Double Touch

A trend one noticed toward the climax of the previous year was the cancerous new vogue of what I can only describe as "retroactive development". This disease seems to be most prevalent in the sport game industry, notably within that wandering monolith, EA Sports. Yes, it's official... Fifa 07 is the superior to Fifa 08. And not just in a "sequels are always worse than the original" way either. Oh no, with EA's Fifa brand they are actually taking away the sequal entirely, it's like it never existed. It's akin to showing an uninitiated the first Star Wars film, and then saying, "here is the second film" but instead of playing Empire Strikes Back you play Herbie Fully loaded.

Seriously, as I returned from my local gaming emporium; copy of Fifa 08 in hand, the first thing I did was unistall Fifa 07. The promise of all those new features, updated squads, new gameplay modes, graphical improvements etc etc got the better of me. They beckoned to me, coaxed me on... "Oh just uninstall it. You'll never play it again will you. It's just wasted space on your otherwise clogged up hard disc. Just do it! Do it!" It was only when all those virtual years of progress had vanished into the ether and I booted up the new signing that i realised the terrible truth. Fifa 08 is abysmal! Sure it looks good, sounds good and even smells good (mmm the smell of new software), but the actual football has been broken beyond belief. It's like looking at a beautiful cake, only to find that it was made 20 years ago and is now riddled with maggots. The tasty looking facade propped up only by the cries of anguish, the tears of disappointment and the empty wallets of us the consumer.

How? Just how did they manage it? Did they just roll up in their Rolls one day after a three hour lunch and say; "You know what Tarquin! We actually did a bit of a good job with 07, didn't we! Actually gave the paying public value for money, gave them a remotely accurate simulation of professional football. Well we can soon fix that... Reif get that programmer from Pipper Funnels My lovely Horse piece of crap. Yes, get him to take over as chief programmer on 08! That'll show the bastards!"

Oh course what can one expect though? EA's dominance, no, no wait, monopoly over the sports sim industry is crippling. Not even the much touted Pro-Evo can halt this juggernaut of mediocrity. Because what is needed here is competition. And there simply isn't any.