Reviews// FIFA 10

Along with the physics of the players, the ball feels like a true entity in the gaming world as well. It bounces and deflects convincingly, something I noticed with a fortunate early goal as an unbalanced slice slapped off the underside of the defender's arm, hit the turf with a huge amount of backspin and skipped across the slippery weathered pitch into the corner of the goal.

All aspects of the actual game ball have a true authenticity to them. It’s the subtle touches that the developers seem to be paying a lot of attention to, and it’s paying off. Nothing is a given, headed clearances can bounce awkwardly off the side of your head and lesser skilled players will struggle with close control, the ball bouncing away out of reach. It’s predominately utterly magnificent to play.

It’s also possible to take quick free kicks now, which is a very simple concept done well. It would be nice to see quick throws, corners and goal kicks next year!

Unfortunately, as is to be expected, there are faults. This is certainly no 21 out of 20 game. Firstly, I’ve yet to get my head around the crossing this time round; controlling where the ball lands in the box is incredibly difficult and usually left to chance. My pad seems to occasionally ignore double-tap crosses and frantic triple bash grass-cutters. Along with that, if a ball meets the striker at a pace he isn’t happy with – he’ll attempt to bring it down and strike, despite the fact I’m hammering away the instant it leaves my winger’s boot. Balls it up for all I care, but if I say shoot, you will bloody shoot!

Defending is considerably harder, and I’m continuously seesawing on whether I think this is good or bad. When you’re defending, you feel vulnerable, and mastering the technique of jockeying the opposition and making the right tackle is proving very difficult. On the other hand, when you’re on the front foot, it’s marvellous.

Physical battles can sometimes become a little excessive, causing messy periods of play that can extend into a full half of football. Heading at goal seems impossible. The latter I feel merely needs more personal practice, but the former you can’t often do much to counter.

One major fault, something that still remains from all previous renditions, is that 95% of all lower league players have no pace or strength. My team of northerners might not be able to pass, shoot or rainbow flick, but they know how to get stuck in and they know how to run. Dropping all attributes to around 60 is a cheap way of giving stats to players who people don’t know much about. Please sort this out.

Ultimately EA has got the football side of things right, and with a game packed so full of extra features you’d expect it to pick up more points along the way. This isn’t really the case. The game face feature – improved upon once again – worked for all of a day or so around launch. It’s still down as of writing this.