'FIFA 14': Everton's Goodison Park makes video game debut

Electronic Arts have just announced another new feature set to be included in FIFA 14 –Precision Movement. Utilizing new technology codenamed ‘Locomotion‘ players will now go through a more realistic range of increases and decreases in speed or to put it another way – acceleration and deceleration.

This new technology will work in tandem with some of the other features we’ve already discussed in previous posts – namely sprint dribble turns.

We previously expressed our fears that this might produce unrealistic sharp turns during full sprinting movements, so these announcements really only serve to whet our appetite still further for a hands on demo in the near future.

Okay so we’re being slightly unfair on EA at the moment and Precision motion is the big thing they’re rolling out for FIFA 14. It affect every facet of the gameplay in the new version from passing to shooting and ball control to simple turns. EA has to get this right or gameplay will become a lottery.

Kantcho Doskov a gameplay producer explains that in previous iterations players were given full control over where players could move and when to the detriment of realistic movement. So if you wanted to change direction even though a players foot wasn’t planted on the ground you could – this is what Doskov called “floaty animation”.

Sure it allowed you to decide exactly where the player moved, but did it look like real football? No.

With Precision motion affecting all aspects of the game the aforementioned speed changes will also take some getting used to. The viscosity of the gameplay has been ramped up, there now feels like an inertia of movement, so that players take more time to get up to speed and also to come to a dead stop.

Legs will need to be planted before you can pivot and turn and the gameplay physics will also affect ball movement to bring an all round greater feel of realism to the gameplay side of FIFA 14.

We just can’t wait to get our hands on the demo.

In another announcement EA has struck up a three year partnership with FC Barcelona, which has meant the scanned in likenesses of 17 squad players to provide a more realistic model for the game.

The deal also signals the return of the Nou Camp stadium to the franchise and Barcelona are now added to the partnered list of European clubs which already includes Manchester City, AC Milan and Borussia Dortmund.