With out a doubt the best football game to be released yet.
Fifa 06 features over fifty leagues and cups from all around the world. Each cup and league is designed exactly as it is in real life and there is no team to be missing. For every match, you play your opposing team, but for those that get bored easily, you can simulate your games and watch your team advance through the rankings right up to first place. During the tournaments you can view all the statistics through out the tournament. You can also change your line up through out the tournament.
All of your skills and knowledge of the game are tested with the new fifa 06 challenges. There are over one hundred challenges scattered amongst twelve regions of the world. Fifa challenges your abilities with challenges such as passing, shooting goals, shooting accuracy, under dog challenges, custom scenarios, winning tournaments and many more.
For each challenge you complete you earn points. The difficulty of the challenge determines how many points you earn. Your points can be spent at the fan shop which holds heaps of unlockables. You can purchase such things as alternate jerseys, classic player biographies, footballs, practice stadiums, classic and world teams and many more. With so much to unlock, you’ll never get bored.
If you want to get straight into the game you can select ‘kick off’ which can best be described as free play. You choose the team that you want to play as and the team that you want to oppose and then you’re off. You’re straight in the game battling it out with your favorite football stars.
Another great feature of fifa 06 is manager mode. You fill out all your details about your personal life and appearance. You even get to choose what your image of yourself will look like (there are sixteen to choose from). You then have the tough decision of what team you want to manage. Being a manager of a major football team is very important, your club expects you to bring victory to the team. You have lots of jobs being a manager. You have to choose your sponsors, manage the clubs salary cap, buy and sell players and pay for the trainers to increase your teams abilities.
Manager mode goes for fifteen years. For every game, you can choose to play it or watch a visual simulation of the game. Manager mode is difficult but it is definitely one of fifa’s most enjoyable aspects of the game.
Fifa 06 gives you the ability to change and update the rosters. This feature is beneficial as players from all over the world change to a different club after the game has been released. Another good thing about this feature is that you can practically make your own world team.
You now have the opportunity to create a person and put him into the game. First of all, you get to fill out all of his personal details from his name right down to what county he comes from. Then you get to choose what he looks like. You can choose his hair, facial hair, eyes, mouth, nose, chin, cheeks, jaw, height and weight. After that you can select all of his attributes including passing, dribbling, speed and many more. One bad thing about this is that you can make him as skillful as you want, there is no limited amount of skill points to use. Now that you’ve finished, you can put him into your favorite football team.
You can also create your very own tournament. You create the whole tournament including all the teams that are participating and the format of the tournament. You also choose the date on which the tournament is to be held. If there are two teams that you really like, you can play as both of them.
The in game play of fifa 06 is very realistic as you pass, dribble and step your way around the defence. A new feature from fifa allows you to attempt skill moves around the defence. Shooting does not require much effort but from out of the box, accuracy is essential. Tripping is a good aspect of fifa but often a yellow card is awarded, when you really deserve a red one.
One bad thing about fifa 06 is it’s goal keepers. They are extremely lazy and rarely come out of their inner box. It is something that fifa can work on for their future games as it is quite annoying.
Multiplayer is a great aspect of fifa 06. You can play up to four players, whether you be on a team or fighting for victory against each other. Online is another good way to play against your friends and show them who’s boss. Online also is good for competitive players that want more of a challenge. There are a lot of good players out there that are eager for a hard, close match.
Fifa 06 allows you to look at all of your statistics. In profile manager you can view these and they contain such things as how many goals you have scores, how many yellow cards you have got, how many challenge points have you earned, your current winning streak and just general things like that.
The commentary has once again improved from previous games. You don’t come across phrases twice in one match very often. The commentators don’t just blurt out the lines, they say them with emotion and expression. The quality of the voices blatantly show that the actors are real football commentators.
There are not many sound effects in the general play. The only one is when the ball slams against the goal posts. Apart from that, there are none. Also the players don’t talk at all! These two features should definitely be worked on in future games.
The sound of the crowd is tremendously good. In the background of the commentators you can here different chants depending on the teams that are playing. When a team wins the game or even scores a goal, the volume of the crowd increases dramatically. It is a great aspect of the game.
Fifa 06 has a wide variety of music tracks on the menu. You can manually turn some off and tune into your favorite songs. They are very good and seem to relate to the game.
The graphics are superb. You can easily tell the difference between each player and they really look like what they do in real life. When it rains, you can see every little rain drop tumbling down from the clouds. It looks very realistic. The replays from fifa 06 are terrific. It looks like you are watching a real life game. The graphics of this game make it so much better than it already is.
Fifa 06 does have one bug. It is bearable but also noticeable. When there are lots of players cramped on the screen, the game gets jumpy. Luckily it doesn’t happen often but when it does, it’s noticeable.
To sum it all up, this game is superb. Everyone that has an interest in football should definitely get it and at the least rent it. Fifa 06 is definitely the best football game to be released. I’m sure that EA will continue to bring out football games and each year they’ll make it better than the last.
Good work EA!