Evolution Of FIFA 15 - 21 Years Of Incredible Football Graphics

8. FIFA 08

If there's one thing we'll remember about FIFA 08, it was its positioning in the hearts and minds of football gamers - this was for many the moment we realised that EA Sports' rendition of the beautiful game was overtaking Konami's competing franchise in almost every way. By now we were seeing player graphics in-game which surpassed the best of the cut-scenes or pre-rendered intro graphics of earlier versions. EA Canada had definitely found their stride here, whipping up a stunningly polished football sim which, for the first time on the new hardware, matched brilliant visuals with equally stellar gameplay and a meaty roster of teams and game modes.

7. FIFA 09

By the 2008 holiday season we all knew what to expect: more of the same, with a couple of refinements. And that's exactly what we got. Was EA Canada becoming complacent? Maybe. But the result was still heralded as the best football game ever made, as would be the case from here onwards until today. And rightly so - FIFA 09 was, in its day, the definitive soccer experience. We were at that point in the console generation were developers were pulling off some impressive visual tricks with the hardware. FIFA 09 made good use of this processing power to capture the atmosphere of the sport, both in the field and terms of the overall presentation. Players showed subtle tweaks and increasingly fine-tuned individual details, while stadiums and crowds throbbed with life, made even more believable with all-new lighting and weather effects.