2010 FIFA World Cup

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== INTRODUCTION ==
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I remember the last FIFA world cup game i bought, it was a slight
improvement upon that year's FIFA game, but nothing major. I was
on the fence about this, but i am so pumped for the World Cup i
thought what the hey and i got it anyway! It was a great decision...

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== AUTHENTICITY ==
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From the start you'll see all the official logos and images that makes
you know this is THE official game for the World Cup, very authentic.

I was satisfied with FIFA 10's 40 or so international teams, but 199!
Amazing amount of variety which will make sure the game feels fresh &
exciting all the way up to, and through the 2010 World Cup.

Simulating tournaments is superb, so much authenticity with all those teams, since
its in Africa you can also choose nations such as Ghana, Ivory Coast & Togo.
All 10 stadiums that will be used in South Africa are included.

Real updates will be provided right after games have been played so you can
recreate and relive them, or make new results for your teams.

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== VISUALS, GRAPHICS & ATMOSPHERE ==
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It feels like a World Cup. Think of FIFA 10's pre-match crowds and triple it.
The celebration of fans looks and sounds incredible. 3-D people with hats, banners
and their faces painted with their team colours, and confetti flying everywhere.

The actual players look a load better, player likenesses especially. Low profile
players still look generic, like clones, but in the England squad Ferdinand & Crouch
now look human which is great news. It's only the top rated stars which look real,
although i saw that Crouch & Walcott were the same height which kind of ruined everything!

The pitches seem a bit more realistic too, if you change your camera to one closer up you'll
actually be able to see how good they look now. You also get to see managers now too during
cutscenes, Capello looked great.

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== COMMENTARY & MUSIC ==
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I've always liked FIFA's commentary, something strangely authentic about it. This time
is no change. Clive Tyldesley and Andy Townsend (for our UK version) make everything
sound belieavble, their banter really adds to the gameplay and makes everything better.

The whole game seems to really give a genuine African feel. The music is no exception.
A great mix of pop tunes and real African beats which are really entertaining. My fav was
the 'Wavin Flag' track which is heard in most of the adverts, great sounds in this game.

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== GAME MODES ==
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These will easily keep you going until the big event. The main World Cup Mode lets you take
your chosen team from the initial rounds to qualifiying and then all the way to the finals.
You can have real fixtures in the game, or choose dream fixtures. Or skip straight to the finals.

Online World Cup mode is interesting. You download all the latest squads, and play 1v1 matches
with your chosen team. All results are shown on the 'Battle of the Nations' leaderboard. Right now
Mexico are in #1 place because they got the game early, so be sure to choose England and win some games!
It just feels so much better when you know your result will affect your country's leaderboard standing.

Story of Qualifying was one of my favs, you take control of a team usually half way in a match
where something is off. Be it you have only 10 men, injuries, down a few goals etc. You must then
try to turn everything around and decide the final outcome of the game. This was really fun for me.
(You can even go back to Paris with France vs Ireland and try to make things right which is hilarious)

Captain your Country is like Be a Pro mode. You can just import your old Virtual Pros from FIFA 10
There is also the usual stuff such as Exhibition, Penalty Shootouts and Training Mode.

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== NEW ENGINE ==
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FIFA 10 was for me, one of the most balanced, and realistic football games i've ever played.
So there is no need to make huge changes, and the small tweaks in 2010 World Cup are great.
Build up play seems a bit faster which i really like and the players feel a bit heavier.

The 'fixes' include less effective chip shots (they take more accuracy now), when an attacker
enters your box the goalie does not charge out like his shorts are on fire.

The weather conditions affect the play a lot more. If it's wet you do see the ball sliding a lot
more or just holding up in some areas. The weather affects almost all aspects of the game now.

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== PLAY TIME ==
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This will no doubt be awesome up to, and during the World Cup. Will even be fun a short time after
everything has settled down. But i think after World Cup Fever has gone, and reguar football is back in
front you might find this game in the shops ready for trade. I can see myself playing for about 2-3 months,
which is quite expensive for the time, but its the World Cup, so again, what the hey!

