2002 FiFa World Cup for Game Cube

If you are looking for soccer games, the FIFA series are the games of choice when it comes to controls and visual experience. Playing the latest of the series usually gives you the best experience, but if you have a Nintendo GameCube, the 2002 FIFA World Cup is the one that you should get. Since this is an EA Sports game, don’t expect any game cheats here, but once you master the gameplay and outsmart the AI, you can be rewarded with some interesting unlockables. Mastering this game is all about making the most out of the gameplay controls and knowledge about the sport itself.

Gameplay

If you played the original FIFA 2002 game, then you can immediately pick up and go as the gameplay hasn’t altered a single bit and the addition of the tournament mode serves as the only change. If you are new to the series, you’ll immediately notice that crosses take more skill to land effectively because the ball no longer homes in on the person. There is an assist option available for people who may get frustrated, but more skill and practice is needed to get used to the new flow of the game.

Unlockables

Before moving on to the games hints, it is best to know the different unlockables so you can set your objectives and use the given hints to your advantage. Note that none of these can be unlocked through game cheats.

There are 5 teams that can be unlocked by beating the world cup. The team that you unlock depends on territory they are from so for example if you beat the world cup using a team from Africa, you unlock the All-Africa Team. The same thing goes with the Americas, Asia, and Europe. After you successfully unlock those 4 teams, you unlock the All-World team, which is obviously the most powerful soccer team in the game, and you can play it in the world cup mode if you beat every single team three times without any loss on the World-Class difficult.

Hints

Assuming that you are playing to unlock all the hidden teams, you need to win the World Cup against the rival teams controlled by the AI. Fortunately, the AI isn’t very smart unless you are playing in the hardest difficulty setting. Remember that you need to beat the world cup four times using 4 different teams so you may find some smooth sailing if you use teams like Belgium, Croatia, England, and, Brazil, but you may see some difficulty when unlocking the later teams, as they are lower ranked. However, these general gameplay tips should aid you in beating the AI and maybe some human players as well.

• Like the older series in the FIFA games, crosses are the key of exploiting the AI’s defense on average difficulties. Master the crosses by applying some spin to make sure you connect. If you are playing on harder difficulties, go with the short passes and forget about the long lobs unless you know what you are doing.

• If you don’t like crosses, run near the goalie and do a little bit of juggling before taking the shot. This gives you a higher chance of scoring goals due the goalie easily getting confused.

• Juggling is nice if you know how, but not doing it correctly gives the AI an opening to tackle you. If this is too frustrating, you can lower the likelihood of this instance by lowering the difficulty to Beginner level.

• If the ball goes to the goalie, quickly kick it away as the AI can be aggressive in tackling and scoring a shot.

• Don’t bother taking shots from far away and hope they somehow go in. Although it can be possible to score from the middle line, your chances are better if you pass your way through the other side.

• Always substitute players that immediately receive a yellow card with another player unless he is a high stat player.

These hints should get you through most of the competition although a lot of sheer skill is required to beat opponents on higher difficulty. If the game starts to become a headache, you can somewhat cheat by side switching to the opposing team and force them to score goals for you and switching back to your team. It takes away the fun, but it pretty much gives you a sure possibility in unlocking all the teams. After you unlocked all the teams, beef up your skill more by playing with a friend.