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" After opting to commemorate the 2012 European Championships with a digital download, EA Sports has returned with a full retail release for this year&amp;#039;s World Cup in Brazil, exclusively on Xbox 360 and PS3. 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil adds new modes, teams, stadiums and a carnival atmosphere, but with FIFA 14 still fresh in the minds of fans, will it prove as popular?  Creating a carnival atmosphere Immediately, you can tell that 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil looks and feels different compared to FIFA 14.  Not so much when the whistle sounds and the first ball is kicked, but certainly leading into matches.  Everything is much brighter and more colourful, the music is a bit more chipper and there are lots of little touches that make it clear you&amp;#039;re at the World Cup. Crowds gather to watch games on the big screens, real life managers strut around the technical area and matches are played in bright sunshine. Producer Matt Prior said that one of the team&amp;#039;s key objectives was not only to capture the carnival atmosphere, but also to make new and returning fans feel like they&amp;#039;re a small part of a much bigger event.   &amp;quot;We wanted to create the biggest game we&amp;#039;ve ever done; capture the atmosphere that makes the World Cup so special; and enhance gameplay so that it&amp;#039;s a noticeably different game than FIFA,&amp;quot; Prior explained.  &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s the biggest game we&amp;#039;ve ever done in terms of an event title. There&amp;#039;s ten modes in there and it was important for us to create the atmosphere, because that was a key part of the World Cup, and this time around it&amp;#039;s in Brazil, and so it couldn&amp;#039;t be in a more exciting place.  &amp;quot;So, capturing that kind of Brazilian flair, that essence, that kind of atmosphere was key for us, so we&amp;#039;ve done lots around that. We&amp;#039;ve got the crowd in there, the managers in there, the crowd at home where it cuts away to the England fans in Trafalgar Square watching it all unfold.  &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;ve got external views of the stadiums and all that kind of stuff, so we&amp;#039;ve really blown out the atmosphere of the whole event, which was a key part for us.&amp;quot;       Tuning into the radio It&amp;#039;s not just visual touches that have been used to tell the story. As you play through tournaments and attempt to rise through the ranks and captain your country as youngsters like Ross Barkley or Jonjo Shelvey, one of two radio shows will talk you through the experience. &amp;quot;Traditionally in an event title, we&amp;#039;ve had game, game, game and you just kind of came to the front end and went back,&amp;quot; Prior continued.  &amp;quot;This time we&amp;#039;ve taken that a step further, so now we&amp;#039;ve added training to the whole flow, and wrapping that is the radio show. There&amp;#039;s two radio shows actually. There&amp;#039;s Andy Goldstein and Ian Darke, and two guys called Men in Blazers, who run a podcast out of New York.&amp;quot; The radio shows play between matches, adding a little extra colour and a splash of humour with more than 50 hours of recorded content.  &amp;quot;You can select your radio going in, and they&amp;#039;ll just kind of set the scene and talk about the things that make the World Cup so exciting. &amp;quot;When you&amp;#039;re actually in the World Cup, they&amp;#039;ll talk about your performance, and if you get to the last game of the group stage and need three points, they&amp;#039;ll talk about that.  &amp;quot;They&amp;#039;ll answer emails and talk about what makes the event so exciting, but they&amp;#039;ll also tell the story of the World Cup, and it&amp;#039;s really funny as well.&amp;quot; Rewrite history with Scenario mode In addition to mandatory training modes for England hopefuls and radio shows telling stories and setting the scene, 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil injects further variety through the returning Scenario mode, which lets fans rewrite history and relive the story of qualifying. &amp;quot;There&amp;#039;s two scenario modes,&amp;quot; Prior continues. &amp;quot;There&amp;#039;s the story of qualifying, which is a representation of everything that happened in the qualifiers, such as the France vs Ukraine turnaround, for example.   &amp;quot;And we&amp;#039;ve stories, or events, from all over the confederation, so it&amp;#039;s not just UEFA. That&amp;#039;s just a really good way to showcase how big the tournament actually is for people who might not realise.  &amp;quot;It also showcases the effort we put into those teams. We&amp;#039;ve done nine new generic stadiums, and that represents nations where we didn&amp;#039;t really have coverage.  &amp;quot;So, for example, if you play as Fiji, the stadium in FIFA might look like Northern England, so we need to create authentic stadiums to really kind of capture the global appeal of the game, so there&amp;#039;s a lot of new stadiums to represent environments we didn&amp;#039;t have coverage for.  &amp;quot;Ultimately, as you go through those scenarios, you unlock XP, which can be used to unlock the story of qualifying events for the entire tournament for England, for example. So you end up with England&amp;#039;s entire story of qualifying, or the entire story for France.&amp;quot; One of our favourite scenarios played out in the last 15 minutes of the England/San Marino game. Players are tasked with doubling a 5-0 score before the clock runs out.  With no substitutions and a few tired legs, scoring five in 15 minutes is easier said than done, even against San Marino, but we did have a lot of fun trying. New scenarios will be added during the World Cup tournament itself, with games like England vs Italy available to replay an hour or so after they finish.  Set piece tactics and new penalties On the pitch, 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil feels very much like last year&amp;#039;s effort, although that&amp;#039;s not to say there aren&amp;#039;t some noticeable changes. As Matt Prior points out, the team has tried to &amp;quot;evolve the gameplay engine&amp;quot; by adding features that can be &amp;quot;carried over into future iterations&amp;quot;. Our favourite new addition is set-piece tactics, which gives players the chance to passively control teammates, making attacking players crowd the keeper, for example, or embark on a near post run.  Elsewhere, the team has taken feedback received from FIFA and tweaked things like explosive player movement, pinpoint passing, trapping the ball and even penalties. &amp;quot;Penalty kicks was the obvious one as an England fan,&amp;quot; explains Prior. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;ve enhanced it so that there&amp;#039;s all-new AI and intelligence within the penalty kicks.&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;ve also tweaked the shot tuning, especially the ease in which you can take a penalty kick, although at the same time, if you&amp;#039;re coming from FIFA, you probably won&amp;#039;t notice that much of a difference, because we didn&amp;#039;t want to break it for existing users, but we wanted to make it a bit easier for new users.&amp;quot; Unfortunately, after smashing our first penalty high and wide with England, the omens don&amp;#039;t look good for Roy Hodgson&amp;#039;s squad in Brazil. Still, at least the new FIFA is realistic. 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil will make its Xbox 360 and PS3 debut on April 17 in Europe and April 15 in North America.  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/gaming/previews/feature/a554928/2014-fifa-world-cup-brazil-preview-capturing-the-carnival-atmosphere/>