There’s been some more lag-time between posts. There will continue to be so, at least until later on tonight when I (hopefully) will be able to sit down and write through some of the backlog on my SP to-do list. For now, you’ll have to deal with this trifle.
As people might already know, I’ve got a jones for the beautiful game. Because of that, I like playing the FIFA series of video games. I recently picked up FIFA ‘07, and have been playing it. The ball physics are phenomenal, the animation superb, and the amount of details involved in the game is just spectacular. It’s one of (if not the) best soccer game I’ve ever played.
The game is infuriating the hell out of me.
There’s a learning curve with every new game. Especially when it’s a new entry in a series you’ve played before, you have to de-learn some of the things that had become instinctual and build up an extremely similar, but yet inevitably distinct skillset. Otherwise, you’re doing stupid things like sprinting past opponents when you should be squaring up your body to make a good challenge, or firing balls into row zed instead of using a finesse shot to snake it inside the post. I understand this. I, however, don’t care. I want to be good now, and I will not tolerate what I can only say is the complete and total unfairness of the new game mechanics.
The last game I played (towards the end of last week) stands out as a good example of the experiences I’ve been having. The ‘Pool took a 2-0 lead against a really good team (the Gooners of Arsenal), and felt like I was sort of figuring out some of the control mechanisms. With ten game minutes left (off of the 90 minute game clock…I think the games are 10 real-time minutes long), I thought, “it would suck if I lost this lead.” The computer team proceeded to pull of two ridiculous goals and almost got a third to beat me. (A third would have led to me potentially being literally blinded with rage.) Each goal included the following annoying things that the CPU teams can do in sports video games:
1. Pull off crazy-intricate ball-handling moves that the player-controlled teams will never be able to pull off because they would require intricate movements with the right analogue stick;
2. Consistently win tackles and challenges so they always retain possession of the ball (even if you could pull off the aforementioned trick moves, you would just have the ball taken away from you in mid-trick…the computer, on the other hand, almost never loses the ball when doing something fancy);
3. Intricate, precision passing that is impossible to do with your team because the players on your team that you aren’t directly controlling move like 50s style robots trying to maneuver themselves through the Double Dare obstacle course;
4. Have their strikers brush right past the defenders on your team to get a clean breakaway because when you switched the player you are controlling (because of the aforementioned robot/Double Dare factor), the guy who was in the right position to stop the striker jumped in some random direction because, at some point 20 minutes ago, you tapped the control stick in that direction;
5. Score a goal even though the goalkeeper has run out to block their angle, whereas whenever the keeper moves an inch off his line when you are attacking, he will stop your shot regardless of how many laws of physics he has to break to get in front of it.
Infuriating. I wanted to throw shit around my apartment when it was over. Not literal feces, but things like the game case, my slippers, and the TV. Instead, I shut the PS2 off and told myself that I can’t allow myself to get invested in these stupid games anymore. I walked away, and told myself to not think about it from here on out.
Now I can’t wait to play it again tonight. FIFA: video game masochism.
