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Everywhere you look, you see someone else talking about social-network gaming -- and they haven't been using very kind words. I usually ignore these discussions, much like I block every single game invite that pops up on Facebook.
I'm not interested in plants, towns, or islands. My Facebook gaming ended with the death of Scrabulous. I do play the occasional game of Lexulous, Scrabulous' successor, with my mother, but otherwise, I steer clear of all Facebook games.
Then I came across EA Sports' FIFA Superstars. I'm a huge soccer fan, and I hoped that this game might excite me where others had failed to capture my interest. The World Cup starts this week, so my soccer interest is at a fever pitch.
The game is a management simulation that offers no direct control over the action. I like this type of game. I love fantasy sports, and Superstars isn't far removed from that particular hobby.
This is probably the game's most action packed moment.
After a brief tutorial, you face a variety of options, all of which reek of deliberate "social gaminess" and microtransactions. The elements that optimize the game for social networking ruin it.
Let me explain.
Nothing for you to do
Initially, your team consists of C league players who aren't household names in their own homes. From the outset, I didn't have many ways to use this team of rag-tag misfits. You can predict World Cup results, which has no bearing on the rest of the game; you can play English Premiership teams once you rank up to level 5; you can play friendly matches with your friends; or you can join the Juniors C League and start playing matches with other teams created by, presumably, other Facebook users.
The world's most boring mode -- and it's time-locked.
Since I was the first person in my group of friends to play, I really only have one option: play in the Juniors C League. This group consisted of three opponents, and as soon as I beat all three, my team can move up to the Juniors B League. Every aspect of the game has some form of level progression, so theoretically you always have something to do -- if tokens, credits, and wait times didn't restrict everything.
It gave me a limited amount of match credits, the sole function of which is to spend on the privilege of playing a game. After beating my first two opponents, I spent the rest on trying to beat my third opponent. I was unsuccessful, and once I had extinguished my coins (used for upgrading), my match credits, and World Cup predictions, the game had absolutely nothing for me to do except wait for more match credits.
Soccer is a slow game -- FIFA Superstars is slower
I enjoy the pace of soccer. Although nothing can stop the clock, it has a lack of urgency, and the execution of each play comes with deliberation, if not success.
This game, however, is on a whole new level of slow. Bitmob's own Demian Linn has made multiple complaints on the Mobcast that Lord of Ultima offers speed akin to the movement of tectonic plates. FIFA Superstars is exactly the same.
The game hands out a limited number of matches up front and grants an additional match credit every 6 hours. Training programs range from 5 minutes to 24 hours. In the early stages of the game, players earn between 500-1000 coins, but the purchase of five randomly selected players -- who may or may not be better than members of your current squad -- starts at 10,000 coins and goes up from there.
My very labor-intensive but mediocre team.
After calculating a few figures, I predict I'll die of natural causes before I'll be able to see everything that is in the game, should I choose not to spend real currency. It has so much level progression -- but so little reward -- that it's inconceivable that anyone will attain any level of success in the game.
Let me give you an example: The game rewards players with 30 coins every time they play a friendly with a Facebook friend, which can happen only once a day for each opponent. This sum is 0.1% of the total needed (25,000 coins) for a group of five randomly selected Silver Tier players, the level I require to improve my team -- even at the current Level 3 rank.
Even if this speeds up as the game progresses, why would they design something that takes two weeks to really get going?
Hit page two for the world's worst microtransactions.
