FIFA 98: Road to the World Cup

Christmas morning arrived and I gleefully opened presents with my family. In between gifts of Dilbert and Packers paraphernalia I unwrapped a small Nintendo-64-game-shaped present. Lo and behold, my intuition was right--I proudly held aloft my "FIFA 98: Road to the World Cup" video game box for all my relatives to see and smiled pleasantly to the camcorder. I could check off another present on my "List of Six" that had been given to my relatives only weeks earlier.

Not since "John Elway's Quarterback" have I owned a sports game for the primary purpose of playing in the single-player mode. I learned my lesson quickly. I hoped that this game would boost my material standing amongst my friends and boost my ego as I walloped them all. For a sports game to be good, it has to be fair, realistic, exciting, entertaining and have good controls. A quarterback sneak does not net 10 yards per play, nor does Brad Johnson complete every 50 yard pass to Chris Carter in triple coverage (most but not all). "FIFA 98" does an excellent job as an all around sports game.

I don't like soccer. It's fun to play when you're goofing around, but it's boring to watch. I like football, hockey and baseball, but I also like video games. Visually, "FIFA 98" is amazing. It looks incredibly realistic. The players head the ball, kick a through pass, perform a slide tackle and do much more without the viewer even batting an eye as to think that it doesn't look right. Along with these visuals comes great game control. The players react quickly, naturally and easily to the gamer's fingertip instructions. It is an easy game to pick up because as soon as you know a few buttons you feel like you're right in the thick of things, and it's easy to learn more advanced techniques from there.

How on earth can they make soccer exciting? The opening screen features flashes of soccer players performing various moves while Blur's "Song 2" comes blasting forth ("Woo-hoo," not Homer Simpson but "Starship Troopers"). That's a great start; I'm always pumped. The game itself is really exciting. Close matches are won and lost in injury time and whenever people play the room seems to erupt with screams. There are no real cheap moves or unfair tricks that can make other sports games so useless. And if the outdoor game is still too slow you can play indoor soccer where the scores really climb and the game gets more physical.

John Watson and Andy Grey are also great additions to the overall feel of the game. They provide running color commentary on the game in their unique British style: "We're in for a cracker of a game today." I almost bought "Brett Favre's Quarterback Club" just to hear Marv Albert, but these two are the icing on my soccer cake. I didn't know any soccer players or international teams before I bought the game, so I could have cared less if England's Arsenal played Italy's AC Milan, but when those two magically meet in my N64 world, I care. "FIFA 98" has what I'm looking for in a sports game.