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EA Sports' FIFA Soccer series is wildly popular, and they wring more money out of the franchise however they can. One way is by seriously downplaying the international teams in the base FIFA series and releasing a special World Cup or Euro Tournament edition every two years, making suckers like me buy more than one soccer game in a year, over and over again. It's not quite manipulative, but it still makes me feel like a junkie reaching past FIFA 10 to pick up yet another soccer game off the shelf. There's nothing I can do about it, it just works.
FIFA World Cup South Africa lets you take any of 199 international teams all the way through the process of World Cup Qualification and into the Finals, any of them theoretically having the chance to win it all, even New Caledonia or Luxembourg. The base game mechanics are virtually indistinguishable from FIFA 10, except for a renovated, more detailed penalty kick system. The "Virtual Pro" mode, which lets the player control a single position player rather than the entire team, returns under the name "Captain Your Country," and "The Story of Qualification" lets you take on smaller bits of interesting real-life games over the past few years and try your hand at them.
The largest difference between FIFA 10 and FIFA World Cup is the teams themselves. While FIFA 10 has international teams, they aren't really included in any of the basic modes, there aren't that many countries, and the squads have no life or color to them. In FIFA World Cup, you can choose (from a limited pool) which players will represent their countries, which is an even more satisfying managerial choice than choosing squads at the club level. I think it's ridiculous that Vincenzo Iaquinta is a starting striker for Italy, so I can replace him with Giampaolo Pazzini any time I like. Coaches for a large number of teams are even modeled in-game, a nice bit of color for real fans. The entire game is basically made up of all-star teams, so the match-ups are just that much more interesting, and the nationalistic rivalries are more exciting to ponder than the local rivalries club teams usually deal with. If you start up a game between Cuba and the United States, the commentators will actually talk before the game about the tense history between the two countries, an awesome addition to the game.
The new penalty system adds more detail and tension to an already interesting meta-game within FIFA. Penalties are especially important in the World Cup (the last World Cup ended with a penalty shootout, after all) and the new system lets you try virtually everything a real player can do. There's an extra variable to worry about in the composure bar, which determines the amount of error in your shot, and you have to be gentle with aiming your shot so as not to kick it too far left or right. If you're feeling cocky and want to try a chip shot, you're welcome to, but the shot will be much harder to keep on frame. Or if you feel like attempting the famous Cristiano Ronaldo tactic of a sudden studder-step to try and see the goalie's diving intentions, it's all allowed in-game.
The "Captain Your Country" mode is a nice addition with a few flaws. There just aren't as many matches for a single player to worry about in international soccer, which is both good and bad for this mode. It's good in that it doesn't take forever for anything to happen. It's bad in that even on the harder difficulties, you'll have virtually no trouble soaring into the starting eleven of your country's team. There's not a lot of challenge to it if you can play competently. Another issue is that if your team fails to qualify for the World Cup or otherwise disappoints, then you're done. There is no next year to hope for, because that will have to wait for the next FIFA World Cup game.
FIFA World Cup isn't as detailed as FIFA 10, but it's still incredibly hard to resist for fans of international soccer. The graphics are even more beautiful, the gameplay is slightly improved, and the matchups are more interesting. The atmosphere of a World Cup is conveyed pretty well, and you just get the sense that every victory is that much more important than anything your club team did in FIFA 10. It's not a real game improvement but instead a natural advantage that FIFA World Cup has, but that doesn't make it any less valid for the player.
Nathaniel Edwards is a writer who specializes in covering controversial video games, the subject of his blog at http://www.legalarcade.com. He serves as gaming writer for http://www.kidzworld.com and contributes articles and reviews for BlogCritics Magazine.
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