Kicking, kissing and screaming: 8 hilarious FIFA glitches

Football and gaming controllers go together like a puppet and string. Hilariously, I have a group of friends who often watch football games with imaginary joysticks in their hands, trying to (quite literally) play their sinking team to success. More often than not, it does absolutely nothing.

Roll onto 1993, with experience in creating games for crazed American Football and ice Hockey fans, Electronic Arts decided to cater for fans of the black and white mottled ball across the pond. Thus FIFA International Soccer was born.

Nearly 12 years on and we eagerly await the launch of FIFA 15, which promises to be the best version of the game yet, with pitch dynamics, player emotional feedback and improved gaming physics. But before each blade of grass was meticulously detailed, each ripple in the fabric responding to the breeze, there were some hilarious gaffes in the code.

Here are some of FIFA’s legendary glitches, gaffes and Easter eggs that have made us laugh and gawk over the years.

1. FIFA International Soccer’s overzealous referee

The very first FIFA, dubbed “International Soccer”, was quite a breakthrough for the sport-game genre, and glitches. Two glaring bugs in the game’s code turned goalkeepers into goal scorers and referees into maniacs.

One practically guaranteed a scoring opportunity thanks to the goalkeeper’s inability to clear the ball when a player is standing directly in front of him. But the second was probably worth purchasing the game.

After an offending player rugby-tackles another, the referee embarks on a search and destroy mission, hell-bent on brandishing a yellow card to the offending player. But as long as the accused runs away, the game remains in a ceaseless circle of kiss-catch. It’s nothing short of hilarious.

2. FIFA Soccer 95’s dancing queen

FIFA 95 was the game’s sequel that spurned the entire FIFA family. With the dawn of even beefier graphics came stranger, even funnier glitches.

This particular glitch was minor, but to the nine-year-old recording it, it sounds like the best thing to happen to him that day. Essentially, when an attacking player has the ball, the defending player darts around him like a bemused bumblebee either to distract the player on the ball, or to give him a bad bout of motion sickness.

It’s strange, but not as strange as the next few bugs.

3. FIFA 12’s break-dancing bullies

This can’t be a glitch, surely? Well, if it is, it’s just EA Canada trolling the fluffy, overly fragile football players making a meal of the gentlest of tackles.

Nevertheless, tackles in the real world rarely result in break-dancing boogie-downs like what Dutch player Robin Van Persie deftly performs here. Incredibly, there are quite a few documented cases across the FIFA franchise of players violently throwing themselves to the ground, whirled around from their feet by ghouls or auditioning for a final place in So You Think You Can Dance.

4. FIFA 12 — Fender Bender

Take this strange glitch for example. It seems that the game’s physics engine was on a smoke break when a player called Lars Bender was flung violently backwards, seemingly by his own accord — or a mystical force. Perhaps EA Canada wishes to add a dose or realism to its games, but is Bender yellow carded for playing the fool? No. Where’s the consistency, ref?

But as far as FIFA bugs go, this isn’t nearly as bad as the following.

5. FIFA 12 — Face-melting

This is one of the scariest glitches in any game, ever. It’s been giving tweens nightmares since FIFA 12, and this isn’t the only example.

It allows players to shape-shift when involved in particular activities, like taking a free kick or a throw in. It first starts with the face — it’s pulled apart by what looks like a microcosmic hurricane or tiny black hole, but something otherworldly. Scarily, the player’s entire body follows suit, as if he’s genuinely being sucked in through an in-game vortex, into another universe.

Other examples of this gaffe include horrific face-melting scenes, our good friend Cristiano Ronaldo disappearing into the playing surface and Ronny again flaunting a zombie-like face.

FIFA’s a scary game.

6. FIFA 13 — This doesn’t look comfortable

Image: dnyb via Imgur

Then there’s this. For anyone who has ever broken a leg, this will be enough to make you sick.

I genuinely don’t know how this glitch is spurned, but it seems that, once again, the physics engine is on an unearned lunch break. The player’s eventually gain their bipedal abilities again once the scene is refreshed but for a brief moment, they’re forced to hobble (quite efficiently, may I add) and dribble the ball with one leg.

Eat your heart out, Messi.

7. FIFA 14’s Barcelona love

Speaking of Messi…

The heads of FIFA (the organisation in real life, that is) are all about nurturing the harmony and fair play between the footballers of the world, but perhaps this is a step slightly too far — even for them.

The good chaps at EA, unlike those at Nintendo, have blessed a few FIFA games (notably 13) with an overly amorous Easter egg. After a player tackles another and falls to the ground, they’re locked in a sultry embrace. The glitch has been widely documented too, but this particular example is slightly different.

Messi and Xavi Hernandez, two Barcelona players, show the world how much their avatars appreciate each other, and hold nothing back.

8. FIFA 14 — Not safe for work

Sultry indeed, but surely that is nothing compared to this. We saved the best for last, but I don’t think Cristiano Ronaldo’s avatar completely agrees. Nevertheless, this is perhaps one of the kinkiest gaming gaffes (or Easter eggs?) ever created.

The warm up screen (a visual buffer for those who hate waiting while the game is loaded) features a mini practice match between a goalkeeper and a striker. This one-on-one setup is rather peculiar though, because if the player attempts to venture too close to the goalie’s quarters, the keeper almost always lunges for the ball. When this happens, this happens. And it’s definitely NSFW.