FIFA 14 Is Wrong In So Many Ways

By Harrison Hall

It may sound like a cliché but FIFA 14 is definitely the best footballing video game yet. Year after year, the digital footballing experience gets better and better. EA Sports has successfully exploited the billions of football fans with the footballing video game franchise.

However, behind the curtains, FIFA 14 can be a pain as well. Some parts of the game simply don’t make any sense. We have identified them all and compile for you the 5 biggest blunders of FIFA 14.

1. Ball control

In FIFA 14, holding on to a ball with an individual player is so difficult. Past FIFA titles have the ball stuck on the foot like glue. It seems that the physical mechanism of the game has gone overboard and defenders are getting tackles in so much easier.

2. Poor AI attitude

When things heat up in a match, the pace of the game should be fired up. However, it hurts to see your teammates not working hard to regain possession of the ball. To make matters worse, the AI opponent is able to do so.

3. Biased weather

Players want to keep things real in FIFA 14. As such, most of them put the weather at random. However, there is some sort of biasness for the thunderstorm. One or two games is fine but five games in-a-row?

4. The Scout

Transfers are an important element in a FIFA game. FIFA 14 failed entirely on this aspect. The idea to have scouts being an obligatory is great but the findings are poorly listed and there is no chance of finding the next Pele.

5. Tournament Mode

EA is guilty of playing add and subtract with the fans. It is a corporate rip-off to remove a traditional game mode without any good excuse. The tournament mode is a victim of that as it is absent in FIFA 14. This is totally insensitive towards players who just want to have a good clean fun with their buddies.

Column: FIFA: More than just a video game, a way of life

By Robert Moore
Whichever sport it may be, losing is not always the most gracious of happenings. Growing up playing soccer and running track, it appeared from a very early age, losing was never easy.

Losing in FIFA 14 has not made matters any easier either. Now in my last semester at UConn, I look back at all of the memories I've made – and, some of my best memories have been made in my dorm room.

Quite depressing, right? Incorrect.

FIFA 14 and those which have come before it have provided my roommates and I some of our most memorable experiences at UConn. The refusal to go downstairs during a fire alarm two years ago is clear indication of that. After all, we were in extra time–Manchester United v Chelsea–all knotted up at four. To us, pausing the match is not an option and never will be.

While our playing careers are clearly behind us, we do have a self-proclaimed doctrine to adhere to. We call it the Manifesto.

Four men (myself included) became so obsessed with the FIFA series that we created a Manifesto, which keeps track of our wins and losses. Records which we’ve kept for three years straight have tested our friendships, our wallets and yes, the trash talking is inevitable. Let it be known that a few controllers have been damaged in the process along with it.

But we sit around the table or the crammed bedrooms in Northwest, Hilltop or Hilltop Apartments in search of glory. A sweaty goal from Ross Barkley across the goalmouth to Romelu Lukaku. A wonder strike from none other than Wayne Rooney to seal victory. Friendships untouched and emotions unbarred.

We’ve all given up the dreaded goal in the 90th minute, where expletives flow off the tongue as easy as Barcelona creates their next goal. We’ve all come to terms with the ‘super sub’ who tears at our heart-strings or have become accustomed to the unrealistic goal, whatever that may mean.

Understandably, I am the best FIFA player there is, plain and simple. Now if I could get my two roommates to agree, that’d be a feat more notable.

For those of us FIFA-fanatics, we all have our own unique styles, celebrations and even tactics. We set out lineups to match the actual team selections perfectly and refuse to play unless there are updated rosters. I’m guilty as charged as I’ve anxiously awaited Juan Mata’s arrival at Old Trafford.

And with our records slowly saying positively and negatively, it all evens out. Those of us who win regularly, take a bow. Those of us who lose fairly readily, take a bow. In the end, records do not mean a thing, roster management means squat and, more importantly, the countless hours accumulated on the PlayStation 3 will not earn us a 4.0 at UConn.

Through the various approaches of losing ungraciously such as storming out of the room or refusing to play the other due to collusion or lack of luck, our camaraderie remain constant. Men turn to boys for brief instances, but that is quite alright.

EA Sports Football Club Catalogue – On Line Items

The EA Sports Football Club Catalogue is a kind of store where players can trade the FCC (Football Club Credits) they earned by hundreds of items.

Every time you play FIFA 14, you earn XP points and FCC until the daily limit of 2,000 for each one. As we already explained, you can spend the FCC to unlock items on EA Sports Football Cub. You need to get a specific level to buy certain items. That’s why XP points are important. Players can not trade items of a higher level and are not allowed to buy a item more than once. The purchased items are marked with a green tick and the inactive items are marked in gray until the player reaches the respective level.

To access to EA Sports Football Club Catalogue, players just need to select ‘Football Club’ from the main FIFA 14 menu and then ‘Catalogue’. It is not possible to access Catalogue from the FUT Web App.

Inside the EA Sports Football Club Catalogue, the items are organized by level of experience and by category. It is possible, for example, to filter the items that are exclusively for Ultimate Team mode. The categories available are: Game Play items, Ultimate Team items, On line items and Career items.

FIFA 14 Xbox One update out today, full patch notes inside

FIFA 14 has received another Xbox One update, and a reminder that EA Sports remains committed to the platform. The full patch notes are inside.

In a post on the official EA Forum, the publisher’s community manager wrote, “Our commitment to improve the FIFA 14 is ongoing, and regular feedback from our fans helps us prioritize and identify future improvements. Thanks again for your feedback on Twitter, Facebook, and the EA Forums. We’ll continue to provide you with information through those channels as and when it becomes available.”

The patch notes are as follows:

• Some stability issues when entering Online matches.
• Some cases where users with large friends lists can’t access certain Online features.
• Allows the Goalkeeper in Clubs mode to change camera angles.
• Modifications to a couple of camera angles in specific stadiums to improve playability.
• Ensures the Brazuca match ball appears properly in FUT once redeemed in the EAS FC Catalogue.
• Resolves some Online issues regarding match invites.
• Improvements to some Kinect Global Speech Commands.
• Occurrences of mismatched roster names in Seasons matches.
• Virtual Pro Ball Skills varying from match to match.
• Random list appearing instead of Friends Clubs list in Pro Clubs.

U.K. Charts: FIFA 14 nets another no.1

by Michael Harradence
EA Sports’ FIFA 14 has claimed the first U.K. video game no.1 of 2014, reports Chart-Track.

Competition remained stiff as we entered the New Year, though the footie favorite still managed to pull in the punters, with sales up 21 per cent over its predecessor.

Call of Duty: Ghosts takes second place, followed by Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag in third, Battlefield 4 at four and Grand Theft Auto V at five. The latter is the region’s fifth best-selling video game of all time, noted Chart-Track.

See below for the full Top 20.
    FIFA 14
    Call Of Duty: Ghosts
    Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag
    Battlefield 4
    Grand Theft Auto V
    Need For Speed: Rivals
    Lego Marvel Super Heroes
    Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition
    Just Dance 2014
    Gran Turismo 6
    Forza Motorsport 5
    Batman: Arkham Origins
    Dead Rising 3
    WWE 2K14
    Aliens: Colonial Marines
    Saints Row IV
    Football Manager 2014
    Ryse: Son Of Rome
    Tomb Raider
    Disney Infinity