Fifa 17, the biggest sports video game in the world, has been getting rave reviews since its release on Thursday – but what does it look like from a Dundee point of view?
Sadly, this time around there’s only one club from the City of Discovery in the game after Dundee United’s drop into the Championship last season so we’ll be looking at Dundee FC.
I’ve always been a fan of the career mode in Fifa – sticking yourself in the game and seeing how far you can get, playing out the childhood dream on a big screen – so I’ll be sticking to that for this review.
I’ve plonked myself in a dark blue shirt, so what do EA Sports think of Dundee?
Not much, is the answer.
Two stars is all they get. Medium domestic success, very low continental success, medium finances and very low youth development is Fifa 17’s take on the Dens Park club.
But a transfer budget of £1.85 million would sound pretty good to the Dark Blues manager would it not?
Around the Dundee squad there’s not much that jumps out, most players have an overall rating of between 62 and 69, apart from the strikers.
There’s a big old element of made-it-all-uppery about the stats of Faissal El Bakhtaoui and Yordi Teijsse – it’s not like either have played at this level before but their attributes couldn’t be more different.
El Bakhtaoui is a fast wee striker with really good feet and a decent shot – in Fifa his overall rating is 54, speed 53, acceleration 58 and dribbling a miserable 47.
Teijsse is a strong striker still learning the game since moving up from amateur football in Holland – his overall rating is 63, speed a massive 83, strength 80, jumping 84 and finishing 60. Hmm.
Around the rest of the squad, Darren O’Dea’s the best with a rating of 69 while Tom Hateley and Paul McGowan are 68.
Anyway, let’s get onto the game proper.
I made my debut away at Ross County in the league, Scotland’s new League Cup is obviously too complicated for EA to cope with, as an attacking midfielder (strikers always get subbed by the AI managers so I changed it up) behind big Yordi. The rest of the line-up was as you’d expect but without Paul McGowan.
Anyway, Teijsse smashed in the opener, County then hit the bar twice before a James Vincent header from a delicious Cran cross made it 2-0 at the break and a late own goal from somebody called Yenny van der Weg secured the win.
But I was subbed after 60 minutes for McGowan. Not happy. Transfer request on standby…
Overall, the game has had a real upgrade in terms of graphics, it looks fantastic and the gameplay’s decent, too, with a nifty new way of taking corners that’s taking a bit of practice to get right.
There still seems to be the same frustrating old problems, however, with AI managers making weird decisions like sticking your centre-back up front late on when you’re drawing a game and hooking players no matter how they’re performing or how tired their teammates are.
It’s Fifa, it looks amazing, you can do amazing stuff, but there’s still something missing at the heart of it for the true football fan.
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