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== CONCLUSION ==
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If you like football, FIFA games, or the World Cup then this game is for you. It improves upon the already good
FIFA 10, captures the spirit of the World Cup and brings a real African atmosphere to the game. For the next few
months i know i will be having a lot of fun with this game and the 2010 World Cup.

Thanks for reading and COME ON ENGLAND!

Essential purchase or pointless money-making tie-in? Gladly I'm happy to report this is leaning towards the former, though whether it can justify being a full-price release (an RRP of £29.99 would have been all the more appealing) is another question. Hopefully I can help answer that with this review.

First and foremost, this definately is not a game just released to capitalise on World Cup Fever - while players of FIFA10 will be hard pressed to see too many differences in gameplay, FIFA 2010 World Cup certainly offers up a unique experience and is arguably the most successful football game of this console generation. The gameplay differences are subtle, but the tweaks are there and largely they are impressive.

As this is a World Cup game, the first point to note is that there are obviously no Liverpools, Norwich Citys, St Paulis or Cruz Azuls. What there is though is impressive - all 199 nations who took part in qualifying, from the might of England (ha!) to the minnows of the Seychelles. Not all teams have official kits etc, but a large amount do, and it's impressive how ITV commentary duo Clive Tyldsley and Andy Townsend mention the names of even the most obscure Vanuatan player. Talking of commentary, this is a nice touch, using terrestrial commentators instead of the usual Andy Gray and Martin Tyler as of course the World Cup will be screened on normal television. It's in the liscensing details FIFA excells over PES (well, a few other areas too), and the use of official World Cup score bars and captions only adds to the autenticity created.

As mentioned, not all kits are official though and those that are suffer from similar issues found in FIFA10. I appreciate the work that goes into a game is immense (and game line producer Simon Humber recently explained that they are sent kit designs months in advance and it's not their fault when manufacturers change designs last minute). However, the kits don't look as good as PES and frankly there's no excuse for the incorrect Cameroon kit from FIFA10 to still be in this game (look it up online and compare it on FIFA - how could they get it wrong again?!). However major graphical improvements aplenty concerning player faces and the pitch itself, players look the best they've ever looked in a FIFA (still not quite as good as PES 2010 though) and the pitches finally look like pitches, rather than luminous green swamps (okay, they aren't THAT bad in FIFA10, but they weren't that good). All world cup stadiums are present and correct, as well as major stadiums from the major nations. You also have broadcast cut-scenes in game, some of which feature the managers, largely superflous but it's nice to see Cappello on the sidelines, mouthing orders and waving his arms. Another nice addition is, in World Cup games, there will be lots of confetti along the sides of the pitches, giving that canrnival feel...

...which leads me onto the audio used in the game, which is excellent. Aside from pretty decent commentary, the crowd effects are fantastic, a wall of noise with team specific chants and drums (for example, when playing with England not only do you get chants of 'God Save The Queen' etc, but you also get the (I presume Sheffield Wednesday) band playing Rule Britannia'). There's a real buzz present in World Cup games.

Gameplay-wise there are a few tweaks, but nothing major - if you are thinking of purchasing this game it shouldn't be because you're expecting a radical reworking of FIFA10 because you won't get it. However, there are some new animations, players seem to react to opportunities a little quicker and the game pace is slightly quicker, even on slow. Shooting is a touch better, but still can be floaty compared to the delights of smacking a ball with Gerrard in PES, though crossing seems better to me at least, I've certainly had more success from corners in FIFA2010WC than in FIFA10. Celebrations are tweaked so after scoring it zooms in on your player and there are some interesting new ways of celebrating (moonwalk, anyone?) It would be nice to have the choice of group celebrations, but maybe that's something for FIFA11. Goalkeepers are also improved (or rather, are worse, but that's a good thing) in that they don't just bundle through you when 1 on 1 - meaning sometimes you can actually go round the keeper! Barmy, I know, but it is nice to be able to do something I took great delight in doing on the old PES games. Another nice idea is the fact smaller nations are so much harder to beat at home -evidenced when I drew 0-0 away to Andorra but then crushed them 7-0 at home with England. At Wembley it seemed pretty easy to carve them up and pass the ball around, but away they closed my players down much quicker and seemed to have a higher level of fitness.

