Deep in the recesses of closed time, there was no football. The flow of time, which many of us count on, had stopped. I became apathetic and bought "FIFA 20" to end the season. When we scored, the camera shook like Anfield. It was a strange time, obviously, but that's the power of FIFA. If you love soccer, in any shade or flavor, FIFA 22 should be a part of your life.

FIFA 22 is a lovable and complex pastime, but it also recreates everything that is special about it in terms of its greed and superficiality. The game succeeds and fails just like sports, and nothing condenses this more than FIFA Ultimate Team. If you dream of bypassing the existing league structure and forming your own Galacticos like a Spanish club president, FUT will make it happen.

If you want to take your time to build a team of GOATs, or spend real world money to build it, not knowing if you'll get the best players, then take on the world by making your chosen stadium more and more like a neon Thunderdome. Great players returning, seasons, XP, achievements, and a new elite division for the very best. Every temptation is there. And while it is interesting, one soon realizes that progress and actual advancement is glacial.

Furthermore, I think it is naïve to think that there is no cost to FUT. This is a loot box economy, and there is a growing body of research showing a verifiable link between loot boxes and problem gambling. FUT is not the only loot box game that is not exploiting moral panic when it comes to video games, and FIFA's reach is magnified by the negative impact of FIFA 21, which has 31 million players and an age range of 3 and up.

You may love FUT: 78% of FIFA players spend no money and 80% of FIFA players play FUT. But someone is paying your share of EA's $1.62 billion in 2020-2021 Ultimate Team revenue. If any of those people are paying more than they can afford, that's too many people for me.

Even if I had the patience, I would not be able to enjoy a "free" service run by a minority who are vulnerable to gambling schemes and have no protection from gambling laws, e.g. age restrictions and advertising regulations in the UK. Therefore, we do not recommend this as a function of FUT. Do not play.

The scores below reflect this, but fortunately FIFA 22 without FUT is vast and largely scrummy. You can enjoy Volta, tricky street football, a new story mode, and hilarious and chaotic party games on the weekends. There's even a Pro Club that lets you play cooperatively with up to 11 friends. There are quick kickoff games, a house rules mode, skill games, dozens of tournament recreations, and international matches. In fact, there is something for everyone, even those whose packages reek of the defunct European Super League. I've only played 45 hours and have only scratched the surface.

The fact that it doesn't feature the HyperMotion technology found on next-generation game consoles, or even top-spec PC systems, is teeth-grinding in principle; the FIFA game straddles the space between TV viewer and participant, as if you are there, but you are not. as if you were there, yet the game looks and feels like a talented game to be played.

In this case, I was too preoccupied with the slower pace of the game, i.e., more realistic, to seek greater fluidity of movement. GK is clearly getting better, at least until the next update when it is reconsidered. Once that fades, it becomes clear that this is the same game in a new shirt again, with few visible tweaks. Still, it's much better than Konami's "PES" successor, eFootball, and FIFA 22's shortcomings, while numerous, remain minor.

Then there are the two career modes, which finally get some love after being largely ignored for several years. The poorly related player career mode has been a welcome upgrade to the system. You can acquire a promising youngster and play out his career--although this is still limited to men's soccer: ...... Or you can give him your own face, start him at a local club, and use his prodigious skills to develop him into a world-class beater. There is not yet a story mode like in The Journey, but this is a good thing because the story is created by the players themselves, and the majority of it is in their own heads. Skill points and perks have been added, as well as a skill tree that grows players according to their play style. XP is earned by achieving huge floating objectives, and the whole process is less ambiguous than ever.

The new dressing room animations are supposed to be terrible, but it's beautiful to see teenagers sitting quietly with their Man of the Match trophies, nodding shyly and acknowledging others, maybe not so much when you've seen it 100+ times, but when you look at the stats It's the part where you realize why you were dropped. You get a chance for redemption from the bench. On-pitch substitutions are finally being introduced into the game, as well as a functional and fair transfer system.

You can also create your own club with its own kit, stadium, chants, and flags, much like the Pro Club mode in co-op. It is hard to get excited about this unconventional approach. You can't build Richmond FC. I tried.

The manager career mode has some new features as well, but with mixed results. The new negotiation animations are a bit chilling, but the Telltale adventure-like press conferences work better. Still, it's not "Football Manager," nor should it be, but its depth is enough to enjoy it as a challenge. But even after preparation, you will still be playing the game, and there is no option to just watch. Your skill, or lack thereof, negates all the work you have done. There are top-down sims, but it's hard to watch the patterns develop speedily, and you will always lose the games you sim; FIFA allows you to play on your own, so it's not right to insist on participating.

The question of whether this iteration demands your purchase is largely moot. If you've played FIFA in the recent past, you'll recognize that this is the same game, but you'll still want quality-of-life improvements, small incremental updates, new kits and squads. eFootball has a disjointed club license that promises much If you're a captive of FUT, you'll want to get shiny new state-of-the-art facilities and the largest player pool. The list of improvements is endless. I would argue that we deserve more, and sometimes it seems like generous DLC for the games we have, and sometimes it seems overpriced for the subscriptions we have to start from scratch each time. But these are ways I rationalize myself. I am not ready for the ship to sail without me.

If you're a beginner and a soccer fan, don't hesitate to come aboard. Even the easiest difficulty is easy, and if you can put off the possibility of multiplayer carnage until you are ready, you can take a painful but satisfying step up the difficulty. If you ignore the fussiness and flaws, you can weave a vibrant tale of success, survival, or failure. He takes a shot at the near post and rings it up for the fans behind the goal. Like the great games I once had in seven-man soccer, again and again, in front of millions of people, with a trophy that I won on my own, I will avenge decades of humiliation in the real world.