FIFA 2001

The first thing anyone noticed on the PlayStation 2 version was the weight. EA Canada rebuilt the engine for new hardware and made players obey something closer to momentum, so a full-tilt winger could not simply pivot on the spot, and a defender committing to a slide was committing for real. That was the pitch. In practice it made the game feel like football played in ankle-deep sand, and it divided the audience immediately.

It arrived in the PS2's European launch window, which mattered more than the football did. Here was the annual football game, the most reliable seller in the territory, running at a resolution and a player-model fidelity the PlayStation could not touch. Kits had folds in them. Crowds had depth. Stadiums picked up weather. Next to the PS1 editions of the same year it looked like a generational jump, because it was one, and plenty of people bought the console partly on that promise.

What held it back was that the simulation ideas outran the controls. Passing was deliberate and slightly delayed, through-balls needed anticipation rather than reaction, and the fatigue system punished the kind of constant sprinting the series had trained everyone to rely on. Defending in particular was a chore, with the computer-controlled covering player prone to drifting out of position at the worst moment. Players coming from the arcade-leaning FIFAs of the late nineties found a game that argued with them.

There is a decent amount of structure around it: league and cup competitions across the licensed European divisions, friendlies, and a commentary team of John Motson and Andy Gray that was already a fixture of the series and still does a creditable job of tracking what is happening. The North American release carried Major League Soccer branding and a different emphasis on the box, the same game underneath.

Seen now, it is a transitional record rather than a good football match. The ideas about physical presence and stamina would eventually become the backbone of the series, but they needed another two or three years of animation work before they stopped feeling like friction. If you want to understand why FIFA on PS2 got good, this is where to see the groundwork being laid, mud and all.