Offline game modes are similar to FIFA10, but with the World Cup twist. So, you have kick off mode, the FIFA World Cup mode, Captain Your Country (where you can import your virtual pro from FIFA10 and make your way to the World Cup) and The Story of Qualifying, and excellent mode where you are given lots of scenarios take from World Cup qualifying to try (for example, getting Denmark to beat Portugal from 2-1 with 3 minutes to go). Each scenario has a break down of points to achieve (e.g. winning by two goals, not conceeding) and the more points you get, the closer you get to unlocking World Cup 2006 scenarios. Apparently during World Cup 2010 further scenarios will be added as the tournament plays out, which is a lovely idea. Another game mode is penalty shootout, which is ace as penalties have had a much-needed makeover. I won't go into details here as the explanation will be pretty lengthy, but it's definately worth trying this game to see how they handle penalties.

Online doesn't feature 10v10, but it does allow you to play the World Cup online, where you choose your team and stick with them as far as you can go in the tournament. There is also battle of the nations, where all the scores of everyone who plays a ranked game ae compiled according to their nation, and then when you sign in Clive Tyldsley helpfully lets you know that Holland are leading Mexico in the bid to be the best FIFA players.

So, there we have it. From a hardcore PES player back in the day, I can honestly say that, despite a few niggles (like in FIFA10), EA have created a wonderful game to accompany the upcoming World Cup. While certainly too big to be DLC, whether it has enough longevity in it to make you trade in FIFA10 is a tough one, as is whether it is worth a full-price retail price. That said, there's no doubt that the gameplay tweaks do help and the overall presentation is incredible. It's hard to fault the game itself, the AI can be a little bit wayward but like FIFA10 and the last-gen PES games, get a friend or two involved and it's fun, drama and last-minute screamers all the way. I'm hoping for a bigger step up when FIFA11 comes around, but for now this is more that sufficient.

Bought this game and received it on Friday and from previews and trailers etc I expected a lot. I am a massive fan of football games (more Fifa than Pro Evo) and Fifa 10 is an awesome game but this for me tops it! It is obviously the same sort of model and controls as it is an EA game which I was very pleased about as EA have really done their bit to beat the Pro Evo games which are lacking.

I put the game in and even from the Main Menu you get that African feel and the soundtrack just adds to the authentic feel of the game. So I had a quick game to start and just wow, the official stadiums look amazing and the detail is brilliant. Call me a romantic but I love the pre-match fireworks and the streamers etc and also the anthems are a good touch. Also I didnt know that the coaches would be in the game! (Although all the teams from qualifying are in the game which is about 199 in all, only the teams that have qualified for the World Cup have their coaches featured which is fair enough as to add coaches for 199 countries would be exhaustive.

So the gameplay! the pitches are super and it sounds weird but you feel a sense of pride in playing. Again the authenticity comes through with the African instruments coming from the crowd and it just adds to the experience. The ball travels faster in sync with the altitude levels which is cool and is interesting to see how different teams play. It seems to be a lot more about strategy, players make better runs I find and it is rewarding when you play that killer pass. Love the gameplay!

The likenesses of players are also awesome! Even for my home country (Wales), players like Gareth Bale and Craig Bellamy look brilliant!. And as an extra touch when the camera cuts to a player you can see the sweat on their necks or faces.

Anyways you may say I'm biased towards FIFA games but this is a great game and it has reallly got me in the World Cup spirit! Cant wait for it to start! Currently going through the World Cup campaign as Germany and have England in the quarters ... tasty! Hope this has been helpful to someone!