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FIFA 21 review: A graceful transition to next-gen

(Pocket-lint) – Now in its 27th year, the FIFA game series is one of the most talked-about, most eagerly-anticipated when it comes to each year’s iteration – but it rarely surprises or shocks. Major generational overhauls do happen, but they are few and far between. Instead, we are mostly served minor tweaks and improvements.

And, that’s where FIFA 21 proudly sits. It is a relatively minor enhancement on FIFA 20, offering a few additional bells and whistles, kit changes, and a new colour scheme for the menu system. But then, that’s not necessarily a bad thing for its legion of fans.

Casual players will simply be happy with the latest round of kit designs and real-world transfers, while the more dedicated Ultimate Team players will be pleased that the game feels familiar but with some of the unwelcome gameplay annoyances removed. Indeed, this latter camp gets the more significant new features too, so even though this is certainly no generational leap, it is definitely an improvement on what has gone before.

Surely that’s all that’s needed? At least until PS5 and Xbox Series X/S get into their stride, anyway.

Generation game

FIFA 21 will be the first game in the franchise for the next-gen consoles, but that means it has to perform equally well on current-gen machines. That has undoubtedly hindered any major tech enhancements in the game or its engine. We haven’t seen the PS5 or Xbox Series X/S versions, reviewing the game on PS4 Pro instead. But, it is likely they will only improve in graphical fidelity – features, such as lighting – and loading times. The game is very likely the same.

Thankfully, the on-pitch action is excellent anyway. We really got into Ultimate Team (and the weekly FUT Champs tournaments) last time around, so were already comfortable with the ebb and flow of matches. However, there were a few things that irked us and other community members we’ve spoken to.

Crossing from the byline, for example, was next to useless in FIFA 20. Team AI left a lot to be desired too – especially in an attacking sense.

Both have been addressed, it seems. Crossing and corners have been improved. It is now easier to score a headed goal from a curling cross, we have found, thanks to being given more manual control. Plus, a feature EA calls positioning personality helps AI players take up more intelligent positions on the pitch, based on their real-life abilities and depending on the phase of play. We have seen, for example, that wingers and left-right midfielders will cut inside more often when assigned to do so in custom tactics, but only when there is the space. Strikers will look for space more often too, while defenders seem to be less rigid in their decisions.

These might not seem like massive improvements, but they do make a difference. And, when playing a computer opponent, they help the game feel more natural – more like you are playing online against another person than before.

That is especially true for the new competitor mode, which is enabled on legendary and ultimate difficulties. This gives the AI an even more personable feel. It also rakes up the difficulty again, giving you the impression that you are playing against some of the best FIFA players out there, so is a good trainer too, should you fancy rising up the leagues in division rivals.

The one caveat to the new pitch-level features is that we feel matches to be a little more considered than before – which makes the action feel slower paced. But then, seeing as we’ve switched from a 96-rated UT squad in 20 to one that’s 81-rated in the new game (and after some keen transfer wrangling, to boot), that could just be something that improves with our team strength. Certainly, if we have one tip for new players it’s to get a goalkeeper with better reflexes – reaction times are a big factor in this year’s game, leading to better responsiveness, and we’ve found goalkeepers struggle without it.

There are a few other minor issues we’ve discovered, and possible glitches, but EA Sports has always been spot on when it comes to patches and fixes so we doubt they’ll be there for long and, therefore, not worth making too big a deal over.

In the board room

Perhaps the biggest changes this time though are off rather than on the pitch. The menu system has been refined, with Ultimate Team in particular gaining a better, more streamlined layout. You can now get to the modes and stats more intuitively.

There are also new stadium options, to make your team more unique. Where in FIFA 20 you could choose a real-world stadium, a tifo (a backdrop behind the goal), and a theme that changed the hoardings, you can now go much further with a whole array of different customisation options.

Seat colours, stadium colour, pitch-side trophies, even pyrotechnics when goals are scored – these are among the many flourishes you can find in packs in order to alter your homeground. Crowd noises and celebration music can also be added and swapped in and out. It all makes for a more varied aesthetic that doesn’t really change the game performance-wise, but definitely allows you to show your flair and personality.

Your stadium also grows as you do – literally. As you tick off more objectives, it expands to become bigger and represent your in-game status. There is a heck of a lot of pride having an online player visit your customised-to-the-max stadium. And now you can truncate opponent’s goal celebrations to stop the more toxic of behaviour, and they yours, and there’s something wholly satisfying in having confetti cannons and musical blasts accompanying each of your goals.

