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One aspect of videogames that I think the mainstream gaming press underestimates is the amount of space still left unexploited on current DVD media. Reviewers almost always overestimate the amount of space taken up by games. Last year, Rockstar Games received almost universal praise for ‘squeezing Liberty City onto a tiny 1.8GB UMD’ – this made me chuckle because Grand Theft Auto 3 for the PS2 (which involved the same virtual city) was just under 1GB when you removed the dummy files! The same applies to soccer games. The newest Winning Eleven clocks in under 2GB (leaving another 7GB free on a dual layer disc), while FIFA 06 is less than 4.5 GB. In fact, the only games that make use of both layers of a DVD are the big production action/adventure games like God of War, Halo 2 and Resident Evil 4. The only sports games that are over 4.5 GB that I can recall off the top of my head NFL 2K5 and Gran Turismo 4.

What’s my point here? My point is that even though the Blu-Ray is on the horizon there is still lots of storage space left on conventional dual-layered DVD media for gameplay modes and features (which is good news for 360 owners).

Like watching TV

While the FIFA series has done a good job in recent seasons of improving their TV-style presentation it still falls behind the presentation found in other sports games such as the 2K series. I’d love to see half-time shows that not only show highlights from the match you just played, but also shows quick clips of goals from the other matches around the league. Likewise, it would be neat to have a weekly highlights show using goals and events from around the league. This isn’t particularly far-fetched at all since a similar highlights show was present in NFL2K5.

The online capabilities of X-Box Live bring to the table the possibilities of sharing goal replays and having a user-wide ‘Goal of the Month’ competition where Live users can share replay files (much like ‘Ghost’ replays in Project Gotham Racing are shared) and vote on those goals that they think are worthy of recognition.

Online

Speaking of online, I’d love to see the next generation of Winning Eleven on X-Box Live with online leagues and player rankings. Bizarre Creations included a Gotham TV mode in the recent Project Gotham Racing 3 whereby players can act as race spectators. I think this would be an incredibly neat mode to have in soccer games – imagine an online league cup final ‘broadcast’ to hundreds of gamers online on X-Box live? How about having a pre-match competition to determine which two users will act as live match commentators?!?!

Heads or Tails

Many older soccer titles (the original FIFA International Soccer springs to mind) included the coin-toss at the beginning of a match. However, over time this has been phased out. I think the opening toss needs to make a return. From a current generation standpoint I hate the fact that when I’m playing Winning Eleven as Liverpool at Anfield I’m always forced to attack the Kop End in the first half. But beyond that, since the next generation of soccer games should include things like Wind direction and real-time shadows/sunlight that affect gameplay, it’s only natural that the user be allowed to have a shot at deciding which end to attack in the first half.

More, more, more

Of course, for the next generation I think all soccer gamers would like to see more of everything! More stadiums, more teams, more leagues and more competitions. It’s sad that a 10 year old game like Sensible World of Soccer has more teams and leagues than FIFA 06 and Winning Eleven 9 put together! Of course, companies are limited in the number of real-life teams and leagues because of licensing issues, however, there’s a solution to this problem – allow an infinite number of custom teams and leagues to be created by the user, and give gamers the freedom to arrange leagues and divisions in the manner they desire.

Skeptics may retort that developers would be reluctant to do this as it would discourage gamers to buy next year’s version of the game. Yet, look at the Winning Eleven series, each year the game has about the same number of teams and yet people buy the game because of the improved graphics, sound and gameplay!!