Guest Post: Fifa on PC

Since doing my PC Build, I’ve been really keen to try as many styles of games as possible. To see how they fit in the PC environment. Would Fifa really work?

Of course First-Person Shooters are borne out of Mouse and Keyboard use. It’s not too hard to get to grips with other games, but there are a couple of genres that I can’t get my head around.

Fighters and Sports games. So intrinsically linked with the use of controllers, or arcade sticks. How would they ever fare on PC?

Well, I’m no Fifa die-hard, but our guest writer and my brother @Danielk2954 is. And he just built a PC too.

Let’s see how uncomfortable we can make him by sending him a copy of Fifa 20 to play with mouse and keyboard!

Also, it’s worth noting here that I can’t recall Danny ever actually beating me in a match of Fifa……..

 

Fifa 20 on PC by Dan Kirby

Since I 1st owned an original Playstation I have had the latest Fifa game. I think it was Fifa 99 where I first started, and have had every version since. World cup games, Fifa street, you name it. Not once have I ever played it on a pc, console all the way for me.

In the past month I have built a gaming pc and Ben @NinjaRefinery gave me the opportunity to try Fifa 20.

When it was First suggested I almost turned my nose up at it. I just felt like Fifa = console and the very thought of it on a PC just felt all shades of wrong. Though I accepted the offer and Fifa 20 on the PC was installed.

Once it was installed it was time to give it a whirl. Even as it was loading it still didn’t feel right. On Fifa 20 there is an opening credit, which touches on the ‘Volta Football.’ On this video alone I noticed quite a big jump in the graphics, also just how fluid the video was.

It felt like it should, and not slightly jittery like the xbox one version i watched back in September.

 

Getting stuck-in

The video finishes, and you get thrown straight into a game of Volta Football…..

I decided on the first few games to give it the full PC experience and used a keyboard.

Volta football is not my speciality on the xbox where I consider myself a half decent player, so this was never going to end well.

The biggest thing was, how do I actually move the players? Would it be the usual ‘WASD’ combo like most other pc games? Would I use directional arrows?

This filled me with a bit of dread as you get the full 360 degree movement on a controller and this would feel linear. It never even came into my head that you would use the mouse to control the movement of your players. This really threw me and was caught on the back foot from the start.

Your ‘highlighted’ player has a circle around them and you move the mouse into the direction you require them to run via another circle. It works well and gives that 360 degree movement that is needed in the game.

The biggest drawback is that it just didn’t feel as fluid and the movement didn’t feel as natural. Though I do feel if I gave it time it would get there.

My head was finally into the movement and all of a sudden I’m 1-0 down. In all the confusion of learning how to move it totally slipped my mind there was a game going on. So at that point it was time to pause and have a scan of the keys needed to at least do the basics like pass, shoot & tackle.

I somehow managed to win the game. Settings where automatically on the easiest AI, though….

 

Settling into it

Now I’m moved to the home screen I know and love. I had 3 or 4 matches with the mouse and keyboard and felt like I was getting better with them everytime.

Without mastering the finesse shots and things like that, which are a staple for me in my Fifa playing style, I was still getting the wins, and after the games I kept getting asked if I wanted the level of the AI increasing.

Now I’m in a place where I feel happy that Fifa is viable over mouse and keyboard, and if that was the only way you knew how to play then I think you would get huge enjoyment out of the game.

Being an Xbox man, I went and got one of my wired controllers to give the PC version a real test.

 

The real test begins

AI set to ‘Professional,’ the level I play on the Xbox, a quick match was started.

To my shock, it played exactly as it does on the consoles. I don’t know why this surprised me. It should play the same, it’s the same game! But my pre-conceived ideas of Fifa on a console were still there.

It played so well and load times seemed a lot quicker than on a console.

I didn’t have any of the usual random Fifa glitches that the game is famous for. Perhaps I was just lucky, or it just happens less on a PC?

Fifa on a pc with a control is great. Plus I get to play it a lot more as I don’t take up the main tv. This means a happier wife, which is always an added bonus.

My pc is built with a higher spec than the recommended for the game. So I have turned everything up to the highest level to see what the game could do.

Fifa 20 looks great, graphically it feels just that next step-up from the consoles. This being said, it is far from perfect and there have been a few issues of players on the far side of the pitch almost being a tiny bit blurry.

I don’t think I have ever seen this on the Xbox, though I could have been ultra picky. I was looking for these kinds of faults.

 

Online joys….

The next task was to try the ‘Rage Quitting World’ online. With my PC version being on a different Origin account from my console, I had no previous stats.

Matchmaking had nothing for the game to use to make a fair as possible match make. Having said that though, I was playing the ‘seasons’ mode. Here, it is almost irrelevant as you work your way through the online leagues.

The game plays really well online and it feels like there is a much better connection to the server. Lag seemed very minimal if I noticed any at all.

30 minutes into the game, 2-0 up and pushing hard for a 3rd. The most Fifa thing in the world happened, yes you guessed it……. ‘Rage Quit’ from my opponent.

This is the most frustrating thing in the world to me. How will people ever get better? If you play against someone who is beating you badly you can learn so much.

Many times I’ve been losing 3 or 4 nil at half time and managed a 5-1 as an end result. I consider that as a win as I have adapted my game to match theirs and to try to control it. Not only that, I’ve kicked on and got myself a goal.

These are the biggest learning curves to me. Playing against AI all the time my game style gets very stale. But online gives me challenges that I am not used to.

I have played three games so far and 2 the opposition has ‘rage quit.’

I guess there is no difference with the PC gamer as the console player.

My only hope that as you progress through the online leagues it will happen less. As there are better players, and people who have already put the time in to progress through the leagues themselves.

So far, it’s looking good, it’s changed how I look at Fifa on PC and I’m excited to keep playing and see how I go!