3 Ways to Bide Your Time

Whether or not you consider yourself a gamer, you’re reading this site so one thing is for sure: You love (or at least moderately enjoy) football. With that in mind, it’s highly likely that you have played, seen, or heard about the FIFA series created by the minds at EA. If not, here’s a quick summation: It’s basically the only way to play football as a video game, and it’s been that way for quite some time.

Despite it’s reign as the leading offering for years, the folks behind FIFA haven’t slowed down in terms of making it better. According to the game’s official site, there are significant improvements on the way for FIFA 15. Among them is “Emotional Intelligence,” which basically means that if you mess with or hurt a player on the opposing team, you better watch out. As the site explains, “With over 600 new emotional reactions, players now respond to pivotal moments on the pitch—bad tackles, missed chances, epic goals—as they would in real life.” Additionally, you can expect a better presentation thanks to a variety of new celebrations from players and crowds alike, stronger commentary, and more. Not only that, but the graphics are somehow even more life-like; the goalkeeper dynamics have been completely redone; and the dribbling/control system has been overhauled.

If all of this has you feeling overwhelmed and anxious to play FIFA 15 immediately, we must apologise. The game is still a few weeks away as it hits the U.K. on Sept. 26 and the rest of Europe a day earlier. Basically, that means we have a bunch of time to kill before it’s here. Now, you can always fill the soon-to-be-closed void by just keeping up with your favourite clubs, but what about wanting to distract yourself with other football games? Easy. We’ve got a list of three that are sure to keep your attention, perhaps even after you have had your fill of FIFA 15. As a bonus, they’re all free to play and you can enjoy them directly in your web browser.

Power Soccer

First up is Power Soccer, which its creators proudly state is the “world’s best online 3D soccer game.” To be fair, they are probably right, but it’s because they don’t necessarily have a ton of competition out there. Still, this is a damn-good experience that’s comprehensive with hundreds of tournaments, solid graphics, and plenty of fellow players. That last bit is the most important here, because those 200-300 other users mean that you’re sure to have a varied gaming experience every time you play.

Goooal!

Now let’s head in another direction with Goooal!, a lighthearted betting-oriented arcade game offered at InterCasino. As they write in the description of the game here, you’re basically trying to “predict which of the 2 teams (red or blue) will win in the virtual match.” It comes across as your typical slot experience, and it is, but it’s also an enjoyable, nicely animated take on the world’s most popular sport. If only it came with some ridiculous announcer vocals, then we’d really be in business.

Hat Trick

By the time you get around to playing Hat Trick, one thing is quite clear: You’ll get your most out of these three games if you play them in succession. Basically, you can get your fill of FIFA-like gameplay in Power Soccer, embrace the betting aspect with Goooal!, and then dive into the simulation elements with Hat Trick. While you don’t actually play the game of football here, you do get to dive into the strategy side of the sport to ensure victory. It may have a steep(ish) learning curve at first, but it’s totally worth it once you get comfortable.