FIFA 97 (also known as FIFA Soccer 97) is a football simulation video game developed by EA Canada and published by Electronic Arts. It was released for PC on 24 June 1996 and versions for PlayStation, SNES, Mega Drive and Sega Saturn followed.
FIFA 97 is the fourth game in the FIFA series and the second to use the Virtual Stadium engine. Unlike the first game to use the engine, FIFA 97 features polygonal players as opposed to the 2D sprites used in FIFA Soccer ’96. The engine however received complaints for being sluggish in the PC and PlayStation versions.
Frenchman David Ginola (then a Newcastle United player) was pictured on the cover of the game in the European market. He also was used for motion capture for the polygonal models in the game, while Brazilian Bebeto was featured on the cover for the Americas and Asia-Pacific markets.
