Battle of the Ports HD #26 (Fifa road to World Cup 98)

[Vendettare1]

Made sega, and EA fall out it was so bad. Sega lost massive shares there for the Dreamcast.

[keironewoodgate]

I love this!

[NeoGeoNinja]

I WAS GOING TO SAY...

the Saturn version really doesn't look anywhere near as bad as some had made out... then... the rain fell... on one pitch at least!

Also, the C64 style windows on the indoor pitch made me chuckle slightly too!

Yeah, a real shame it seems (not into footy games) but hopefully, still playable enough to enjoy...

[Bastylax86]

I remember when I was 12 playing this game over and over. It was so addictive that time.Same thing for FIFA99.

[PrtuguesePride]

Saturn was at minimum such good as playstation, minimal diferences, but playstation had much more games, and much more results, because it was cheaper at firts, and sega less games, because some publishers wanted to knock it out.. it was exacly the same with Dreamcast, as SEGA produce games, the other publishers had allways fear that sega dominated the market by having taking advantage of their own hardware knoledge to produce better games, compare SEGArally with other racing in 95 per example

[PrtuguesePride]

i dont think the graphics are worse in saturn because of the hardware, they are worse because EA double crossed SEGA, think for a second guys, who was the competition to EA in the 90´s?? Sony was only a hardware, while SEGA had Hardware and also made games (Sports Games) EA wanted to dominate Gaming publishing, and if you check World wide soccer 97 (Sega game) comparing to fifa 97 or even 98 graphics, you will understand why EA wanted to leave SEGA poor and wanting them to fail (continues)

[drewskione]

I hate the Playstation D-pad. That sells the Saturn for me.

[deinBoss]

this is typical ea... this are two difrent games, this has nothing to do with the power of the saturn... maybe the psx got a little bit more, i say maybe.... but this game its a shame, but its typical for ea

[cdbils001]

wow this time a big difference

[MajorStupido]

No aspect ratio correction on the Saturn Video? EA didn't care for Sega anymore did they ^^ ?

[KudouYusaku]

Mum picked up this game for me on Saturn way back when. I had fun with it, no complaints. I'm not a football fan anyway. She was just getting me games on a tight Xmas budget, and anything I got I was quite grateful for. I've never had a PlayStation, so it's very interesting me to see all of these head-to-heads. I don't regret it, however. I have a plethora of amazing imports and got to play all the games I really wanted: Sega's arcade stuff.

[huhtime]

fifa 98 on the saturn was poor

[Lemisification]

I prefer n64 version, unfortunately , that version don't have videos D:

[VUZOOKA]

woah, good thing i read these comments before getting around to buying it! fifa 98 is my absolute favorite football game (on the ps1) and changing from ps1 to saturn, i thought i might as well get the game again! luckily i never got around to buying it, i'll stick to worldwide soccer 97 instead. any other footie game for the saturn recommended (that's not a bugged conversion)?

[therealbluedragon]

@VUZOOKA SWWS 97 is pretty much the best game of it's type on the system so you're fine as is but I'd recommend looking up the Saturn ports of Fifa 97 & WLS '98 as both were surprisingly good versions. Avoid Actua Soccer & Euro 96 at all costs! Those are the 2nd & 3rd worst football games after Fifa 98

[VUZOOKA]

@therealbluedragon thanks for the tips mate! i remember in an old video game magazine they actually said that euro 96 was a good one for the saturn, they were probably doped... i would not buy any of them, luckily, because of the lack of teams! no international teams in a.s. and too few international teams in euro 96! hey realbluedragon will you be taking on some golfgames? like actua golf and pga tour 97?

[therealbluedragon]

@VUZOOKA I'm allways working on new videos so I'm sure I can do something.

[drunkensailor112]

@VUZOOKA try wws 98 not a huge difference but it has clubs and is still a bit better

[1906Scorpion]

@VUZOOKA Victory Goal is a good one too. Is more arcade style but is a great game.

[r29esperemosquegane]

playstation winner

[Warlordzito]

Another funny thing about this AWFUL Saturn conversion is they left the same intro, which has scenes from the much better PC and Playstation versions. You watch the intro, you think "wow, it looks nice and promising!" and then when you start playing you see what a bad job that was. EA's job on the Saturn in 1997/1998 was far from 'professional'.

[Majki182]

The Saturn version is one of the worst things that I've seen on this console. I doesn't beat Doom;), but definitely one can see that at that time EA couldn't care less about Saturn.

[therealbluedragon]

EA is responsible for quite a few bad Saturn ports but none of them equal the pure lack of effort that went into Fifa road to World Cup 98. The PS1 version is great, it's one of the best games of it's type on the system... why? Because that was the only version that mattered to EA.

Mid 97 the Saturn was already 'dead' Europe & the US, a certain commercial loss for any company wanting to make a game for the thing. But there was no excuse for EA to release this game in the state it was in.

[therealbluedragon]

Where do I start?

1. The game looks terrible, it looks worse than Fifa 97, In fact It looks like they just took the Fifa 97 Saturn engine & re-skinned it... badly

2. The textures are really bad & unfinished. The numbers on the players backs were never coloured in & were left black so you can barely see them

3. The player models look really chunky compared to the PS1 version, supporting my re-skin theory

4. Lot's of bugs, a couple of really bad ones too! Little testing was done on this game.

[therealbluedragon]

5. A super unstable frame rate. Sometimes it's ok, sometimes it's like a slide show!

6. No weather effects. The options for rain, sleet & snow are there in the menus but they were never added in!

To describe the Saturn port in one word would be "SLOPPY!"

It seems all they did was get the Saturn game to a "working" state then just shoved it out the door, unfinished.

Bad EA! Very bad EA!

[therealbluedragon]

It's true the Saturn games loads a lot faster but that's only because there's much less actual game to load! Honestly, more effort probably went into the 16-bit MegaDrive port that the Saturn game :(

[kubevubin]

@therealbluedragon - With games like this released on Saturn, it seems like EA refusing to develop for Dreamcast wasn't such a loss. XD

[LoStraniero91]

@therealbluedragon Sorry for this reply but what kind of bugs had this game on Sega Saturn (apart for the never implemented weather effects, which could be considered a really huge bug).

[therealbluedragon]

@LoStraniero91 Sometimes the frame rate will plummet without good reason. Crashing at the loading screen, the bar will fill up & then it'll just sit there. Occasionally when performing a goal kick & the game goes into a 3rd person view, you (as the goalie) are unable to do anything. The best one I've seen though is when the commentators repeat the same line over & over & over again without pause for the entire match.

[LoStraniero91]

@therealbluedragon Thanks, funny how GameSpot rated this one on SS with a 7.2 (or close) while obviously it looks like completely garbage on it. Well, I'm not surprised, the same thing happens to the Wii. Did you see how they butchered Need for Speed:Hot Pursuit? Just watch some PS3/Xbox 360 video then Wii and you will see. Too bad, because the Wii it's a good console, it doesn't deserve the kind of treatment EA is giving >_<

[PrtuguesePride]

@therealbluedragon do you really think that poor textures is about port?? come on... that was part of the game rendering... EA delivered in a purpose a poor game to destroy SEGA this was a conspiracy, there was payout´s for sure between sony and EA to made such thing... sony soon started to get "exclusivity", per example there wasnt tomb raider 2 in SEGA, or other interesting games, not because the console wouldnt handle it, but because most of company´s in gaming market want to kill SEGA