The Backpage | Why You Should Try FIFA 13 Ultimate Team

In this week’s Backpage, football journalist and FIFA fan Darren Cross tells you why he thinks you should give FIFA 13 Ultimate Team a go, and looks at how easy it is to get started…

This morning I made a profit of 1000 coins while waiting for the kettle to boil.

I cashed in another 1200 while eating my cereal, made a bit more around lunch then finally found buyers for a couple of other players I no longer needed while on my tea break. This all meant that – by the time I got home from work – I’d saved enough to bring in Javier Hernandez on a Buy It Now. Or BIN, as us FUTers like to call it.

Result.

Around twenty minutes later I was celebrating a good win with my Gold Premier League Team after an impressive debut from Hernandez, who linked up well with strike partner Danny Welbeck and my Brazilian midfield due of Oscar and Sandro.

If you’re wondering what I’m going on about then I’m guessing you’re yet to try FIFA 13 Ultimate Team? Well, in this week’s Backpage, I’m going to tell you why I think you should give it a go and look at how easy it is to get started.

FUT 13 does a great job of talking new players through the game mode when you start up for the first time, so it’s best to just head in and get a feel for it. But for the benefit of those reading this who really know absolutely nothing about it at all… Ultimate Team lets you build, manage and compete with pretty much any squad of players you can dream up – there are over 8000 to choose from. You trade for the players with other FUT bosses or get them in packs, build up your team Chemistry then pick a formation, a competition and away you go. There’s much more to it than that, but that’s it in a nutshell.

Basically, it’s great and here’s why…

For me FUT 13 takes the best part of Career Mode – bringing new players in – and the best part of playing online – Seasons – and combines them. So you get the challenge of taking on other players online, but the difference is that it’s with a team you built from scratch. You dreamed the squad up in the first place, you spent time signing the right players, you picked the formation and you scored the goals.

YOU did it all.

So there’s a real sense of satisfaction when the players you’ve brought in do the business on the pitch, but just signing them in the first place can be as rewarding as actually making them perform in games.

Trading is a huge part of FUT. If you’re the kind of Career Mode manager who can’t let a transfer window pass without signing a whole bunch of new players, then you’re really going to enjoy buying and selling in Ultimate Team because – instead of doing business with the AI – you’ll be dealing with lots of other gaffers just like you who are all looking for the best deals so they can build better teams.

How you trade and build is up to you. Some FUTers like to gain coins by winning them in matches and selling players from packs, eventually improving their squad by gradually signing better players when they can afford them. Others will spend time finding bargains who have been put up for sale for less then they’re really worth, then stick them back on the market at a slightly higher price to make a profit. They’ll often do this with multiple players until they’ve amassed enough coins to bring in that extra special star or even a whole new squad.

Trading is a game in itself and it’s one you can play pretty much anywhere, thanks to the FUT web app and EASFC app on iOS. That’s how I was able to do some quick business while making a cuppa this morning.

When you’re not trading you’ll be playing, and FUT gives you a whole bunch of choices here too. You can compete in online or single player tournaments and pick up coins and trophies, you can play against a friend’s FUT team or you can go for promotion in Seasons. Again you’ve got online or single player options here but, for me, online Seasons in FUT is what it’s all about.

I’m currently using a Gold Prem Team with 100 Chemistry that I spent a lot of time and coins building, and it was worth it.

Because I’ve put together a squad of top players I head into every Seasons game feeling confident that I’m going to win, which is something else I love about FUT… when you know you’ve built a cracking team you head into matches with a feeling of invincibility that you don’t really get in other game modes.

The great news is that you don’t have to spend hours and hours building a Gold Prem Team to get that feeling of invincibility. I’m also using a squad made up of English Bronze players that took very little time to put together and it’s really strong – I think I won about 15 of my first 16 or 17 games with them.

The squad is made up of some of the best English players available at Bronze level, so when I use them in Bronze tournaments I know there’s a pretty good chance my team is going to be at least equal to, but probably better than, my opponent’s. Best of all it cost me less than 35,000 coins to buy. To put that in some perspective I built the whole squad after selling one Mario Balotelli I’d received in a pack, and I still had a big pile of change left over.

So there are a whole bunch of good reasons why I think you’ll enjoy Ultimate Team, and it’s really easy to jump in and get started on building your first squad of invincibles.

Okay, I’m going to have to wrap up this week’s Backpage here as all this talk of FUT and trading has reminded me of a bid for Ramires I need to check on. He could be the final piece of the jigsaw!

As always, thanks for reading and I hope to see you back here next week.

Darren
@Darren_Cross