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When is a game not a game? Because 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil, when judged against your average triple-A release, has some pretty major shortcomings. Firstly: its value to you will grow and grow and then suddenly nosedive the day after the World Cup final. If you buy on release day, that's around 88 days of Rio-related fun and then it may as well self-destruct in your disc-drive. Online opponents will become harder and harder to find, the tie-in online content will suddenly become unavailable. And that's overlooking the fact that English readers will be pining for their club teams after a few hours spent in the company of Roy Hodgson's England. 40 quid for almost three months of playtime may be a happy enough transaction for your average fan, but then there's the matter of the game itself. EA Sports 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil is not a sequel to FIFA 14 - not in any sense that it attempts to correct problems with its predecessor's match engine, at any rate. EA's made it no secret that it focuses more on novice gamers for these souvenir releases, and so the main innovations are to be found around hand-holding 'Dad'-mode tutorials and the mounds of atmosphere-building content. This is not FIFA 15. It's barely FIFA 14.5, and it's not even coming out on PS4 or Xbox One.
We shouldn't be too critical of these consumerist concessions; playing a footy game during a footy tournament is about as broadly appealing as console experiences get, and it's fun to play against friends and relatives who've barely ever picked up controllers before. And the presentation, as has become expected from EA, really is top-notch, from an opening ceremony complete with CG samba dancers to in-game radio stations that allow you to choose between Blokesport's Andy Goldstein and the slightly nervous-sounding football hipsters Men in Blazers - all broadcasting as if the tournament had already started, something that borders on the surreal as you sit shivering in British April. Throw in live, in-game injury updates and bespoke match-day challenges and it feels like everything's been thought of to get you into a World Cup frenzy.
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