Sponsored Post: FIFA 14 – The Noob’s Eye View

I was part of a FIFA 14 tournament at the Unruly Media headquarters last week. Woo-hoo!

As long-time readers will know, I don’t have a clue about FIFA. I don’t even know why I accepted. I think I was just in a good mood that day and saying yes to people. Also, they mentioned pepperoni pizza.

I mean… I know the offside rule because I didn’t want to be one of those chicks who doesn’t know the offside rule. I don’t know many of the other rules though. I learned a few in the pub over the years. Don’t touch the ball with your hands unless you’re the goalie. Don’t kick other players unless you’re going for the ball or the ref isn’t looking. If you are kicked by another player, clutch a body part and fall on the floor until someone comes out with a sponge. Try and get the ball in the net.

FIFA 14 however. It looks good. Really good. Beautiful and with lots of fancy footwork on the pitch. The replay camera is simply fabulous, allowing you to see your amazing goals from a multitude of camera angles, scrubbing back and forth in slow motion to really rub it into your opponent.

I played a tournament against nine other bloggers and a few of the Unruly staff but fortunately, I managed to practice against Stewart of PS3Attitude first and learned a few fancy footwork tricks. I say “learned”. I squiggled the stick about and fancy footwork happened.

In fact, an awful lot of fancy footwork was happening on my team and I wasn’t involved at all. When you picked a skilled team in the new FIFA, they’ll happily challenge the other player on your behalf, nabbing the ball all by themselves then automatically passing control over to you. It’s entirely up to you what you do with it and I did spend an awful lot of time being surprised that I had the ball, but it seems like a pretty useful feature if you’re playing with kids (or noobs).

On the other hand, I was pretty awful at making my own tackles. Fortunately the game is either quite forgiving or I’m am monumentally rubbish at tackles because, despite flinging my players bodily at anyone who had the ball or used to have the ball or looked like they were going to have the ball, I never managed to get a red card.

You should probably head over to Live 4 Liverpool if you want some real info on the game. That guy won the tournament so I reckon he knows what he’s talking about.

FIFA 14 is out now on Xbox 360 and PS3, PC, 3DS and PS Vita. It’s free with Xbox One preorders and also coming to PS4.

This post has been sponsored by EA, but all thoughts are my own.