FIFA: Road to World Cup 98 (1997-)

FIFA: Road to World Cup 98 (commonly abbreviated to FIFA 98) is an association 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 United States, Mexico, and Brazil, David Ginola on the French cover, Raúl on the Spanish cover, Paolo Maldini on the Italian and Andreas Möller on the German cover. FIFA 98 was the last FIFA game released for the Mega Drive.

The game was a bestseller in the UK for 2 months. At the 1999 Milia festival in Cannes, it took home a "Gold" prize for revenues above €37 million in the European Union during the previous year. Play magazine in issue 29 awarded the PlayStation version of the game 88%.

In 2017, Luke Plunkett of Kotaku wrote an essay arguing that FIFA 98 should be considered as the best sports video game of all time, focusing on its then-unprecedented depth and breadth of content, which Plunkett contended is the main differentiating factor between titles within the highly incremental sports video gaming industry. Examples cited were its inclusion of all FIFA national teams of the time, customization options for rosters and kits, multiple game modes, and groundbreaking soundtrack including licensed rather than original music.

Next Generation reviewed the Nintendo 64 version of the game, rating it four stars out of five, and stated that "The game still doesn't have the fluidity of ISS 64, but the real players and variety of options make FIFA RTTWC 64 a game that soccer fans all over the world should enjoy."

Images from MobyGames