There is a worrying trend emerging with football games, where by "NEW" features plastered on the back of the box and sold as groundbreaking advances in the genre are things that were actually available in football games over a decade ago.
Case in point, FIFA 17's new overhauled Career Mode where you can monitor the club's finances and see what players are selling the most shirts, something that was available in the Career Mode on FIFA 06.
Before we launch into a tangent on how poor Career Mode has become with so many of the game's users leaning towards online gameplay, we've had a think back on some of the best features of football games of the past that left us scratching our head as to why the hell they were ever removed.
Here is what we have come up with, and if these features were put into either FIFA or Pro Evolution Soccer next year we would throw our money at them.
Indoor Mode
You knew we were going to start here, didn't you?
The reasoning behind no fun 5-a-side mode in FIFA is apparently due to how much time that would take away from other areas of the game that need work, but considering that you can essentially do it in training modes, is it not just a case of re-skinning the training arena to be indoor?
Even it was essentially a FIFA Street add-on, it seems baffling that FIFA continues to ignore the one thing they keep getting asked about.
Offline 1v1 Fantasy Draft Mode
Back in the official UEFA Euro 2004 game on Playstation 2 and Xbox, you and a friend could play a match where you take turns picking your squad from every player available in the game. The players were listed in order of their overall rating, you could search by position, or you could search by country.
It was absolutely fantastic, so much fun... And never seen again in an EA Sports football game.
Why?!
Random Select Match
The crème de la crème of friendly Pro Evo rivalries, Random Select Match was the best way to play PES 6 with someone on your couch. We made a separate tribute just to this glorious game mode before, but essentially it was pick four teams or countries, and receive a random squad of players from the teams/countries you picked.
Combination Kit Selection Options
Such a simple feature that would make things so much more enjoyable... Why can't I mix and match the socks and shorts for kits? Real football teams do it all the time, you'll see Manchester United play in black shorts and socks one week, white shorts and socks the next.
In PES 5 you could do it, and you never had a problem with kit clashes. Bring this back for the love of God.
Lounge Mode
Apparently nobody plays games with friends offline anymore, because anything that isn't an online mode appears to have been stripped back from all modern football games.
FIFA Lounge was a great way to make a night of gaming with two or three friends more interesting. A leaderboard to keep track of games, and handicaps and challenges such as the ability to remove one of your opponent's players if they were above you in the table.
It was clever, and fun, so where did it go?
Diving
A very divisive feature here, as while it was hilariously fun to use against your mates or even the computer, in an online environment this would be an absolute disaster. This Is Football was the only game brave enough to put the feature in, and FIFA have since come out and said that it's against the spirit of the game, as ironic as that is, so it can't be in the games.
So let's compromise; keep it out of the online areas and make it an option in the settings menu that can be turned on when you want a laugh.
Classic Teams
It is 2016, the fact that I can't put 1999 Man United vs 1984 Liverpool, or even 1967 Celtic, is deeply upsetting. What's worse is that NBA fans can play the matchups of their dreams in NBA 2K and have been able to for years, but we could do this back in FIFA 2000, so why take it out?!
Is this not what video games were made for, to play out matchups like these?
Sadly, it will be at least another year before any possible return for these features, and even at that we're not too hopeful.
