FIFA 10

When EA Sports belatedly realised Pro Evo wasn't going away, they embarked on a journey that was distinctly non-EA at the time. They gambled on drastic changes, bringing FIFA's play closer to PES. Years of missteps and half-steps followed, bringing us to now, where even the most ardent PES fan has to admit EA Canada's lads have done good. FIFA 10 represents the highest point for EA's soccer franchise since its debut one-and-a-half decades ago. It's not perfect, but just like Kick Off, Sensible Soccer, and yes - Pro Evolution Soccer were in their day - it's the best of its current time. Let's break down why.

Putting it in the onion sack
Scoring - and the manner you do it - has always been a major beef in the FIFA series. Even as recently as the launch of the FIFA 10 demo we were still convinced this was the game's achilles heel. After devoting many an hour, it's fair to say we were wrong in fearing FIFA 10's shooting mechanism would be too basic.

Like PES, you rarely will fill the power bar of your shot meter above halfway unless you want the ball to be sent into the next suburb. Curve and dip on the ball can be applied, as long as you're using a player whose got decent stats in those areas on their profile. The analogue sticks allow you to direct the ball to the rough area of the goal you're aiming at, with modifiers kicking in dependant on your orientation and distance from the goal. You can be a legitimate threat from outside the penalty area in FIFA 10, however it truly becomes hit and hope - trying to impart swing or angle to a ball delivered from 40ish yards out will see the shot go wide.

The relative ease of converting penalties into goals, and the mighty chip shot, lethal to keepers who like to rush out for the ball are not game breakers - especially against human opponents - but still can come across as cheap in-game.

Getting there
Being in a position to score is one thing, but the midfield play which leads you up to there is the part most likely to have you on an emotional rollercoaster. Players can still ping-pong-pass the ball through the middle third of the field a bit too easily: the left or right backs zig the ball to a playmaker at the centre who zags it out to the fowards on the wings. In an evenly matched game, rarely will you be pressured out of following this basic sequence. It's a go-to move that wouldn't fly in the real thing for very long.

Outside of that, the AI plays a mean game in the defensive and attacking ends of the field. Allow them room on the wings and they will boot in scarily effective crosses to players who have the knack of losing their defenders. Pressure the player with the ball too much and a trigger happy umpire will whistle them into a penalty opportunity that - as we noted before - will often get converted.

But the demands on you as a player when you're on the attack is when FIFA's AI shines. Discounting times when you will make a break - and these diminish the higher your difficulty level - patient buildup and smart passing are going too serve you a lot better than barging in hoping for a crack at goal. Here, in the final third of the field, AI defenders will make runs at your potential pass recipients, will cut off passing channels, and will force you into abandoning the pinball pass philosophy as well as any hope of getting the "through ball" button to work in tight quarters. Just like PES did a few years back at its heyday, you need to think of the defence in holistic terms, and work on pulling it out of shape - and exploiting moments when it does.

Defensive mastery
Anchoring FIFA's on-field play is the way the game has coded defense. The prowess of defenders - AI and ones under your control alike - is probably the most un-authentic the game gets, but it's clearly a balance decision made by the developers rather than an accident.

The player's relationship to the ball is tenuous in FIFA 10. Allow a defender to get on you and you must immediately focus on ball protection. You can't just jam on the sprint button and leave them in your wake. Defenders niggle, trip, shove and obstruct ball carriers in this game - and instances where you can beat them on sheer pace are rare. Throw in the fact the time taken to "charge up" a long pass or a shot on goal, and you will get used to seeing your player sprawled on the ground after a hard challenge, with the opposition in possession of the ball.

It is at its worst in the enemy goal area, where if you want to do anything beyond the most basic one-touch shot or pass you need room - room the flock of defenders roaming about will not give you.

It cuts both ways however - when you're defending you too will enjoy the power of being able to take down even the most famed names in football. Throw in the "help" button - which sends another AI defender to assist - and you have a recipe for shutting out the CPU opponent with ease. If you elect to take your game online, you'll encounter players who pretty much play the entire defensive games with the "help" and "pressure" (which automatically makes your player pressure the ball handler) buttons pressed down. Thank your lucky stars if you find one - players who can pass effectively will feast on such scant regard for defensive formation.

Losing your man, creating another
Part of EA's pitch to players chafing under the defensive yoke is the game's skill system, which is as fully featured as any we've seen in a football game ever. It's not for the faint of heart - you need to hold down one button, then press in the right analogue stick and then tweak it accordingly. And you're doing this while also moving your player with the left analogue. It's deep and not something you'll be expert at right away, which earns FIFA 10 high marks.

What we're less certain about is how useful most of the flashy moves you learn will be in-game. When playing the CPU it rarely falls for the moves designed to wrongfoot defenders - entering into a complicated array of step-overs and spins more often loses you possession rather than leaves the foe in the dust. The simplest moves - a fake one direction followed by taking off in the other - are perhaps the most effective and the easiest to execute.

Playing against a human opponent is a different story. Ironically it will be against better players - ones who aren't employing the auto-D buttons we mentioned earlier - that your fakes and tricky handling will yield dividends.

It's worth practicing on in the game's "arena" mode which forms the default screen (i.e not a menu screen). Here, with just a keeper and a pitch you can master those moves, which range from simple feints to complicated fake passes, the 'flip flap' move made popular by Ronaldinho, and a number of slick ball juggling displays. When doing these tricks with your custom made "Virtual Pro" player, you unlock more moves and points as well, which in turn boost your ratings in certain areas.

