Let's FIFA!!

Hi guys,

Alright, here's my first game review, now as I said in my last post, I shall review games based on the following criteria; Graphics, Gameplay, Features, Interface. These four criteria will each be judged on a scale of 1 to 10 and the overall score will be an average of the four respective scores. The game I'll be reviewing is FIFA and in particular the latest one, FIFA 09 for the PC platform.

Now before I give you a brief review and opinion of the game, allow me to tell you what FIFA is in the first place. It is a long series of Football games created by Electronic Arts, a world renowned games developer which I'm sure many of you have heard off. The latest installment in the series is FIFA 09 and it is by far the best ever created. EA really have made huge improvements on the FIFA series which had long garnered complaints of it not being realistic enough. There was a big move forward in FIFA 08 when EA gave the ball it's own physics which made for a very realistic and intense footballing experience. Earlier down the line, it's arch rival Winning Eleven/Pro Evolution Soccer made by another one of the world's leading game brands, Konami created a far better experience on the virtual pitch compared to what Electronic Arts had to offer but due to fierce competition from their rivals, EA truly stepped up their game to show FIFA's superiority.

In the latest installment, FIFA 09, the graphics of the game have been jacked up along with the game play. The graphics of the game is breathtaking, even tiny details such as the grass on the pitch is actually visible when your Goalkeeper is positioned for a Goal Kick or when free kicks or penalties are being taken by your players. The ground look very realistic and of course the player models looks better in this game too compared to FIFA 08.

The game play has significantly improved as well and it actually feels as what a real life football match is. The ball can be lost easily or taken away from you if not properly controlled and the shots look so much more fluid and realistic. The handling of the ball when sprinting is also cleverly handled as when you go fast, your player's ability to shoot or pass accurately goes down. The pace of the player and the player's position with respect to the ball looks much more accurate as to what would be in the real game. You are able to easily break away with star strikers from the last line of defense and make a sprint on goal to score leaving defenders in the dust where as that wasn't really possible in FIFA 08. The physics of the game which include the players....etc is far superior in general compared to what was in FIFA 2008. The player controls are somewhat separated as well. You can assign different controls to tackles, shots and other moves. For instance, the shot/clearance move is no longer coupled with conservative tackles, it can be controlled using different buttons but fret not as one button can be used to assign both those controls for those of you still used to the conventional style of controls in FIFA.

There are some things though that I don't really like, first is the fact that keepers seem somewhat easier to beat than what was a tough task against skilled goalkeepers in high difficulty levels in FIFA 08 and the challenge of playing has somewhat slightly dropped a bit in FIFA 09 however this is a small price to pay as the drop is not astoundingly significant. The multi-player feature is a bit of a put off as it slightly lags even on PC's with pretty decent specifications. Errors also occur when in multi-player with the controls as when they are already assigned and saved and when I attempt to shoot for instance, the player lobs the ball instead and when I want to perform conservative tackles, slide tackles are done instead. Finally the one thing I really want to mention are the commentators, there are mistimed comments said as well for instance when a shot is made and it goes well over the cross bar the commentator sometimes mentions that the goal keeper made a phenomenal save despite the fact that he didn't even touch the ball and the ball when sky high. Another problem with the commentators are the commentators themselves, Clive Tyldesley and Andy Gray are great, their commentary is really good and well according to pace and tension of the match and it's really interesting and no disrespect to them but can we PLEASE change Clive Tyldesley, I'm absolutely fine with Andy Gray BUT how many times are we going to hear Clive over and over and over again, commentating in FIFA after FIFA after FIFA. Let's get some of the other commentating greats. Personally I'm thinking Rob Hawthorne or Martin Tyler would be great as the main commentator. Can we at least as players and fans of the game get the choice to choose commentators in the game or something.

As normal there is a flurry of features in FIFA especially in FIFA 09. The all famous Be-A-Pro Mode is made available for the second time since debuting in FIFA 08 where you control only one player on your team. Some of the new cool features include Adidas Live Season & User-Controlled Celebrations. EA unveiled the new Adidas Live Season feature that will dynamically update player form and attributes each week in-game based on the player's last game to reflect real-world ups and downs. Live Season is a premium service that will be available on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC and covers six leagues - Barclay’s Premier League, La Liga BBVA, Ligue 1, Bundesliga, Serie A and Mexican Primera Division. Gamers have access to one league of their choice as a free trial that runs from the moment they activate the service to the end of the 2008-2009 season, while purchasing extra leagues will cost £4.99 (RM 26.38) each, or all six leagues can be purchased for £12.99 (RM68.68). In the User-Controlled Celebrations feature, the player being able to control goal celebrations is also featured for the first time in the FIFA series, having been trialled in the official video game of Euro 2008. The player can choose from a variety of pre-loaded celebrations or create new ones. This feature is on seventh generation consoles and PC versions of the game only due to capacity limits.

The new interface looks really nice as well along with being quite user-friendly. The interfaces from 08 and before looked like a carbon copy year after year with slight improvements but it's at least nice to seeing a refreshing new looking interface in this new game although navigation isn't really made harder as it is the same as before but the layout just looks nice in general.


Graphics: 9.5
Gameplay: 9
Features: 9
Interface: 9

Overall EA in general has really made great strides in the developement of the FIFA series and their best works in football can been seen now in their latest FIFA 09 and it is really quite a world of a difference when it comes to playing football on your computer.


Overall: 9.1 out of 10