FIFA International Soccer

About FIFA International Soccer

FIFA International Soccer (1993), also known as FIFA 94, is EA Canada's first FIFA game, an isometric Mega Drive football game with national teams and made-up players that started the best-selling series.

FIFA International Soccer in Depth

Where rivals such as Sensible Soccer and Kick Off looked down on the pitch from above, FIFA uses an isometric view. The player controls one of eleven footballers at a time and can switch between them, and up to four people can play together, on the same side or opposite sides, with the computer running everyone else. There are four modes: single Exhibition matches; a Tournament in the style of the World Cup, with three group games and up to four knockout rounds; Playoffs, which skips the groups; and an eight-team League played as a double round robin.

There are 48 national teams plus an EA All Stars side, each with 20 fictional players who look alike apart from darker skin for some teams; several are named after members of the development team, such as Tim Ansell of England. The PC CD-ROM version has commentary from Tony Gubba. A well-known oversight makes goals easy: standing a player in front of the opposing goalkeeper as he is about to clear the ball makes the computer keeper kick it straight to him.

Making FIFA International Soccer

After moving into sports with John Madden Football in 1988, EA's European arm concluded that a football game would sell best in Europe. A team of ten at EA's Canadian studios led by Bruce McMillan started it for the Mega Drive under the working title EA Soccer, with a budget of around $50,000 to $100,000, and added realism and an isometric view to stand apart from the top-down market leaders. Development finished in November 1993.

EA expected about 300,000 sales in Europe, but the Mega Drive version sold more than 500,000 and became the year's best-selling game in Europe despite its December release, including 400,000 copies in the UK in the last two weeks of December. Mean Machines Sega called it the "greatest soccer game yet seen", praising its animation and crowd sounds, while critics noted that the isometric view made it slower and the controls sometimes slow to respond. The 3DO version added multiple camera views and more detailed graphics. FIFA Soccer 95 followed in 1994, and the series had passed 100 million sales by 2010.