The other new feature for Ultimate Team is the ability to play competitive matches in co-op. Division rivals and even FUT Champs games can be played with a friend on the same side. We haven’t been able to attempt the latter yet as the first FUT Champs weekend was yet to start as we wrote this review, but it’s fun playing with a buddy on the same team against an online opponent or two.

Management anger

Away from the competitive nature of FIFA 21 – which is by far and away the most popular mode – there have been improvements made to the career mode and Volta Football.

Volta first appeared in FIFA 20, with a brief story mode in tow. However, it’s been cut back to a tournament mode now, with your own created team – a Volta Squad – also gaining co-operative play.

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There is a narrative, voice acted section that helps you get to grips with the game, but it’s more to showcase a stream of guest stars than a full story as before. Indeed, the main aim of Volta this time around is to award you swag and give you a change of pace from 11v11 action. It has new skill moves, a better dribbling system, but is essentially the same fun distraction as before.

Career mode is also similar to previous outings, although it borrows a few feature from more dedicated management games. There is the interactive match sim, for example, which allows budding managers to avoid having to play entire matches and just the highlights instead. The game will play out in front of you, in top-down style, but you can jump in at any time.

It certainly speeds up a season in career mode and, combined with improved transfer and training options, it could well be a favourite for some – especially those who just want to play as their supported team. But, for the majority of players, it’s all about Ultimate Team and, as we’ve explained already, thankfully there have been enough enhancements to make this latest purchase worthwhile.

A better career mode and the return of Volta as a decent sideshow are the icing on the cake, but it’s UT where it’s really at.

Verdict

If we’re being brutally honest, EA didn’t really have to do much to make FIFA 21 a success. True FIFA and football fans would buy it regardless, even if it only added a data update – after all, football shirts are renewed yearly, cost more than £80 a pop these days, and yet still sell like hot cakes.

It might present a sequence of refinements and tweaks rather than anything groundbreaking, but it is the best FIFA game yet and that’s more than enough for us.

We suspect that next-gen developments might bring more to the party in years to come, but if you want the pinnacle of footy action on the current consoles (and PC), this is surely it.

Writing by Rik Henderson. Editing by Mike Lowe.

Watch Dogs Legion initial review: Four hours spent in good old (new) London Town

(Pocket-lint) – Watch Dogs has always had a fascinating premise – to be able to hack and interact with every technological item in the game world. However, the first forgot to add the fun.

The second game was much better, adding satire and wit to its clever concept – resulting in a sort of Mr Robot meets Silicon Valley. It also swapped the dull and dreary Chicago for the colourful and eccentric beauty of San Francisco.

Now we get something in-between. Watch Dogs: Legion is set this side of the pond, in old (new) London Town, and from our four hours play of an advanced preview build, we can say it is neither as po-faced as the original title, nor comical as the first sequel. It is also dreary and colourful in equal measure. Oh, and it is a proper slice of genius too.

Maybe it’s because I’m a…

We played the latest build over the cloud – such are the times we find ourselves in – so it’s hard to say anything about performance at this stage. And while we suffered a little frame dropout, thanks to Wi-Fi connectivity rather than source, we barely noticed – such is the immersive nature of, what many will no doubt be calling ‘Watch Dogs 3’.

Even from our effectively brief amount of time with the game, it’s clear just how massive it is. As well as the mindboggling concept of being able to recruit and then play as anyone who walks the streets, a large slice of the UK’s capital is open to explore. It’s also very recognisable to every Londoner and, while there are obvious and cheeky alterations to keep things manageable and playable, you will see more than faux landmarks to give you a sense of location.

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The streets, pavements, even signage and colour pallette are spot on, albeit with a slightly futuristic tinge – tech is a bit more advanced and the city has been taken over by a security company, Albion, that even the police force is beholden to.

Our only gripe in this respect is that, during our time with the game, it rained almost incessently. Now, ironically, it is bucketing down in the south of England as we write this, but it doesn’t rain in the capital as often as portrayed. Still, it gives Ubisoft an ideal opportunity to show some excellent reflection effects in the puddles, so we can’t really complain.

Ubisoft

Other than that, everything about the city seems well crafted and we can’t wait to explore it fully. We mainly just stuck to missions and recruitment in our limited time, so just having a wander or drive will be one of the first things we do when the final game comes in.

As it was, we essentially saw sections that we had to travel to for story or side quests. And, on the whole, we fast-travelled to each through the London Tube network. All you have to do is select a station on the large map and you appear in that station – that’ll be handy for sure, once our yearnings for tourism are sated.

