FIFA 10

After a period of adjustment where everything briefly felt wrong with the world, it now seems quite normal to be excited about FIFA. It’s replaced the pre-PES sensation that many of us enjoyed throughout the late-Nineties and most of the Noughties, and with FIFA 10, it’s the first time that it’s just felt right. After all, FIFA is now the dominant football series and rightly so. Those feelings of guilt and disloyalty have finally abandoned us, replaced with a nervous trepidation.

Could FIFA 10 really improve on last year’s game? Not that there wasn’t room to, of course, FIFA 09 was far from perfect, but there’s always been a niggling doubt that EA Sports had stumbled on greatness. FIFA 10 diffuses that way of thinking within the first few touches of the ball, even before a match starts. Just knocking it around the arena (still the best loading screen of all time) makes it very apparent that EA Sports seriously knows its onion-bags.

It raises the question ‘what do we want from a football game?’. For the purists, of which there are millions, it has to be realism. But not a sluggish, boring, staid simulation; we want the drama and passion of football, the glory of a 30-yard volley and the heartbreak of losing a cup final. We want to re-create those moments that Sky Sports replays every commercial break, and with FIFA 10, we’re closer than ever.

There are two key additions to the match engine that make FIFA 10 feel like the most evolutionary football game in a long time, and they’ve been fairly well publicised: 360-degree dribbling, and what EA is calling ‘freedom in physical play’ – the ability to jostle and out-muscle opponents entirely through physics and momentum.

They work with each other startlingly well, creating as convincing a game of digital football the world has ever seen. Breaking the two down briefly, the 360-degree movement adds layers of unpredictability and possibility to proceedings. By unchaining people from the eight-directional movement of the past, players can now make runs and use the ball in ways they never could before.

Sprightly wingers can nudge the ball ever-so-slightly to the left or right when in full flow, and it can be enough to beat a pedestrian fullback. In fact, it’s far easier to dribble effectively, with directional changes much more responsive and the skill stick’s quicker than ever. But it’s the off-the-ball movement that really highlights the majesty of those 360 degrees. Watch a forward like Rooney make a run when you have the ball in midfield. He’ll bend it to stay onside, curve between defenders, check and shift direction if you move to the wing – with the full freedom of the pitch, players move with unparalleled believability.

Thankfully, it also translates to defending. Cutting off through-balls and marking space is far more effective than before, simply because you’re not stuck running on tracks. After a period of adjustment, it’s possible to defend not by charging around with the A button held down, but by analysing threats and dealing with them with timing and forethought. In other words, much more like the real thing.

… continued