and hand-held consoles were a thing that I had always thought were never meant to be. Granted the only ones I ever played were USA World Cup 94 and the imaginatively titled Soccer for the original Game Boy, they were both crap enough to almost put me off the genre in handheld form forever.
I will be honest; I have no idea why I decided to buy this game. I was going to Milan on holiday, I had some money left from payday, and bought it on impulse. I figured that the GBA would be capable of giving me some at least decent footy action for on the flight, and FIFA 2004 was the only football game in sight.
The game is your basic football/soccer game. There are several domestic leagues in the game, and two European club competitions ( to represent the UEFA Cup and Champions League) there are 3 other competitions to unlock(more on that later).
Graphically, the game is good enough. The players are all very well animated, but telling who they are meant to be is impossible. There are no bald players, and blonde players look like bald players. The thing that bothers me is the pitch. While it looks good, it seems to be at a different viewing angle to the players, which is strange. It isn’t a major difference, it just doesn’t look right if you pay enough attention to it.
The team’s all have home and away strips that all look relatively like their real life counterparts, but minus the sponsorship, badge and finer details, but the fact that this is such a small screen means that putting in such details would be a waste of time anyway.
The sound in the game is restricted to the music in menus, which is well done and even features lyrics in some songs, sadly the Stone Roses’ Fools Gold is cut a bit, but just having it adds some class to proceedings. In game the only noise is the crowd, which is done well enough, with all the appropriate ‘aAH!’s at near misses and such. You can even make out a few generic chants, but once again its nice enough for a hand-held game.
The controls to the game are fairly simple, while on the ball:
A: Shoot
B: Pass
L: Cross
R: Sprint
And while off:
A: Tackle
B: Change Player
L: Slide Tackle
R: Sprint
These all respond well, and it wont be long before they are mastered by all who pick the game up.
The game plays pretty well, with the only complaints coming in the form of the fact that you cannot seem to hit the crossbar, the penalty system, and that the goalkeepers are comically bad on occasion.
The penalty system involves placing a target on an area of the goalmouth and pressing shoot, this brings up a bar with a green spot and an arrow quickly moving up and down the bar. The idea is to stop the arrow on the spot. The reason this annoys me, is that if this were to be played on multiplayer, this would instantly tell the player controlling the keeper where to dive.
But apart from these, the game is really quite fun to play. There are 4 difficulties, all of which are suitably more challenging than the next, and the matches you play are all pretty exciting and full of goal mouth scrambles and dynamic diving headers. This is a different world to the sluggish and horrible aforementioned footy titles I had played on the old Game Boy.
This isn’t exactly as life-like as the Xbox or PS2 version, but for the console its on, and for portable play, the game is a peach.
One fault in the way of game-play, is a problem the game shares with GBA fighting games, in that it is in a genre designed for multiplayer gaming, but on a console not made for it. But the fact is, that football fans will find it good enough a title to play solo on flights or journeys, and the number of leagues on offer will keep a die-hard occupied for a while (so far I have only completed a SPL campaign with Rangers, a Serie A one with Roma, a MLS with DC United the UEFA cup wannabe with Roma and the Champions League with Milan)
But here is where the fault comes in. remember I mentioned the 3 competitions to be unlocked? These would be the International Cup, Americas Club Championship and the ‘Ladder Tournament’. I figured that the Americas one would be unlocked by completing the MLS season (the only reason I played a MLS season instead of the Primera Liga in Spain or the Premiership in England). Nothing. Then I discovered that to unlock these modes, you need a Gamecube, link cable and copy of FIFA 2004 for it.
Am I the only person here who finds this insulting? I paid for half a game. While I am not against the connectivity with the GC FIFA, making it required for such a major part in the game is quite frankly shocking. The link also allows you manager points in the GC that you earn in the GBA version, which I don’t have a problem with. Had the link allowed you to download something like more strips, or an updated team roster to the GBA version, I would say great, but the fact that to play in the only International competition in the game, you have to own all this extra just left me sickened.
The thing that makes this even worse, is that I was really starting to get into the game, and it was quickly on the road to becoming my second game that goes on every journey with my GBA (along with Super Streetfighter 2 Turbo: Revival ), but knowing that one of the major modes in the game wouldn’t be available to me, and that I had paid a lot of money for a game that to play all of I would have to shell out for another console and game, just put me off the game.
The funny thing is, if you already owned a Gamecube and FIFA 2004 and had a GBA, this would be an excellent purchase. The game itself is immensely playable and incredibly addictive, even though it has its faults.
And when the game goes down in price, I would actually recommend it to all football fans. The gameplay is fun and there are enough domestic leagues to keep you going for a while.
I’m not going to lie and say that I don’t like the game and wont play it again, to be honest, I can see myself playing it quite a bit, until I finish all the leagues or get another football game for the GBA, but that doesn’t mean I would recommend anyone else to shell out full price for a game that they cannot take full advantage of without a Gamecube and FIFA 2004 for it. Like I say, should it go cheap it is definitely worth a look, but full price is not deserved for a game that isn’t full.
Other EA Sports Football reviews
FIFA 96 for Super Nintendo
FIFA 96 for Sega Saturn
FIFA 97 for Sega Genesis
FIFA 2003 for XBox
UEFA Euro 2004 for XBox
Recommended:
Yes
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flash-hammer
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