10 Potential FIFA 18 Player Career Mode Improvements
Want to be the footballer you never could be in real life? Here's how it could be better.
Player career modes in sports games are a mixed bag. Some games, like NBA 2K and MLB: The Show, have built their game around it and have become the undisputed kings of their own respective sports because of it. Others, like WWE 2K and UFC for instance, are well placed to build a great single player experience, but leave the player feeling unsatisfied and frustrated at its monotony. And some, particularly the EA Sports titles, seem to include player careers without really caring about making worthwhile.
FIFA's player career mode has been almost exactly the same now over the past few releases, and while it's reasonably enjoyable, there is superb potential just waiting to be realised. We all grew up wanting to be professional football players, before realising we were varying degrees of hopeless. For going on 20 years, we've had a superb game that allows us to be the best manager we can be, but no-one has mastered the art of letting us be a footballer successfully.
No game is perfect, but Football Manager is the undoubted king of putting yourself in the footballing world and testing your individual skills in the dugout. FIFA are obviously best placed to make it happen on the pitch, but it seems apathy leaves it missing something that could make it something amazing.
Sometimes we just want to pretend we're not rubbish at football, and get lost in the moment while doing it.
10. Starting The Game As A Free Agent
In MLB: The Show, you start off playing a few exhibition games so teams can scout you, and it reflects on where you'll be selected in the Draft. In FIFA, you just pick a team and off you go. Having the option to choose your starting point is great though! You can join your favourite team on day one, and life is fantastic.
There's a trick being missed here though. Wouldn't it be cool to have the option to start without a club? Perhaps you can be given a handful of offers at the start and choose your favourite. Maybe you'll be put through your paces in the skill games to determine your overall rating and you'll be offered deals accordingly. You could even go on trial at a club, and your performances in pre-season will dictate whether they sign you, release you, or whether a bigger club swoops in.
Whatever you want to do, there are a myriad of options as to how you could open your career. Starting as a free agent would be a fun way to try and work your way to the top, rather than just selecting a random League 2 team, and waiting to be snapped up by a big club as you rack up goals against Cambridge, Colchester, and Crewe.