Here's something of a cinematic experience (and a medium that I never planned to write much about) - FIFA 17's The Journey. Whilst I don't write about games or that industry (aside from a Bioshock post a while back). I thought it would be interesting to include my thoughts on FIFA 17's cinematic (and supposedly authentic) new game mode.
In The Journey the player stars as Alex Hunter, a 17 year old who dreams of following in his granddad's footsteps as a professional footballer. He is naturally talented, and is offered a contract with a Premier League club of the player's choosing, alongside his equally gifted childhood friend Gareth Walker. Upon turning professional, Alex faces the struggles of impressing his coaches, being in the spotlight, and even being sent out on loan to a Championship club. Eventually given another shot, Alex must lead his team to Premier League and Cup glory to solidify his legacy as the hottest young talent in football.
As well as how well he performs on the pitch and in training, the player can decide Alex's personality. This is achieved through having a choice of three pieces of dialogue during cut-scenes: a cool response, a neutral response, and a fiery response. A cool response will make Alex come across as a saint, and will earn him respect from the manager. A neutral response gives Alex an "everyday guy" personality, which will still earn him credibility to the manager, but maybe not as much as choosing the cool option. Fiery is when things get interesting. Alex will become self-centred and aggressive, much to the displeasure of his coaches. However, a fiery personality means more social media followers for Alex, and this in turn means more opportunities to be sponsored by big brands. I greatly enjoyed balancing the cool and fiery responses throughout my time playing, with the fiery choices often being the most amusing. My particular favourite was when we lost a match and the team is talking about how the fans deserve better. I made Alex's response to this conversation be "does it really look like I care?", which was all that was needed to finally get that lucrative sponsorship deal!
Given how matches take place once a week (with exceptions to cup games), you'll find yourself playing regular training drills in order to boost your stats. I found this to be a bit tiresome, but the game forces you to complete these training drills to a consistently high standard, else you risk losing your place in the team. Even so, repeating the same drills over and over again means that my investment waned, and was crying out for an amusing cut-scene to grab my attention. This is what I would say is The Journey's biggest problem: keeping interest in the story and game play when there is so much training throughout. To have to do it after every match kills the games pacing, meaning that I completed a relatively short story mode in small stages. I'm sure this is an area that will be improved should there be an interactive story mode produced for the next FIFA, with The Journey serving as a learning curve as to what works and what doesn't.
The story itself is good for the most part. Having consulted rising stars such as Marcus Rashford, The Journey aims to provide an authentic experience of a young player's sudden emergence on the Premier League scene. There are some pantomime like moments though, especially when the story focuses on Alex's friendship with Gareth Walker. After being sent on loan, Alex notices Gareth becomes more and more cocky, eventually joining another team for big money upon Alex's return. As I chose to play a Manchester United career, Walker ends up joining local rivals Liverpool, and the two ex-teammates are reunited as opponents not long after. So the drama is a tad exaggerated, but at least it's entertaining, and makes the player more determined to have Alex score against Walker's new team.
As well as how well he performs on the pitch and in training, the player can decide Alex's personality. This is achieved through having a choice of three pieces of dialogue during cut-scenes: a cool response, a neutral response, and a fiery response. A cool response will make Alex come across as a saint, and will earn him respect from the manager. A neutral response gives Alex an "everyday guy" personality, which will still earn him credibility to the manager, but maybe not as much as choosing the cool option. Fiery is when things get interesting. Alex will become self-centred and aggressive, much to the displeasure of his coaches. However, a fiery personality means more social media followers for Alex, and this in turn means more opportunities to be sponsored by big brands. I greatly enjoyed balancing the cool and fiery responses throughout my time playing, with the fiery choices often being the most amusing. My particular favourite was when we lost a match and the team is talking about how the fans deserve better. I made Alex's response to this conversation be "does it really look like I care?", which was all that was needed to finally get that lucrative sponsorship deal!
Given how matches take place once a week (with exceptions to cup games), you'll find yourself playing regular training drills in order to boost your stats. I found this to be a bit tiresome, but the game forces you to complete these training drills to a consistently high standard, else you risk losing your place in the team. Even so, repeating the same drills over and over again means that my investment waned, and was crying out for an amusing cut-scene to grab my attention. This is what I would say is The Journey's biggest problem: keeping interest in the story and game play when there is so much training throughout. To have to do it after every match kills the games pacing, meaning that I completed a relatively short story mode in small stages. I'm sure this is an area that will be improved should there be an interactive story mode produced for the next FIFA, with The Journey serving as a learning curve as to what works and what doesn't.
The story itself is good for the most part. Having consulted rising stars such as Marcus Rashford, The Journey aims to provide an authentic experience of a young player's sudden emergence on the Premier League scene. There are some pantomime like moments though, especially when the story focuses on Alex's friendship with Gareth Walker. After being sent on loan, Alex notices Gareth becomes more and more cocky, eventually joining another team for big money upon Alex's return. As I chose to play a Manchester United career, Walker ends up joining local rivals Liverpool, and the two ex-teammates are reunited as opponents not long after. So the drama is a tad exaggerated, but at least it's entertaining, and makes the player more determined to have Alex score against Walker's new team.
Being that I don't review games, I was eager to see how cinematic elements were tackled in The Journey, and for the most part, they hold up. The performances are nice (with cameos from the likes of Harry Kane and James Rodriguez), and the dialogue wheel allows the story and characters to take any number of directions. The repetitive nature of the training wears thin, but I was always eager to see what happened next story-wise. The addition of newly recorded commentary specifically for the game mode is also a nice touch. Whether FIFA will continue to explore story-modes like The Journey is unknown, but if it only serves a one-off thing, you could certainly do worse.
