13 proves to be a lucky number for this series and is the best FIFA yet, with many subtle improvements over last year.
I'm happy to report that a year later, the half-baked flaws of 12 have become strengths, and the strengths of FIFA 13 have been reinforced with several small but noticeable gameplay improvements.
ON THE PITCH
The on-the-pitch action will be extremely familiar to a dedicated fan of the series, and compared to the jump from FIFA 11 to FIFA 12, relatively little has changed this year. The most noticeable modification is a more aggressive attacking AI, which sees the other players on your squad making tons of runs forward and creating intelligent, opportunistic chances to score. I remember even as recently as FIFA 11, there would be moments of intense frustration when I would be holding the ball up and screaming at a winger or a forward to make a run past his man into wide open spaces that gaped behind the defense. Rarely were these screams answered. Now, however, the CPU-controlled players are quite eager to get forward, making lobbed through balls a hugely important weapon in this year's game.
One downside to your teammates' improved AI is that the game feels easier on lower difficulty settings. I've never been a FIFA master myself, despite enjoying the game quite a bit, and cannot pull off the more complex skill moves available to true stick jockeys. That being said, I've always found Professional difficulty a perfectly adequate challenge. Now, however, Professional actually feels quite easy at times, and it's probably best for veteran players to scale up a step or two higher on the difficulty ladder than they are accustomed to.
Aesthetically, the game has undergone one noticeable improvement: the reduced impact of the Player Impact Engine. Last year, there were tons of goofy collisions and crazy, physically impossible contortions as a result of this supposedly "realistic," physics-based engine. EA definitely has not mastered this technology (or has a very poor conception of how the human body moves), as Madden NFL 13's Infinity Engine -- essentially the same feature but modified for their American football game -- suffers from even more absurd bloopers. FIFA seems a year or two ahead of its cousin in this regard, as the collisions are slightly more toned down this year, and the flow of the game is better for it.
CAREER MODE
There are a few changes to Career Mode that drastically improve the experience in my book. For those gamers like me, who enjoy building up a franchise over a number of years, FIFA 13 offers a much more authentic, believable, and enjoyable experience than in years past.
First, the game finally lets you experience European football -- i.e., the Champions League, though the game refers to it as the Champions Cup -- in season one. In previous years, no matter who you were -- Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester United, you name it -- there was no European football in year one. The Champions League was just cancelled. Now, you have the option of either doing the Cup with randomly drawn European squads or with "realistically" simmed opponents, meaning top teams predominate. It's a great addition that means you don't have to play through two years' worth of games to bring home the biggest trophy in continental football.
Second, FIFA has made extensive improvements to its Youth Academy feature. While it showed flashes of promise last year, the new addition was hopelessly broken by EA's patches, which crippled created player progression. By Year 10 of a career, the best teams in the world were filled with players rated in the low 70's, and there were simply no superstars rated around 90 or above. It was as if the entire world just decided to stop playing football. This was an extreme and unfortunate pendulum swing from earlier FIFAs, where your scouts could regularly sally forth and find one or two prospects a month rated around 78-80 as 17-year olds (a different sort of unreality), who would then develop into 85+ stars by the time they were 20.This year, the game's balance feels fairly strong. If anything, progression has tacked in the direction of being too quick again, as many current players rapidly progress three or four points in a season, resulting in teams being much stronger in 2014 than they are in 2012. (The game could perhaps tweak the rapidity with which old players, or underperforming players, lose rating points to compensate for this problem.)
Young players now develop at a respectable and realistic clip. I just brought up the star of my youth academy, a 17-year old central attacking midfielder who was rated 72. I gave him a few games to gain first-team experience, but did not make him a regular starter. He's gained 3 rating points in his first season, leading me to believe he could be rated around 82 or so when he's 20 years old. (From what I've heard from others, rating progression is most rapid in a player's first two years, and then slows down from there, which again seems realistic.) That's exactly the kind of progression one would expect from an academy superstar -- indeed, it mirrors fairly accurately the development of players like Thiago Alcantara or Eden Hazard in real life.
Finally, the game has added the ability to manage an national squad while simultaneously performing as a club manager. Throughout your season, offers to coach various national teams will trickle in, the prestige of which will depend on your success and your own star rating. This is a fun diversion -- not necessary to those who live and die for club football, but nice if you want to lead the United States to a shocking success in the 2014 "world championships" or whatever FIFA calls it.
CONCLUSION
Look, I'm not an EA fanboy by any means. But run out and go buy this game now. For this rare occasion, the company actually deserves our hard-earned money. This season, EA's put out quite a few strong sports titles, including a much-improved Madden NFL 13 and this FIFA, which is almost certainly the best in the series' history. Alright, I've got a huge tie against AC Milan coming up, so I'm going back on the pitch -- enjoy!