FIFA 09 Review

Electronic Arts’ FIFA franchise celebrates its sixteenth year with another instalment in its highly successful franchise. FIFA 2009 boasts an impressive 250 improvements on last year’s already solid engine and will look to definitively win the on-going competition with Konami’s Pro Evolution Soccer series.

FIFA 09
Developer: EA Sports
Platform: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 (reviewed)

Xbox 360, PS3: October 14th 2008
Xbox 360, PS3: October 3rd 2008

FIFA 09 should be considered a landmark achievement in the series’ sixteen year history. In comparison to some of the releases in the last few years, it is better in nearly every way. Gone are the 5-5, 7-0 blowouts of the older games, and in is a brand new simulation style of gameplay that finally lives up to the hype of being the ultimate football simulation experience. The new match play is much more realistic in terms of player movement and ball control. Players will find it a lot harder to dribble the ball past three players and blast the ball into the top corner five times a game. This makes for a much more enjoyable experience as you will feel a great sense of accomplishment when you see the ball nestling in the back of the net.

For those players who may be turned away from the more simulation minded gameplay and harder difficulty, there are a surplus amount of adjustments that can be made which will change game speed and computer-assisted actions. This is especially helpful when you feel you have found the right difficulty for you but there you have trouble with defending crosses or playing long balls etc. The assistance from the computer is definitely effective, but at the same time is very subtle so you always feel as if you are in control. As well as this, dynamic weather has been included from its trial in the Euro 2008 game. Players who are used to zipping the ball from player to player and making long, mazy runs will have to re-evaluate their strategies in order to deal with wet, sluggish pitches.

As is the standard for yearly games, the graphics have received an impressive amount of enhancement. In terms of just looks, the graphics are far less grainy than previous games and the facial animations are sharper than ever. It’s not just the looks of the players either. A plethora of new animations have been added ranging from all new movements via the Trick Stick, to players colliding when both challenging for the ball. Another new addition is the player-controlled celebrations, when the goal-scorer is wheeling away from the stranded keeper, a selection of player-specific celebrations that are used by pressing shoulder buttons or rotating the analog sticks which have the scorer perform a variety of actions from cart wheeling to a leap into a teammates arms. These extra animations really show the incredible amount of polish that has been added to the game in order for the series to progress to a higher level.

The online play in FIFA 09 has also received something of an upgrade. The all new 10vs10 mode enables twenty players to be in the same game, with each player taking control of one on-pitch player. This is quite a controversial addition since you can only choose your position by a mad rush to select it, so you can end up with a very poor player controlling the best player on the team, whilst the more skilled players may unfortunately end up taking control of lesser players and will struggle to make much impact. Even with twenty people all playing on the same connections, I rarely had any problems with lag, but some of the more sour players decided to quit early when they were not passed the ball or if they did not get the position they wanted. However, the CPU will just take control of that position until somebody else decides to take part.

Also in the online department is the new ‘Adidas Live Season’ which works much the way that the NBA Live series is in regards to updating player statistics. Each week, an update will be made available which change the statistics of the players according to what is happening in the real life football scene. This keeps the game from ever going stale and will maintain a healthy fan base for the game well into the season.

As is the norm for an EA Sports release, EA Trax offers an eclectic mix of all things popular and generic to satisfy the mainstream audience. However, much more impressive in the sound department, is the crowd ambience. The crowd will be loud and lively at the start of the game and lull and become less enthusiastic when their team concedes. Every crowd in the Premier League has their own unique chant recorded directly from the stadiums in real life. The chants and the cheering sound completely authentic and really add to the overall atmosphere of the game and having genuine, team-specific chants also adds to the simulation feel that FIFA has been trying to nail down for the last few years. To go with this, the commentary from Andy Gray and Martin Taylor is top notch and is much more impressive than any other football game on the market.

With all this in mind, the game does have a few minor flaws. Occasionally when attempting to switch players when defending, the computer will select a player that is nowhere near the ball which can allow the opposing attacker to get closer to the goal and has led to an annoying number of goals against me. As well as this, some of the off-ball player’s movements can be fairly confusing to see them ignore open space and decide to run into a large group of defenders eagerly awaiting a misplaced ball.

The Final Word
Despite a few gameplay flaws, and the awaiting cluster of online players who quit early, FIFA 2009 has set the bar very high for any other impending football release. With that being said, it may not be the game for everyone as the casual gamer could easily be overwhelmed by the realism, but for any other football fan, this game is pretty much unmissable and for that reason it is regarded as one of the best games in the FIFA franchise for quite some time.

– MonsterVine Rating: 5 out of 5 – Excellent

By Andy Jackson