WELCO METOT HENEX TLEVEL - FIFA International Soccer

Publisher: EA Sports Developer: Extended Play Productions Release: 1994

If you follow this website you probably know about my other series, Generation 16. The episode I'm currently working on there features the first soccer game on the Genesis: World Cup Soccer.

By coincidence, FIFA International Soccer is the next game in WELCO METOT HENEX TLEVEL. And playing these two games back to back drives home the fact that the 16-bit era is really when console sports games became a big deal.

Sports games were very basic on consoles in the early days. The point was mostly to recreate the on-field experience in the simplest way possible, with almost no thought given to presentation, authenticity or even accessibility. Camera angles were always either directly overhead or “television” angles that did not give players a big enough view of the field.

During the 90s, publishers like EA started taking sports games more seriously, looking to make simulations rather than arcade experiences. Licensed teams and players had a lot to do with this, sure. But more importantly, sports games were being made with the player in mind. Case in point: the isometric view used in FIFA International Soccer.

With this view you see a huge amount of the field, and thus can set up passing plays a lot easier than in a lot of previous soccer games. In fact, it just makes overall field awareness so much easier than earlier sports games, where it felt like players who weren't on the screen weren't really even on the field.

Not that this was the first game to do this (in fact, the FIFA series itself hit the Genesis a year before the Sega CD version was released), but it's definitely a great example of the leaps and bounds sports games in general made between the late eighties and mid nineties. And, of course, we all know what kind of business the genre has become in the years that followed.

FIFA International Soccer on the Sega CD also showed off the system's capabilities in another way, beyond your standard redbook audio and full-motion video clips of real players doing amazing things on the pitch. The sound effects were incredible – especially the crowd noise. One thing that a lot of people don't remember about the Sega CD is that it boosted the much-maligned sound system from the barebones Genesis. The combo still wasn't able to produce a lot of the quality stuff you'd hear on the SNES, but it sure sounded a lot better than what you'd get on a cartridge if the development team bothered to take advantage.

I think the crowd sounds incredible in this game. And I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with using redbook audio. You can hear great recreations of crowd chanting and reactions to plays on the pitch. Alternatively, EA's NHL Hockey on the Sega CD used a recording of an arena crowd played on a loop, augmented by reaction effects done through the standard sound system. The feature was quite effective, too, until everything went quiet when the recording ended and the laser had to seek to the front of the track again.

I think FIFA sounds better.

This series received a lot of much-deserved praise back in the day, and FIFA on the Sega CD stands as one of the best representations of it on a 16-bit console.