14 DAY TRIAL // The new Skill Games feature introduced in FIFA 13 is, according to the developers working on the game, not just a simple tutorial mode but a way for players to test their ability to perform moves in the game and determine their own skill level.
Nick Channon, who is a producer at the EA Canada studio, has told VG247 that, “We’ve done Skill Games around having the Impact Engine and our physics allows us to have objects in the world that the ball would react to. So Skill Games was driven by that technology.”
He added, “For us, Skill Games were two-fold: One, we brought in an interactive tutorial to teach players the new defending mechanic and the feedback we got from that was, ‘That was great, but why didn’t you teach me the fundamentals of passing and shooting?’”
Each of the included Skill Games has four levels for players to beat, each of them harder than the previous one, and the last of them will score the player on their performance and will post each player’s performance on leaderboards.
The most hardcore of players will quickly create an ad-hoc competition when it comes to the Skill Games, creating a meta-game for the best fans of the FIFA series.
FIFA 13 will introduce a number of changes to the formula of the football simulation series, most of them linked to the Player Impact Engine.
Improvements will mean that gamers will have an experience that is closer to the real-world sport, including more unpredictable moves and mistakes from both attackers and defenders.
The A.I. of the game is also getting a boost and will be able to better read the various game phases.
FIFA 13 will be launched on the PC, the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 on September 28 and versions will also be offered for the PC, mobile devices and, presumably, the Wii U.