By now, FIFA World Ultimate Team's evolution from a cool add-on into the most popular mode in the whole FIFA series is well documented. EA Sports' fantasy football-inspired game lets you build a squad of players from around the world, tinkering with formations and player chemistry, before taking on other players or AI teams in actual games of FIFA. Playing matches earns you coins, which you spend on the transfer market as you seek to strengthen. It's a potent concoction that keeps many players going all year round.

 

In 'FIFA World,' you start out with a basic roster of players and as you play and win matches, progressively build your team. Anyone who has played the Ultimate Team mode in any previous 'FIFA' games will be instantly familiar and can jump right in. The setup is like a traditional football pyramid, you begin at the very bottom of division 10 and you play nine matches a season. If you can secure enough points, you might be promoted to the division above yours. If you fail to meet the minimum points you will be relegated down below.

 

EA Sports FIFA World uses three different methods of control: keyboard, mouse and gamepad. It also offers access to the Football Club social hub, in-game rewards for gameplay accomplishments and weekly featured tournaments for Ultimate Team, erm, teams. It requires a persistent Internet connection and an Origin account to play, though EA claims the game was "built to be enjoyed on average spec laptop computer or desktop personal computers."

 

EA has gone to town on the things that FIFA has always done well. There are new crowd scenes, banners, flags and shots of fans going crazy in the pub back home (seriously). Of course all the official stadiums are present, and then there is the commentary. Ah, the commentary. Suffice to say that if you get annoyed with ITV's coverage of the actual football, the commentary may well grate. I think that means it is accurate, if not enjoyable.

 

That quiet enthusiasm holds true for the package as a whole. From the green and yellow wash of the menus to the lack of blaring licensed pop songs cluttering up the game, World Cup benefits from the absence of things like Ultimate Team. While it may not invite players into the fundamentals of play as well, it does have far fewer barriers to the action than proper FIFA games. Somewhere between the sparser, laser focus of World Cup and the absurd range of options available in the centerpiece games released every year by EA Sports is the ideal soccer game that highlights the series’ spectacular field play. So, out go the domestic leagues. Out go thousands of teams and players. Out go a good handful of gameplay modes. And in their place? Bolted-on presentation features (like crowd reactions, and a bit of new commentary), a few paltry gameplay improvements that are either hard to care about or impossible to notice, and a sprinkling of World Cup modes. Though it nails the pomp and pageantry of the tournament, World Cup 2014 is simply not worth the money.

 

FIFA World may not be the final representation of Ultimate Team as a free-to-play game, then, and it's not quite ready to replace FIFA 14 Ultimate Team as the FIFA fan's preferred vintage due to its slightly ageing gameplay, but it is an entertaining proof-of-concept and a hint of the series' future beyond annual discs.