A name change that shocks the nation, but brings in the same dance that we know and love. Some say it’s “The Beautiful Game”, while others think it’s another yearly sports title that knows its audience too well already.
But I feel that EA Sports FC 24 is just building upon the blocks that were left by their old moniker, only this time we’re seeing some good improvements.
So now, it’s time to join the club as the new signing.
Presentation
Once you boot up the game for the first time, it welcomes you with a warm welcome with the bold letters and slick new UI greeting newcomers or even veterans of its previous games, making the first time booting the game quite special with how they celebrate Football and their fans.
However, one area of complaint is that the presentation of the match day experience feels like a hit and a miss because the new cutscenes do add in more background stuff like our commentators are now visible during half-time breaks or seeing the managers talking to the players in their lockers.
The new cinematics do feel quite rushed at times and don’t let players soak in the atmosphere as they did before.The tension like the London Darby is now quickly fast-forwarded at times, which is a shame because setting a scene should be key in a career mode aspect. And sometimes, cutscenes also bug out like the badges of your chosen team not showing, which while isn’t frequent, kinda takes out the experience at times.
Gameplay
With the improvements of their in-house HyperMotion engine, the main aspect of the game is still quite fun to play, though some of the new options within the settings do make the first-time playing experience is quite sluggish for my personal preference.
As for the gameplay side, Career mode still feels similar with some nice additions that streamline the experience for the manager career mode players. Like now being able to hire coaches to train your players in all aspects of the team, so the likes of defenders and strikers will get their own stat boost even if you only leave their training on their base levels.
And after signing for a team, you can now choose how your playstyle would go before a season, like perhaps choosing to play a more pressing style or even a counter-attack is some examples of choice that you can choose to personalize your team’s range of play to your liking, something that was missing in their previous incarnation. And makes the addition of a First Person Manager camera worth seeing your fruits of labor in play.
Really, the core gameplay for career mode and even the likes of the multiplayer modes like Ultimate Team and Pro Clubs are mostly the same, with some more additions such as the women’s premier leagues from various European countries being playable on single-player and multiplayer.
But there are some concerns regarding the playability of multiplayer on my end, with some pretty bad lag spikes happening if you do play the game on Crossplay, with some pretty bad spikes to 800 ping for some plays that might have been detrimental to a win or even loss. My suggestion is to play it on an Ethernet port if you haven’t because this spike is really bad at times too.
Content
What can I say about a game that has a pretty good shelf-life, even during its previous incarnation? When on the surface it might be a basic football game to the outside world, it’s the sort of game that has that sort of staying power that can be enjoyed solo or even with friends, because it’s that easy of a game to pick up and play.
My only complaint about the content is that with this new iteration, they should have made the introduction to women’s teams and players like how they did in NBA 2K, where a separate W Series career mode can generate players within the current and future players, to make the flow of introducing them to Ultimate Team much better than how it is right now, a bit jarring and slap-dash in nature.
Personal Enjoyment
It’s always an interesting predicament to review something that you have been playing forever and not really think about it that much besides “Well yeah, everyone knows about this game, sometimes it is the ONLY game that some people only buy.”
It’s interesting to be behind the curtains for once and review the game for what it is, a yearly sports title that may bring something new to the table, this time it’s being quite of a new coat of paint.
EA Sports FC 24 still is the defacto party game for both long-time fans and newcomers, like the reason why it’s still a beloved franchise (and also the biggest IP launch for 2023, because of course it is) is due to its simple pick up and play systems, and how easy it is to go from menus to seeing Wrexham and Inter Miami duke it out in two-player couch co-op, a rarity in this era mind you.
Astonishingly, the staying power for this series (even with the rebranding) is steadfast and I can commend them for being this enjoyable to play still.
Verdict
EA Sports FC 24 isn’t exactly the new experience that many would expect it to be and that’s actually quite fine. It just needed to be the only thing that many players wanted from them, a pretty good football game that’s fun to play with. And with that, it looks like the only way forward for EA Sports is to improve on it until the next one.
Played on Xbox Series S, Review code provided by EA.
EA Sports FC 24
EA Sports FC isn't that big of a departure from it's old roots but it become the only thing that many players wanted from them, a pretty good football game that’s fun to play with.
- Presentation 8
- Gameplay 8
- Content 7
- Personal Enjoyment 8