Reviews
You really have to give EA Sports credit this year, though they generally haven’t surprised the masses with a re-invention of their established franchises its fair to say they’ve really tweaked each in all the right places to let them evolve incrementally to something that is genuinely better. Here, FIFA’09 is no exception. While on the surface it remains aesthetically the same game underneath the hood, particularly in the online realm it has had enough functionality bolstered to its tried and tested gameplay. If you’d dabbled in the Euro version (UEFA Euro 2008) which arrived mid-year some of these changes will have already been apparent. In that cash-in tournament edition it seems the developer used free rein to try out some of the ideas what would eventually get tweaked to perfection for this yearly iteration. Of course what you get here as with every previous FIFA release is all the official licencing you can shake a wallet at and as such players, teams, leagues and stadiums (including the new wembley) from all around the world are available so whatever your preference there is something here for everyone. So what exactly has changed?
On first play the most immediate differences on the pitch come in the form of player physicality and pacing. Whilst FIFA’s main rival, Konami’s Pro Evolution Soccer series seems to have distinguished itself as a pure arcade title FIFA has progressive leant towards the simulation end of the spectrum and here its about as simulation as it gets. The pace itself is slow and methodical, even if you ramp up the speed in the options menu you can still expect to have to work the ball through the players in order to glean any form of success in attack. To that end this is now a thinking mans football title, a striking difference to the FIFA that graced previous generation consoles. When speaking of player physicality. The weight and overall presence of players especially when contending for the ball, has been superbly realised here. When trying to gain possession from aerial balls in particular players will jostle for position and react to each other in a highly realistic fashion. In addition to this players running into space off the ball will sometimes call for the through pass and even alert the linesmen of offside runs when in defence. It’s all in the myriad of small details, but as a whole they mark a huge refinement on last year’s effort and it adds hugely to the proceedings.
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