Ultimate Team Expansion Breathes New Life into FIFA - BlyGilmore's Blog

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BlyGilmore's Blog

Ultimate Team Expansion Breathes New Life into FIFA

Posted on April 4, 2009 at 01:34 PM.

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It took a month, but I finally put down the PS3 controller and gave The Show a break to try out the new Ultimate Team downloadable expansion for FIFA 09.

The expansion does a great job of breathing some life into a game that�s almost six months old at this point � creating a completely different way to enjoy the same on the pitch action, while adding some new wrinkles and challenges to team building.

But with that said, if you aren�t a FIFA fanatic who was likely to play FIFA for another few months anyway, the expansion might not be for you.

The biggest strength of the expansion is adding a more complicated and strategic team building system than the existing Manager Mode.

Let�s be honest � whether you�re playing with Manchester United or Southend United, having a powerhouse at the end of the road isn�t hard to obtain. Just jack your scouting to 10, increase all your position coaches and spend any left over cash on the best overall player you can.

Players are also largely cogs that can be replaced by a better cog with little or no repercussions or thought. If you have an 80 overall CAM and buy an 82 overall CM, there�s no thought who will be the starter.

Not with Ultimate Team.

For starters, building your starting lineup is much deeper than comparing two players who kind of play the same position and their ratings. With Ultimate Team that question changes from not �who�s the better player?� but �which player makes my team better?�

Subtle but important difference.

With Ultimate Team you are juggling a number of factors and making strategic decisions about your team almost from the moment you jump in.

Instead of just overall rating and perhaps a few other key ratings (speed, passing, marking, crossing for example) you are taking into consideration a player's natural position, the formation you play versus the formation he is most comfortable with, his nationality and the nationality of players around him.

To use a real life example, yesterday I decided to start a 76 overall center midfielder over a faster, 78 overall center midfielder. If I were simply picking the best player to stand on an island with no other factors, the 78 would win in a heart beat.

However, the 76 overall player was an Italian who would be playing along side other Italians, in the formation he preferred. Just that one decision gave the team a four point chemistry boost.

When taking the same decision making process to your entire team�s composition, you can have a team of players that plays much better than the sum of their parts.

Ultimate Team then takes this one step further, adding Managers to the equation � each with their own preferred formation and giving chemistry boosts to players of the same nationality.

This system then trickles down into every aspect of building your team. Do you hit the trade market looking only for players that match certain criteria? Looking for pieces that fit the overall puzzle?

And what happens if, in your next pack of cards, you snag a superstar who doesn�t fit your current makeup? Do you try and build the rest of the team around him? Try and squeeze him into your existing makeup and potentially end up with a worse team? Or do you sell him and reap the rewards (some players, like Fernando Torres, are selling for tens of thousands of coins)?

You�ll find similar questions and decisions need to be made at every turn, as you juggle player and staff contracts, deciding what player to use a skill increasing card on, and what coaches to use.

Even something as simple as buying a pack of cards needs to be thought about. Buying a pack at the wrong time could result in you needing to trade or discard valuable contract or player skill cards (as you can only hold so many of each type at any one time � and are limited to 30 cards on your trade pile).

Online Play Central to Ultimate Team
Keep in mind you are doing all of this not just to beat on hapless computer controlled players, but to also give yourself the best team possible when playing others in online pickup games and tournaments.

No longer is having an advantage over your opponent as simple as picking Barcelona to his Celtic. Now any advantages in your team are based on your ability to build a team and manage your coins (with a little luck thrown in).

For the first time, somebody playing online can have an advantage over other players not just based on his skill with the joystick, but also his smarts.

Your ability to scour the trade market, find good deals and get the best value for cards you're getting rid of also play a role. Getting the perfect wing player for your team at a fraction of the cost can be a huge advantage and help you in other areas.

On The Flip Side
With that said, there are some disappointing aspects of Ultimate Team.

The biggest problem (at least for 360 gamers) is EA Sports� decision to run everything off their game servers. The result was constant disconnects and lag while doing something as simple as looking at your teams roster (with that said, it was much smoother last night than earlier in the week).

You also only have two types of game modes to choose from (each with an online option as well). You can either player a single game against any opponent, or you can enter a knockout, bracket-style tournament.

Both are certainly fun and good options to have, but it would have been nice to have something a little deeper.

Perhaps a �league� mode where you could pick another 9 teams to play an 18 game schedule with a points leader at the end? Or the ability to create your own tournaments with varying styles of play. For instance, being able to select some European powerhouses and have a Champions League style tournament?

The ability to search cards available for trade would also be improved. Currently it is very cumbersome to scroll through all of the cards available after setting your search criteria, and some more ways to narrow your search would also be great (for instance being able to only view auctions with a "buy now" option, or sort your search various ways).

And why the trading of cards isn't also available on a web site some place is beyond me.

Conclusion
There are other aspects of Ultimate Team that are nice, but not really huge features with a lot of meat on them. Sure, having your guy slide across the grass on his bum is nice and all, but not a selling point. Same for having more created player customization options. Those are just things added to help coax you out of your $10.

Really your enjoyment of Ultimate Team will come down to two big factors.

First, do you still like playing FIFA all these months later? If the idea of playing a couple of hundred more games both online and off makes you sick to your stomach, go back to The Show.

Second, does the idea of juggling a number of cards and trying to make decisions about which cards you use at a certain time in the hopes of giving you and advantage over other players sound appealing?

If it does, I think you'll lose yourself in the strategy aspect of collecting digital trading cards. If it doesn't, you'll probably find yourself losing interest pretty quickly.

Comments

# 1 BlyGilmore @ Apr 4

good call on being able to customize the kits. that's be pretty cool to have a bunch of templates based on existing teams and then be able to change the colors as you see fit.

IMO the logo part would be cool if you could upload a custom image some how and have that used. Otherwise, almost every game out there has always had some cheesy, premade logos.

# 2 Hellisan @ Apr 4

Really good article. Not into fefer (or footie) at all, but still sounds very interesting.

# 3 hq3000 @ Apr 5

How do you customize the kits in this mode. I just started playing it and its great. Its has a bit of the PES style of building your team that I always enjoyed with the collecting cards which is always fun. Its pretty awesome. I can't wait until I can afford some of the gold packs.

# 4 BlyGilmore @ Apr 6

The kits are cards like everything else. So can have a home and an away kit, and get them either from packs of cards or by trading.

# 5 BrianFifaFan @ May 25

I'm gonna be playing my MM until next October. Of course I've had it crash on me twice so I have to keep rebuilding from step one.

That keeps me from getting too much of a loaded squad. I tried the UT demo and it was cool, just not for me. I'm a diehard MM'er.... Here's to hoping that they really gave that some love this year.