FIFA 14 News – New Features

FIFA 14 is just around the corner looking to maintain the incredible success of the FIFA franchise over the past two decades. FIFA International Soccer started it all in 1993 and now twenty years later the world eagerly anticipates the latest installment in the popular series.

So what does FIFA 14 have in store for fans?

On the playing side Electronic Arts is giving us four new systems to get to grips with concerning actual gameplay:

Pure Shot
Protect the Ball
Real Ball Physics
Teammate Intelligence

On the management side of things career mode is being bolstered thanks to the innovative new scouting system in development:

Global Scouting Network

The Global scouting network will use a new system designed to cut down on interruptions and ultimately allow you to locate, acquire and train up promising talent that can one day grace your first team for a fraction of the cost of buying established world class players.

Gameplay

Pure Shot will enable the player to take realist shots at goal for the first time. The system is married to the other update – Real Ball physics and the two will work in tandem to make this possible.

EA are looking to eliminate the problems of FIFA 13 that suffered from players feet sliding, making scissor motions and stuttering all before taking a shot that wasn’t timed to the animation.

Now new animations will work in conjunction with the two new systems to deliver smart physics based shots that recreate the power blasters and finesse shots smashed into the net every weekend around the world.

What’s good enough for Messi, Rooney and co will now be good enough IN FIFA 14.

What this means is that players will move into position to take shots so that they hit their stride in perfect time and can then get full power and accurate timing behind the shot.

If a player is receiving a sloppy ball; one that’s under hit into their path or hit too strong so that it forces them wide of goal and their run trajectory, you can still take that instant snapshot, but you’ll find that the shot will suffer diminished accuracy and power. Although this could be overridden by the ability of the player – so Messi can bang them in from all angles and distances.

The new ball physics will make the above possible, so from FIFA 14 on you’ll get that real sense of weight, speed and power when you connect with a strike perfectly. Expect dipping volleys, slowly rising long range drives and floating spinning lob shots.

We’ve been assured that wind resistance and turbulence will also play a part, although how that will manifest in the game we’re currently unsure of.

The whole point of these updates is to capture the feeling of emotion in real football when you catch the shot just right and you see the ball nestle in the back of the net.

Emotion has little to do with the next update – Protect the Ball. This is all about ball retention a la Barcelona! Many games postulate about ball possession, but few deliver as the computer and human opponents still find it too easy to dispossess you from the ball.

Well, Protect the Ball will address this issue and the team at EA Canada have been on the ball as it were since the previous version trying to get this right.

Anybody who regularly watches European football; Champions League or Europa League will be familiar with the modern style of football and how important ball retention is for setting or dictating the tempo of a game. Barcelona play it to the nth degree, but more and more sides around Europe and the world are trying to get back to midfield domination.

EA plan to achieve this by allowing players to block off other players and their advances, as well as move in front of defenders whilst running with the ball. This latter movement is designed to deter the frustrating arm pull that many defenders perform on your player whilst you’re trying to get away.

Players with the ball will also now have the ability to step into opposing players in a bid to hold them off while they pick a pass. You’ll also see strikers jostling for position at corners and throw-ins, so that they can create space before receiving the ball with which they can then turn and shoot.

Not much is being revealed yet about the final new system – Teammate Intelligence, suffice to say it will be an improvement that ultimately affects defence and attack most acutely.

Defenders will judge defensive moves and tackles with split second timing and strikers will check their runs, by running along the line and hanging back on the shoulders of defenders to avoid offside decisions.