Review

You do not need this game if own FIFA 14 – let's get that point out of the way. To all intents and purposes this is the same game with all the club teams stripped out and fancy World Cup presentation. Even the loading screen skill games are the same!

2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil aims to capitalise on one of the great gaming traditions, namely being able to play along with a real-life sporting event – Virtua Tennis during Wimbledon; Everybody's Golf when it's The Open or even F1 '13 on any race weekend. However, for all the officially licenced stadiums, logos and teams, I don't see the point in paying premium price for a game that will be out of date in a couple of months. Especially with FIFA 15 due in 5 months time.

As you'd expect, there is a decent game of football to be played here and there are some nice game modes on offer. You can recreate the qualifying campaign for any of the included teams in Road to the World Cup; Captain Your Country lets you guide a single player to the prestige of wearing your National team's arm-band but its the World Cup Scenarios mode that is the highlight. This promises to update after each game during the actual tournament and will recreate the teams and conditions allowing you to play the same game. Obviously, this isn't working yet but it has the potential to be the most interesting part of the whole package.

There's no escaping the fact that this could, and should, have been released as DLC, the same way that EA handled Euro 2012 in fact. If you don't own FIFA 14 already then it's currently available in some stores for £25, there is simply no way it's worth spending £40 on this instead.

About the Review

Platform

Microsoft Xbox 360

Developer

E.A. Canada

Publisher

Electronic Arts

Released

17th April 2014