Having a bubble

Slightly less accurate are the accents you hear throughout the game – at least during our four hours’ worth. Seemingly, Ubisoft feels that everyone in London either sounds like the Queen or Danny Dyer, with very little inbetween. You do get used to it, but if you’re not fond of the f-bomb, Guy Ritchie movies or mockney epithets, you might find it a tad more grating.

British DedSec recruits in particular like to drop an unholy amount of swear words into their dialogue, while enemies – especially those employed by gang boss Mary Kelley – have mouths like dockers (as our East End grandparents used to say).

Ubisoft

It does set a decent scene though, and sets the game apart from its predecessors. Accents aside, there is something very British about it all – with some keen lampooning of James Bond and other cinematic tropes that will delight fans.

We also giggle at the idea that the vast open-world games playing audience will have to get used to driving on the left-hand side of the road. It even foxed us once or twice, considering how used we are at playing titles set in the States.

Get over ‘ere me old china

Beyond occasionally grimacing at a dodgy bit of dialogue delivery and marvelling at the scenery, we also undertook plenty of actual missions – both story and recruitment.

The former are well structured and will take you through quite a selection of different objectives and even play styles. They are fairly linear, although you can approach many of them in different ways – either through stealth (advisable) or by rushing in guns a’blazing. We found we started out one way but soon ended up switching to the other after things invariably went “tits up” – as our character at the time would undoubtedly say.

Where Watch Dogs: Legion story missions differ from other open-world games, however, is that you can actually prepare for them beforehand, by recruiting a different operative that’s best suited to the task. And that’s where the latter mission types become more than just a cool idea.

Ubisoft

Say, for example, you need to get into the Metropolitan Police headquarters – as we did in our playthrough. You can do it as any DedSec operative. However, recruit a police officer to the cause first and you’ll find it’s much easier to get past security and into the building proper.

Or, if you need to rescue a fallen DedSec member who was shot or captured on a previous mission, recruit a paramedic who can get into a hospital more easily.

Different recruits and their different uniforms will likely always come in handy somewhere down the line. They also have different skill sets, which you can see by scanning them before you approach, so you can tailor your entire gameplay experience as you go, often based on the style that suits you best. It’s a cunning game mechanic that ends up overshadowing the hacking toolset carried over from previous Watch Dogs (for us, at least) and something we expect you’ll spend as much time on as the campaign itself.

Changing the old whistle

Certainly recruitment missions are fun. All you have to do to start one is scan your target, check out their skills and then approach them. Some won’t be receptive to your advances at first (indicated by a red icon), but could be won over if you perform a few tasks.

Others are more keen to join DedSec but will need a bit of help first. These mini-quests can be as simple as delivering a parcel from one location to another, up to multiple hacks required in heavily secure locations. You don’t know which until you actually engage your target for the first time and, of course, you can just walk away.

Ubisoft

You can also tag someone as a potential recruit and come back to them later – such as when their profile could perfecty suit the next stage in the story.

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Once recruited, they stay in your team menu until called upon. You can either do this between missions, swapping between them, or forcibly when you have been arrested, critically injured or even killed. The game has permadeath, so a recruited character cannot return if they do meet a sticky end, but at least you can then hop into the shoes of another.

Luckily, that didn’t happen to us. We did get badly injured though, so went on a hunt for a medic to get our previous character out of hospital. As it happened, we were too late as out of action avatars come back into the fray after a set time anyway.

Ubisoft

As well as the sheer fun of recruitment – our Ubisoft “handler” had to politely suggest we stop recruiting “half of London” if we wanted to see more of the story – it’s great fun playing as radically different personalities. This is such a departure from the usual open-world fare and certainly expands greatly upon GTA V’s three playable leads.

It’ll also likely make your game experience totally different to someone else’s. It might even increase replayability as you could end up doing the same mission with a young spy-like character one time, then an old granny another. We can’t wait to find out for ourselves with the final game.

First Impressions

We had a blast in our four hours with Watch Dogs: Legion. It has a familiarity about it, with the previous Watch Dogs and other open-world action adventures firmly in mind, but also feels like something new.

Part of that is the location, considering London has rarely been featured in games before (The Getaway and Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate are notable exceptions), but the recruitment concept is clearly the major differentiator.

We’ll have to see if it maintains its draw over a much longer period, but then the story missions seem well-rounded and varied anyway to keep you fully engaged.

From what we’ve seen so far, roll on 29 October and the game’s release on current generation consoles and PC. It’ll then be available on Xbox Series X / S on 10 November, and PS5 when that console is released on 12 November in the US, 19 November in the UK and Europe.

