EA Sports FC 24 review - sensible changes and disappointing constants.

In 1993, EA Sports released FIFA International Soccer, on the Sega Mega Drive. The matches unfolded on a fuzz of green pixels, as though the players were bounding over squares of baize. The teams were all national, no clubs, and the licence did not yet extend to names, kits, or stadiums. But, despite the game nearly being branded "Team USA Soccer" in North America, the name stuck. Just. In an interview with MCV in 2014, Neil Thewarapperuma, the head of marketing at EA Sports in the nineties, put it delicately: "EA didn't give a shit about FIFA." Thirty years on, with the release of EA Sports FC 24, the developer has parted ways with the organisation that lent the series its licensed heft. Last year, FIFA president Gianni Infantino gave his humble appraisal of the split: "The constant is the FIFA name and it will remain forever and remain THE BEST." Thus it's now for EA Sports to prove that the constant is not in the name. It's in the game.

The proving is understated, and steeped in something dubbed "HyperMotionV Volumetric Technology," which sounds like the active ingredient in a sports-formulated shampoo. Indeed, the version of Luka Modrić that I unwrapped in Ultimate Team appeared to have been lathered in the stuff; his hair, which bore a lunar-silver tint, shook and shivered with a hyper motion all its own. What this jargon means, essentially, is motion capture - not just the flickers of anger or elation that gust across the faces of the stars, but the style of their movements, too.

Modrić, for example, is a low-centred flurry of legs, and his passes are charged with the proper chop and loft; stab a long pass through to a winger, and the oomph will leak off the ball just as it curls neatly to its target. Hover over Modrić's player profile, and you will see that he boasts a string of little badges: Whipped Pass, Incisive Pass, Long Ball Pass, Technical, and Trivela. These are known as PlayStyles and are a way to summarise each player's gifts, outside of raw numbers. Whereas you or I might be proudly studded with the likes of Procrastinate, Caffeine Reliance, or Indolente, Kylian Mbappé happens to possess Rapid, Flair, and a golden stamp, filed under PlayStyles+, called Quick Step. All of which means that he is able to explode into locomotion, with a full head of steam, and billow through the bars of an opposing defence.

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