''FIFA Football 2003'', known as ''FIFA Soccer 2003'' in North America, and simply ''FIFA 2003'' is a
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
simulation
A simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time. Simulations require the use of Conceptual model, models; the model represents the key characteristics or behaviors of the selected system or proc ...
video game produced by
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the d ...
and released by
EA Sports. It was released in 2002.
''FIFA 2003'' is the tenth game in the
''FIFA'' series and the eighth to be produced in 3D.
Gameplay
A number of new features were added to improve upon
the previous version. Club Championship Mode was introduced with the feature of playing against 17 of Europe's top clubs in their own stadiums and the fans singing their unique chants and songs. A TV-style broadcast package gives highlights at half-time and full-time, as well as comprehensive analysis. One of the most anticipated new features was EA Sport's "Freestyle Control" which allows the user to flick the ball on and lay it off to team mates. Other additions include greater likenesses of some of the more well-known players such as
Thierry Henry
Thierry Daniel Henry (born 17 August 1977) is a French professional football coach, pundit, and former player who is an assistant coach for the Belgium national team. Considered one of the best strikers of all time and one of the best players ...
and
Ronaldinho
Ronaldo de Assis Moreira (born 21 March 1980), commonly known as Ronaldinho Gaúcho () or simply Ronaldinho, is a Brazilian retired professional footballer who played mostly as an attacking midfielder, but was also deployed as a winger. Wide ...
, as well as realistic player responses.
Players
The European cover features
Roberto Carlos,
Ryan Giggs
Ryan Joseph Giggs (né Wilson; 29 November 1973) is a Welsh association football, football coach and former player. Regarded as one of the greatest players of his generation, Giggs played his List of one-club men in association football, entir ...
, and
Edgar Davids
Edgar Steven Davids (; born 13 March 1973) is a Dutch-Surinamese former professional footballer and current coach.
After beginning his career with Ajax, winning several domestic and international titles, he subsequently played in Italy for AC Mi ...
, representing
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
,
Manchester United
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of City of Salford, Salford to ...
and
Juventus
Juventus Football Club (from la, iuventūs, 'youth'; ), colloquially known as Juve (), is a professional Association football, football club based in Turin, Piedmont, Italy, that competes in the Serie A, the top tier of the Italian football leagu ...
respectively. In the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
,
Landon Donovan
Landon Timothy Donovan (born March 4, 1982) is an American former professional soccer player. Donovan is also the co-founder and vice-president of soccer operations for USL Championship side San Diego Loyal SC, and serves as strategic advisor fo ...
appeared on the cover alone.
Reception
Upon release, ''FIFA 2003'' was initially outsold by ''
Pro Evolution Soccer 2
''Pro Evolution Soccer 2'' (abbreviated as ''PES 2''), also known as ''World Soccer: Winning Eleven 6'' outside of Europe, is the second installment of Konami's ''Pro Evolution Soccer'' football simulation video game series. The Japanese release w ...
'' (''PES2'') in October 2002, but ''FIFA 2003'' later overtook ''PES'' by December 2002, when ''FIFA'' had sold copies across Europe. The PlayStation 2 version of ''FIFA Football 2003'' received a "Double Platinum" sales award from the
Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), indicating sales of at least 600,000 copies in the United Kingdom.
The game received "generally favorable reviews" on all platforms except the PlayStation version, which received "average" reviews, according to the
review aggregation
A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...
website
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
.
''FIFA Football 2003'' was a runner-up for ''GameSpot''s annual "Best Sports Game on PC" award, which went to ''
Madden NFL 2003
''Madden NFL 2003'' is an American football simulation video game based on the NFL that was developed by EA Tiburon and Budcat Creations and published by EA Sports. The 14th installment of the ''Madden NFL series'', the game features former St. ...
''.
References
External links
FIFA 2003 website*
{{Authority control
2002 video games
Electronic Arts games
EA Sports games
Association football video games
2
Game Boy Advance games
GameCube games
Mobile games
PlayStation (console) games
PlayStation 2 games
Video games developed in Canada
Windows games
Xbox games
Video games set in 2002
Video games set in 2003
La Liga licensed video games
Exient Entertainment games
Multiplayer and single-player video games