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What’s wrong with Fifa 14?

Last year we did a short article on the issues and bugs that were frustrating gamers on Fifa 13. With Fifa 14 having been out for several months now, gamers are starting to build a list of issues with the latest entry into the franchise as well. Fifa 14 is a very good game, made even better by the use of a new engine and beautiful graphics on the PS4 and Xbox One. But it’s not perfect. Here’s a list of the small issues that stop this good game being great and don’t forget to add your own in the comments section below.

1. Not to him!
This has been an issue for several years now – the poor passing. Attempting to pass the ball to the player closest to you ends up heading in the direction of somebody on the other side of the pitch. Granted, with 11 men on the field it can be difficult for the game to know who you’re aiming for but rarely do we try to pass to somebody off the edge of the screen, which is exactly who these passes try to pick out far too often.

2. I was trying to skip the cinematic
When playing cooperatively, trying to skip a cut scene animation or replay can cause the player to pass the ball if other members have skipped half a second before you. This can lead to wasted corners and passing to an opponent from goal kicks. It’s understandable though, the match was restarted and you pressed the pass button. However, the delay between button input and the play restarting should be increased as it was never an issue in previous versions.

3. Why you standing there?
The last several years in the build up to release we’ve been told about smarter AI and how they’ll bend their runs. Yet every year we’re left frustrated by AI players standing in offside positions and running too early. AI controlled players should always stay in front of the last defender until controlled by a human player rather than trying to guess when, where and if we’re going to pass it.

4. Are you blind referee?
The decisions by referees are appalling, though some may argue it simulates the beautiful game in that respect. If you’ve just passed the ball, you can get completely wiped out and the ref will do nothing about it. Same goes for hand balls, yes they’re not turned on but players can accidentally get an unfair advantage from them. Either have players move their hands or have the ball simply pass through illegal body parts.

5. I wasn’t even pressing triangle!
There’s little more annoying than the keeper charging out only to be chipped by an opposing player when you weren’t holding the keeper charge button. Yet this happens often in one on one situations, sometimes you think the defender will just get there but it doesn’t matter anyway because the goalkeeper is outside his area trying to be a hero.

6. No results found
When using the search function in Ultimate Team, it often says that there are no results for what you searched for, even if you searched for an English player in the Premier League. The same thing happens when you put a maximum price, no results found, yet if you manually go into the transfer market you can see several players matching the criteria. This is appalling with the game having been out since September to not fix this important function on what is rapidly becoming a very popular game mode.

7. But we had the ball!
The use of advantages in the game are generally very good, except when it comes to offside. Gaining an advantage from offside should be introduced asap as from our experience we’ve intercepted the through ball and had a chance to break only for the game to be pulled back for an offside. It would help to add a bit more realism to the game also and not break the play up as often.

8. We’ll have to play 1 v 1
Removing online co-op play (on the same console) was a disappointing mistake for the next (or now current) gen versions of the game. Sometimes you don’t want to play against each other all night and want to partner up and take on the world.

9. Lazy ball boys
This year there are ball boys to throw the ball to the players when there’s a throw in. A good idea, but sometimes the ball rolls back onto the pitch or is thrown by a ball boy onto the pitch and then the players stand there waiting for somebody to kick it out so the throw can be taken. It wastes time and is unnecessary, the extra ball should be removed much quicker.

10. Pick it up!
Sometimes the goalkeeper will just decide to smash a ball down field when he could simply pick it up and the team can maintain control. This is most often seen from long balls down field by the opposition to the front man that are over-hit and end up at the goalkeepers feet. No back pass here, just pick it up!

Honourable Mentions

Dodgy offside decisions
When caught offside, the lines the game uses to justify the whistle being blown can be very misleading. Sometimes the line is on the attackers front foot, sometimes the back foot and sometimes stuck in the middle. This means that they can be, sometimes, onside but it looks offside due to the lines being in the wrong place. This may sound like an excuse for being caught offside in a match last night but next time, just take a look. Also level should be on-side!

Tournament anyone?
Not this year. Tournament mode has been removed, it probably wasn’t the most popular of game modes but it was fun to do when you had a group of friends round and a fair way of working out who should play who.

The 12th man
Particularly in Pro Clubs, the referee will be wearing a matching colour to the home team. Our pro club wears a red and black kit but we always have to play in our away kit due to the referee always wearing the red shirt and black shorts combo which can be rather confusing in a fast paced match.

No more playing with yourself
This is for the minority but in Fifa 13 we enjoyed playing through seasons as our pro while a second player controlled everybody else, much like pro clubs online. However this year you can no longer do 2-player seasons and have one person controlling just the one player.

Not enough players to continue
If there are two of you playing online together, such as clubs, and somebody gets a red card then you automatically lose due to “not enough players” which is another online glitch. Same goes if you have three playing and two sent off etc.

This song sucks!
On the next gen version you can no longer skip tracks. We like most of the songs on there anyway but there are a few really bad ones, you just have to remember them and go turn them off in the EA trax setting. Not the biggest of issues, more an annoyance, but an issue none the less.

Well that’s our list and it feels good to get it out in the open rather than bottled up inside. Leave any issues that frustrate you in the comments section below and we may also add them to this article.

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