
OneFootball
Dan Burke¡22 April 2020
From '94 to '20: The evolution of the FIFA series đŽ

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Dan Burke¡22 April 2020
1994 was a pretty eventful year.
Nelson Mandela became South Africaâs first black president, OJ Simpson went on trial for the murder of his wife, Kurt Cobain committed suicide, Amazon was founded and Pulp Fiction was released in cinemas.
But by far the biggest and most culturally important event of the year was the release of the first instalment of what would become the longest running football video game series.
Okay, FIFA International Soccer (also known as FIFA 94) actually came out at very the tail end 1993, but its popularity was given a big boost by the â94 World Cup in the United States, and the series hasnât looked back since.
It has, however, come a long way in the 26 intervening years âŚ
FIFA 94 was the first 16-bit football game to offer an isometric view of the pitch rather than the top-down view which had been popular in games such as Sensible Soccer. It featured only national teams, and no real player names.
The second instalment of the game wasnât much different to the first in terms of gameplay, but for the first time it featured club teams from eight leagues around the world: Brazil, Germanyâs Bundesliga, Italyâs Serie A, Spainâs La Liga, Englandâs Premier League, Franceâs Ligue 1, Netherlandsâ Eredivisie and the United States.
Former Norway goalkeeper Erik Thorstvedt featured on the cover.
This was the first FIFA game to feature 3D graphics (on the Sega Saturn, PlayStation and PC versions anyway) along with real player names. Frank de Boer and Jason McAteer were the cover stars.
FIFA 97 is mostly remembered for its awesome six-a-side indoor football mode, but it also featured commentary from John Motson and Andy Gray for the first time. David Ginola provided motion capture for the game and was also on the cover.
1998 was the year that shit got real for the FIFA series. Road to World Cup is still widely regarded as one of the best games in the series and boasted such features as a refined graphics engine, team and player customisation options, 16 stadia, improved artificial intelligence, a âRoad to World Cupâ mode with all FIFA-registered national teams, and a licensed soundtrack featuring popular musical artists of the time.
David Beckham featured on the UK version of the gameâs cover, and Blurâs Song 2 was the intro track.
For some reason, the hugely popular indoor mode was removed from FIFA 99, but it was graphically the best looking game in the series to that point and contained a cool European Dream League feature in which players got to compete in a league made up of the 20 of the continentâs top clubs.
Dennis Bergkamp was on the cover and Fatboy Slimâs Rockafeller Skank provided the intro music.
The coolest thing about FIFA 2000 was that it featured 40 classic teams full of retired football legends. The weirdest thing about FIFA 2000 is that Port Vale were on it. These were the days before lower league teams were playable in the game but The Valiants made the cut due to the fact theyâre the team supported by Robbie Williams, who provided the gameâs intro song.
Sol Campbell was on the cover.
Remarkably, FIFA 2001 was the first game in the series which featured a power bar for shooting and even more remarkably, it was the first ever FIFA which was playable online (but only on PC). It also allowed you to intentionally foul your opponent by pressing R1 on the PlayStation version.
Paul Scholes appeared on the UK cover, and Moby provided the soundtrack with Bodyrock.
FIFA 2002 was the first game in the series to feature the world âFootballâ in the title â a trend which would continue until 2006. A power bar was introduced for passing, and dribbling was made harder in a bid to make the game more challenging.
Thierry Henry featured on the cover of the UK version, and Gorillaz 99-2000 was the theme song.
Join us next time as the series continues âŚ