FIFA: Road to World Cup 98

FIFA: Road to World Cup 98 (commonly abbreviated to FIFA 98) is a football video game developed by EA Canada and published by Electronic Arts. It was the fifth game in the FIFA series and the second to be in 3D on the 32-bit machines. A number of different players were featured on the cover, including David Beckham in the UK, Roy Lassiter in the USA and Mexico, David Ginola on the French cover, Raúl on the Spanish cover and Andreas Möller on the German cover. FIFA 98 was the last FIFA game released for the Mega Drive in Europe.

Game features
The game marked the start of an upward trend in the series that marked it out as potentially the best gaming simulator for the sport in the world. The game was revolutionized, boasted an official soundtrack, had a refined graphics engine, team and player customization options, 16 stadiums, better AI and the popular "Road to World Cup" mode, with all 173 FIFA-registered national teams. The most ambitious of the entire series, it even features many accurate team rosters with even national reserves for national call-up when playing in the round robin qualification modes. In addition, 11 leagues were featured along with 189 clubs. It was also the first FIFA game to contain an in-game player/team editor.

For the first time in a FIFA game, the offside rule was properly implemented. In previous games when a player on the team was in an offside position doing anything except running saw the player of the game penalized for offside even when the ball was passed backwards. The 32-bit version of the game corrected this so only if the ball was passed roughly to where the player in the offside position was, the game would award a free kick for offside. The game also featured a five-a-side indoor mode, which was very popular with fans.

With the new graphical improvements, players were able to have recognizable faces. However, the faces looked more like expressions, as the starting elevens of Bulgaria and Ukraine could consist of "sad"-looking players, while the starting eleven of Macedonia could have "tough"-looking players.

The game included most teams from the world confederations and is thought to be the most complete and well-balanced game in the series when it comes to international play, which neither the 2002, 2006 or 2010 series have matched.

Featured leagues

 * 🇧🇷 Brazil Série A (only had some teams)
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England Premier League
 * 🇫🇷 France Ligue 1
 * 🇩🇪 Germany Fußball-Bundesliga
 * 🇮🇹 Italy Serie A
 * 🇲🇾 Malaysia Super League Malaysia
 * 🇳🇱 Netherlands Eredivisie
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Scotland Scottish Premier League
 * 🇪🇸 Spain La Liga
 * 🇸🇪 Sweden Allsvenskan
 * 🇺🇸 United States A-League

Stadia

 * Rose Bowl
 * Estadio Azteca
 * Hasely Crawford Stadium
 * Estádio do Maracanã
 * Camp Nou
 * Parc des Princes
 * Wembley Stadium
 * Amsterdam Arena
 * Råsunda Stadium
 * Olympiastadion München
 * Stadio Giuseppe Meazza
 * Ahmadou Ahidjo Stadium
 * Ellis Park Stadium
 * Tokyo National Olympic Stadium
 * Jamsil Olympic Stadium
 * Sydney Football Stadium

Reviews
Play magazine in issue 29 awarded the PlayStation version of the game 88%.