FIFA 09

It is that time of year again, when EA hits us with the customary yearly update of their FIFA series of games. It is generally a time of a little moaning and groaning when we decide who will play it this year, but there is always that strange part of us that really wants to play it. We know what FIFA is about and often the only thing that changes the graphical quality and the player line-ups.

It can be argued that it is more of the same this year but EA have also whipped something new out of the bag for us. This something new is the control method. FIFA is generally best played using a gamepad which is why we loved hauling out that Xbox controller. Keyboard skills are a sheer nightmare, particularly for the left-handed fraternity but to our great surprise, FIFA is now playable using the mouse.

The mouse can be a solo affair or used in conjunction with the trusty keyboard. It takes a fair bit of getting used to but once the basics are learned and players have had a few goes, passing shooting and scoring become a pleasure. Right clicks pass on offence and tackle on defence while a left will shoot or slide respectively. The worst bit is getting used to clicking in the right place at the right time; players will give away the ball quite often until that is learnt.

What was also great to see was the differences between teams, regardless of difficulty settings. A lower ranked team will play noticeably worse than a top-ranked one at any setting. Thus, Spain will mop the floor with the South African team unless one happens to be exploiting the holes in defenses that only the very easy setting gives.

With as much of the world's soccer events crammed into the game as EA possibly could, the prospect of playing online (which requires the creation and activation of an account) and the multiplayer options, there is very little to detract from the content available.

There are a list of achievements which can be used to buy new stadium packs and other goodies once enough points are earned. For all that, FIFA 09 on the PC falls a little short of its console brethren. The graphics settings cannot be scaled up enough to satisfy the rabid gamer and we really were hoping for a little more eye-candy. The cut-scene replays look great and the commentators don't repeat themselves as much as we remember but we were hoping that more of the ingame models were better detailed. It's a case of something old and something new from EA.

At the end of it all, it is still FIFA and you will play it.