Monday, October 20, 2008

Futball

I’d first like to state that I don't know shit about soccer. I’ve heard through various reviews that this year, EA’s Fifa is far better than the Pro Evolution Soccer series. I took Fifa 09 for a spin this weekend. All I can say is that this game is really fun to play. The game starts out with you and a ball about near half field facing a goalie. You can play around with the controls and just practice shooting. This feeling of freedom and intrigue can only be described as the first time I tried Boom Blox.

The main feature of the game is called Pro Mode where you design your own custom character and put him on a team. You start out on the reserve team and work your way up to the first team. The thing about pro mode is that you only get to play the character you made. You get experience points for doing stuff correctly such as; completing passes, being in the right position, helping on defense, and just running with the ball. Of course, if you do it wrong, they take away experience. There is an arrow on your character showing about where he should be on the field at any particular time so you don’t feel lost. After every game, you can use the experience points towards your player attributes. I learned pretty quickly that you need stamina to play soccer and my left midfielder is going to get some mileage. There are still the generic features you get with all the sports games but I’ll be stuck on pro mode for a while. The game still suffers from its’ previous editions and has a terrible camera system. When in regular play, the game switches players automatically when you’re on defense which sometimes has you suddenly switch off the character you want to be and let the computer dribble right past while you think you’re still controlling the player you wanted to be controlling. It’s a solid title and I might have consider this a buy instead of just a rental. 8/10

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