The Beautiful Game

The new season awaits!

FIFA, the game series, also sometimes known as FIFA Soccer or FIFA Football, is probably the most played video game ever created. This illustrious video game series started in the late 1993. It was noted to be the first game to hold the official license from FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association).

Back when we was 6 years old, the 2002 World Cup took place, and we were completely mesmerized by the players, the great football dribblers and shooters of our time. We would imitate Gerrard, Roberto Carlos, Ronaldinho, Robinho and all the other heroes of the football world. Then we got computers. And we did not have to imitate them anymore. We could actually control them on our computers, and not only them, but control our favourite teams and win matches, all while looking at a 800x600 pixel screen(That was the presiding resolution in those days).

Since 1993, EA Sports have released a game of FIFA yearl. The general nomenclature is "FIFA <Last 2 digits of the year of release>". Introducing difficulty levels so that the advanced as well as the newbie can enjoy a game of football, FIFA soon broke all records of previous games of that genre. As the years passed, the gameplay became more smooth, the movement of the ball varied with bounce and force, and the players themselves moved with more likeliness with real world players. The game evolved to increase more game modes, namely tournaments, manager mode, player mode and goalkeeper mode.

Then EA took a bold step, namely FIFA Street. From our childhood, we played football in the back alleys and grassy playgrounds. Walls instead of boundary lines meant that a player could just hit it off the wall to evade a defender. No throw ins. The game would go on and on. Corners and kick-offs were taken from the same spot. And now, all these had been immortalized by EA in this risky endeavor of their's. Kudos! Lucky for them, this series was an immediate hit with the FIFA fans, and EA moved on to be one of the most revered game developing companies.

As the fan following grew, the users themselves got more better at playing. The credit goes to EA Sports to increase the base difficulty of the game to adjust with new and old users. Then came the multiplayer options. Now players could play against other players. This increased the amount of competition.

Sidenote: They introduced an interesting new concept called Custom Celebration, where the users get to choose how to celebrate their goals! This was like adding illustrations to books. A nifty accessory which intrigued the gamers.

Now after years of evolution, the game is at a better stage and has a better fan following than ever before. And even if someday great players like Pele, Maradona, Messi, Ronaldo, and Casillas are not with us anymore, they have forever been immortalized in these virtual realities!

All Hail EA Sports!!

Hi, Daddy Racing!

Gamers will have no problem identifying the picture. Even those who do not play often, must have heard of this particular game. For the complete newbies, these screenshots are taken from the internationally acclaimed game "ROAD RASH". What this game is, is the father of all bike racing games and probably racing games. Many children will remember enjoying beating up the police officers, or rushing through beautiful landscape(or as beautiful the landscape could be made due to backward graphics), or even trying to run over the lady who would wave the flag to signal the start of the race.

This game was released on 6 different console versions, through the years 1991 to 1999. Having backward graphics was not a problem, since at that point in the timeline of historical events, having a video game to play was unique enough. So yes, many people have played this game. Yet most do not know the significance of this game. This game was purposefully made to make a difference on the gaming platform. Unlike games before, this game improvised on the Hang-On concept, that is turning the vehicle by pressing left and right arrow keys, by making the player move through various grade changes. Although the graphics was not masterfully displayed, the general idea was presented and later built on by modern game developers.

The general gameplay was that of illegal street bike races. The races would be held in 6 different environments depicting California State Routes

• Sierra Nevada
• Pacific Coast
• Redwood Forest
• Palm Desert
• Grass valley

The game is based on gradient feel and obstacle based racing. The stationary obstacles include lamp posts, trees, mailboxes, water pumps etc. Among moving obstacles are the traffic cars, and the highest levels, police bikes. Players can use assorted weapons to beat other bikers and police bikers. However the bikers can attack back at you. The more you race, the more difficult the police bikers get. Your ultimate goal, though remains same. Win the race. Even if you rank second, the video will show the winner go away with the award and the girls in a convertible car leaving you to bite the dust.

This game launched all our friends to launch into contests of who was a better racer (as if racing on the computer was even close to racing in real life). However at that point of time, this game was a REALLY big deal.

The more experiment-oriented minds (like moi!) however did not stop there. During every race, we would see the landscape pass by. We just HAD to ruin our game by trying to find out what would happen if we leave the road. So one fine day, I decided to finally let my fellow racers win, and moved diagonally. Thus I reached the hills and drove to the peak. Now this scene reminded me of the song, "Aaj mein upar, asmaan niche"!!

However, since even in the all-famous game IGI, the dead body would be inside the hill waist-down, none of us minded so much as long as severe glitches did not show up during races. We all soon got pretty good at racing with top level bikers. Unfortunately most of us were not aware that driving bikes like that would be illegal and thus our heart broke when parents had "The Talk" with us. Oh, I don't mean that kind of talk! I meant the speech that you should play games less because it doesn't exactly match with the real world. Anyway, as history of games go, this game is the place to start!

P.S: Sorry, the language is spanish.