To add to the competition there is also an ongoing score which not only decides who wins the mode, but by uploading this score for your country in our Battle of the Nations feature allows you to compete with others worldwide and help your represented country top the leaderboards (a future blog will have more detail on this, so watch this space).
To make the game work in multiplayer we had to add a new camera which is called the Co-Op Camera. The Be a Pro camera really takes you in to the moment of playing as an individual, but it doesn’t work for multiplayer, so we set about making a slightly more zoomed out camera that at the same time didn’t compromise the frame rate. We liked the camera so much that it’s even our default camera in regular play!
We still kept all the call for a pass, switch camera focus, and other specific controls from FIFA 08 and also the “Be a Pro” camera, but to make the experience even more enriching we needed some other key elements. Examples of this are picking your commentary name, newspaper headlines, an ongoing news ticker on the central hub that keeps you up to date with all the goings on in your tournament, and last but not least the cut scenes and commentary both alluding to your player’s progress.
The latter not only includes your commentary name, and showing you in the line-up but also goes as far as commenting on your performance or the ultimate which is actually seeing your carefully created likeness lift the trophy – I know I particularly enjoyed it when the virtual me stepped up with the captain’s armband to hold aloft the EURO trophy for England, I may have to wait some time before Steven Gerrard can emulate me!
