FIFA 18

On the pitch, it's a real improvement of the usual strong FIFA package. Off the pitch, however, the innovations are missing.

An improvement in every area, including The Journey mode.

Ultimately, FIFA 18 introduces enough new ideas to suggest it’s not sitting on the laurels of its success. However, it’s a simplified experience, one that fails to embrace the complexity of football at the highest level. Its focus on attack makes for spectacular matches, but they often feel like extravagant offensive training sessions than a proper match with depth and strategy.

FIFA did not go on the revolution path of this year, it took a perfectly thoughtful evolution. Thanks to a few small innovations game is funnier, and no one can curse it for only pulling the money out of your pocket. [Issue#280]

EA Canada gave their all to story mode. Even though there’s far less leeway for story writers in FIFA than in, say, an FPS game, they’ve managed to weave a compelling story that puts Battlefield to shame. [Issue#224, p.63]

There’s a fairly familiar (albeit shorter) list of things in FIFA 18 to sigh about and wish EA would use some of their ample resources to fix, even if you ignore my paranoid suspicions about bouts of idiocy from otherwise competent virtual footballers. But I must admit that this installment’s renewed emphasis on tricky defending and darting midfielders getting on the end of crosses makes it a fair bit more engaging than FIFA 17 felt on launch. It’s building on where that game left off at the end of its life-span, so if you’re already appreciative of the FIFA ‘feel’, and can cope with more involved defensive duties, you’ll find it suitably inviting. I complain, but another several hundred hours in FIFA 18 inevitably await.