Now that both the Playstation 4 and Xbox One have officially hit the shelves, I took some time to do some comparison between the consoles and their predecessors to see just how much of a difference there is with the generation jump. Overall, there are three places where the next-gen versions really shine.
1) Stadiums
The presentation of the stadiums in FIFA 14 is absolutely stellar. I remember how impressed I was a couple of years ago when I saw stadiums such as Old Trafford, Stamford Bridge, and White Hart Lane, on the 360 for the firs time. The stadiums, even on the current-gen consoles, looked very clean and had good accuracy with how they are portrayed. The difference between current and next-gen, however, is night and day. Using the same three stadiums to get a feel for how they compare, the next-gen consoles have truly given them a face lift. The reactions from the crowd and even the crowd models themselves are just far more impressive. The grass on the stadium pitch in every instance looks as realistic as it gets. The next-gen graphics are really that much better.
2) Gameplay
Not much to get into here, other than the gameplay in FIFA 14 is much smoother and more enjoyable. The 360 version is very jerky with some motions whereas the next-gen consoles handle these quicker movements far better. Celebrations don't get the zoom in treatment on default settings, though, until after the main celebration is complete and teammates join the scoring player.
3) Player Models
While the create-a-player looks fantastic, none of the choices for customization have changed. It's just that the models look much better. Also, with the actual players who received the in-game treatment from EA Sports, they have been improved dramatically, especially new EA Sports frontman Clint Dempsey. His model in the past couple of years has been pretty horrendous, but finally it seems that it looked like the US Captain in next-gen.
After just a couple of sessions with the next generation consoles, I can say that I am very excited to see just what kind of potential continues to be untapped from developers as we enter a new generation of gaming.