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Writing by Rik Henderson.

Mafia Definitive Edition review: A mobster cult classic

(Pocket-lint) – Originally released in 2002 for the Xbox and PlayStation 2, Mafia hit the spot for anyone with a love for cosa nostra movies. Set in the 1930s, and boasting a revolutionary-at-the-time cinema-influenced style, it marked a minor watershed in the coming together of games and films, and was afforded cult-classic status, spawning two sequels in 2010’s Mafia II and 2016’s Mafia III.

Now 2K Games has opted to remake it using the wonders of modern technology. Mafia: Definitive Edition is no mere tart-up job, but benefits from completely remade virtual acting, a reworked script, vastly improved visuals, and some vital gameplay tweaks. The result is hugely impressive, and the whole exercise was clearly a labour of love.

Old meets new

However, Mafia: Definitive Edition does still feel like a slightly curious mix of the ancient and modern. There was some head-scratching when it came out concerning how its huge, brilliantly designed game-world contrasted markedly with its very linear gameplay, and that contradiction is still very much in evidence.

The game-world – the fictional US city of Lost Heaven, largely based on Chicago, but with elements reminiscent of New York and even San Francisco – is so convincing and seductive that it begs to form the backdrop to the sort of open-world action to which we’ve become accustomed in recent years.

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And the game does have a Free Ride mode, in which you can grab all the weapons you want, jump in cars and explore. But there isn’t much to do in Free Ride, beyond violating traffic laws to goad the police into chasing you, sightseeing and mooching around in nooks and crannies for collectibles like comics, magazines and cigarette cards.

Superb storyline

That doesn’t matter enormously, though, since Mafia: Definitive Edition’s storyline is great. It will, in particular, strike a chord with devotees of the Vito Corleone flashback sequences in Godfather Part II.

2K Games

You play Tommy Angelo, a lowly taxi driver when the game kicks off. On a break from ferrying around Lost Heaven’s colourful inhabitants, he finds himself acting as a getaway driver for Sam and Paulie, two of Don Salieri’s lieutenants.

Reluctantly, Tommy gets dragged into the Don’s orbit, and Mafia: Definitive Edition charts his rise from fledgling wheelman to full-blown Mob royalty – although the narrative device of occasional flash-forwards to 1938, when he approaches a cop in a seedy bar to recount his tales, gives you an indication as to how things will eventually pan out.

Diverse play

Tommy’s journey provides an excellent framework for some pleasingly diverse gameplay. At first, the missions centre on driving (there’s even a motor-race), but before long Tommy is acquiring ever more exotic firepower from the Don’s psychotic armourer Vinnie, and using it. There’s a decent brawling engine which often comes into play – sometimes in gunfights when you run out of ammo – and the odd stealth sequence.

2K Games

The missions also expand in length as the game progresses – usually taking in multiple stages – and some are memorably epic. In one, for example, after blowing up a brothel, you end up in a huge shoot-out in a church, at the funeral of a street punk who was shot by Tommy’s pal Paulie (after Tommy originally declined to finish him off – he often seems just a bit too principled to become a major-league mobster, which is at stark odds with the sheer number of mobsters and cops you have to kill in the game).

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The original Mafia was somewhat blighted by cars that were near-undriveable (in a misguided attempt at authenticity) and weapons that were too clunky to wield with much accuracy, but both those aspects have been mercifully tweaked in the Definitive Edition.

Viewed as a third-person cover-shooter, the game is still clunkier than most of its modern peers, but not annoyingly so, and the cars are actually fun to drive this time around.

2K Games

The new cut-scenes – which are plentiful – and dialogue add a slightly more hard-boiled feel to the Definitive Edition when you compare it with the original, which works well, and the game’s desire to ape the feel of classic mob movies is strikingly well realised this time around.

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Verdict

A lovingly reworked, cinematic and atmospheric homage to the oeuvre of Coppola, Scorsese et al. Mafia Definitive Edition is a labour of love which brings a cult classic squarely into the modern day.

However, the fact remains that it’s still very much a linear game, and its storyline isn’t the longest at 12 or so hours. But those hours should be enough to induce rapture in any true mafia-movie enthusiast.

All in all, Mafia: Definitive Edition won’t be for everybody – despite its newly acquired, very modern production values, many gamers will still find it a trifle old-fashioned – but it’s a must for anyone who ever daydreamed about what it would be like to become a wiseguy.

Writing by Steve Boxer. Editing by Mike Lowe.