Dropping your VP into a tournament (we ran through a full season of the English Premier League, but just about every major tourney is supported, including the Hyundai A-League in Australia) requires some player management. For starters, the game won't auto-slot him into the lineup intelligently. Playing as Manchester United, the game thought superstar Wayne Rooney should be benched to make way.

As long as you do a little advance tweaking however, it doesn't take long to configure your team so the star players can make up for your VP's initial lack of ability - providing opportunities for your player's stats to start moving up in a gratifyingly role playing game-like fashion. Between spending time int he Arena practicing, and getting on-field opportunities, by the time 15-20 games have been put int he record books your VP should be able to hold their own amongst their highly paid counterparts.



Enter management
It's not as easy for your virtual pro if you take on the game's management mode. For starters, the game will take a dim view of you insisting on slotting your pro in ahead of better ranked players - if you activate the assistant coach function your (likely fledgling) player will sometimes not even get picked as a substitute in the early stages.

Trading for players early on may prove difficult as well. As a newbie manager, my attempts to trade for top talent met with rejections from players who thought I was too green. That's logical enough. Not so logical - being told a different trade attempt had failed because the target player wanted to play with better players. I was playing as Manchester United at the time - a pretty expensive lineup of star players.

The criteria the board sets you seem to be determined by the calibre of team you elect to run. As Man U, I was pretty much expected to win all the time, and get into the cup final. For players who like their playing skill to determine their fortunes, it's a pretty sweet deal. The financial part of the equation pretty much handled itself. I sold off Rio Ferdinand for way above market value (the game tells you what players are "worth" right next to the offer itself), and with ticket proceeds, I was well covered on the balance sheet, even if I did have a gaping hole in the backfield.

Niggles? We have a few
While the strong defense can be argued away as a critical part in forcing play in more deliberate, realistic direction, there are some areas of FIFA 10 that show lack of attention or time.

The pre-game controller assignment screen, which should assign your controller to "your" team but on the odd occasion will have it set to your opposition. Given the game obviously doesn't forget who you're playing for any other time, it's not the end of the world, just annoying.

The lack of any real stat tracking is also a pain. The post-game summary will tell you how many yards the man of the match dribbled, have a hotspot map showing possession, show pass percentage/shots etc - but the top 20 leaders table and associated player stats only record goals, games played, yellow cards and red cards. No stats for top passing players or any subtler statlines - stats the game is obviously tracking elsewhere.

Charging extra for players to download Live Season 2.0 - one of the more interesting game modes which allows you to play alongside your team's "real" fixtures and compare performance - seems a bit mercenary for a game series which is renewed on an annual basis. Not to mention how there's been reports of players unable to download the data after paying for it on Xbox Live.

Then there's replays
And while we're whinging, it's not like we expect the FIFA development team to be psychic and figure out which replays we like the most in a given game. However there has to be a better system than just grabbing the first goals/shots on goal and using them. You can drill a ball in 45 yards out - but if three crappier goals precede it, it's not making the highlight reel. The three count includes your opposition - so if they heave a couple your goalie's way, you're likely to miss out on some memorable finishes.

That notable limitation is somewhat balanced by the level of support EA offers if you wish to save your replays. The game supports uploading flash video to EA's site, where you can crop and edit them into your own highlight reel. It's probably more messing about than most players will bother with - they will just want to see all the highlights, not just three - but it's there. You can also use the game's photo mode to take screenshots from any angle, unfortunately the encoding and capture process is pretty harsh - turning your glorious HD still into a slightly blurry effort. If there was an option to send as low, medium or high resolution we'd be all over it like white on rice. Still - the video and still upload function is great for bragging rights if you're playing with mates. They'll probably not remain your mates if you insist on passing about the video where they scored that own goal, however.

Also on the "trivial but niggling" category, the man of the match award calculations seem askew - examples abound but when Berbatov scores four goals in a 5-0 drubbing where most of the game was spent in the opposing half it's fair to say he should be given best on field as opposed to one of my fullbacks. You won't live or die by it but again, perhaps indicative of some sketchy calculations going on under the hood.

Backchat
It doesn't stop there. Commentary in the game flows well together at first, but it doesn't take long at all to realise there's a distinct shortage of stock phrases the game draws upon.

Perhaps it's because I recently came from the super-strong presentation and commentary of NBA2K10, but the FIFA team has definitely rested on their laurels here. A handful of players and teams seem to be high profile enough to warrant dedicated commentary, but because of the sheer number of stars in the game the vast majority of the commentary seems generalised and "radio". It's strong on description, but short on colour and background. When the commentary does stray away from merely naming the person in possession, the commentators will often refer to "him" or "he" and you simply won't know who they're talking about: the guy who has the ball now? The guy who just had the ball? Commentary is one of those things players either love or are indifferent to. If you think it adds atmosphere to the experience, be warned that feeling is likely to be undermined by the fifth time you hear one of the commentators tell the story of how player fitness is better nowadays or how defenders are usually physically stronger than forwards.

Final score
It's tough to put a final score on FIFA 10 because as you can see above - there's plenty of things that need attention. The thing is - these are mainly things which fall into the extras category. More replays, a free Live Season 2.0, better commentary - all good to have, but ultimately don't affect how the action unfolds on the pitch.

The things FIFA 10 doesn't do well are massively outweighed by the things it makes you feel when you play the game, and that to us is the true determinant of a game's worth. Rather than merely adhering to a score like a Metacritic slave, I will say this: FIFA 10 plays a better, more realistic game of football than any football game that has come before it. To do this it has had to take some subtle liberties, but the overall outcome - as we stated up front - is the best footy game of its time. Until next year, or - our sadly frequent disclaimer - if Konami pulls Pro Evolution out of its funk.