Hurrah for EA Sports! Gone are the visual excesses of their FIFA World Cup game and the whizz-bang gimmickry of FIFA 2002. Instead of heading down the Midway route of over-the-top football fireworks, EA have gone all AI on our football bottom. Are you looking over your shoulder, Konami? FIFA 2003 for the PS2 wants to give you a good hiding.

FIFA 2003 features a completely re-worked AI engine that focuses on three new enhancements; team play, team tactics and real player attributes. Not ju ... more >>

Hurrah for EA Sports! Gone are the visual excesses of their FIFA World Cup game and the whizz-bang gimmickry of FIFA 2002. Instead of heading down the Midway route of over-the-top football fireworks, EA have gone all AI on our football bottom. Are you looking over your shoulder, Konami? FIFA 2003 for the PS2 wants to give you a good hiding.

FIFA 2003 features a completely re-worked AI engine that focuses on three new enhancements; team play, team tactics and real player attributes. Not just a kick and rush game, then. Oh no. FIFA 2003 begs to be taken seriously, and so it should be. The developers responsible obviously subscribe to the Johan Cruyff (ask your dad) school of thought, heading for that Total Football tip. Although the inclusion of what EA call 'natural gameplay' may detract from the Dutchman's philosophy, it certainly makes things more realistic, with its missed headers, unfortunate deflections and scrambled goal-line clearances.

Think of the FIFA series, and there are two consistently outstanding features: the player animation, especially in close-up, has always been first class, plus the sheer number of choices of clubs and competitions available. FIFA 2003 continues the trend with a mind-boggling array of teams to choose from, including some European domestic league sides that even the most ardent footy fan will struggle to recognise, unless their team has encountered their real-life counterparts in the early stages of the UEFA Cup.

Fans of this series will delight in this new version. It doesn't just offer more of the same - something that previous games under the FIFA auspices have been guilty of - it's heading toward the gameplay heaven that is ISS or Pro Evolution in its bones, but the flesh remains totally FIFA. If you haven't played a FIFA game before, prepare yourself for a treat. << less