FIFA 06 (PS2)

I have to say that I was expecting a lot from this new FIFA and was a little let down when I first played it. It took me a few games to get the hang of the new style and noticed straight away that the game has a few really annoying faults.

The graphics haven't changed much with regards to player likenesess and the commentary is a little annoying to start with but you soon get used to Andy Gray sounding like a chipmunk.

The transfer's on the game are not up to date as the game was finished a week before the close of the transfer window. This isn't much of a problem as you can update the teams yourself, though a little annoying when you just want to pick up and play.

I also found that there are a lot of players missing from the game which is very suprising as I've never had this problem before.
Some of the missing players are well know too.
Being an Everton fan they where the first team I wanted to update.
Ferrari from Roma, Van Der Meyde from Inter and Nuno Valente from Porto where the only changes I needed to make.
Ferrari is the only one in the game!
Valente is a Portugal international player and is actually in the international side on FIFA 06 but he cannot be found in the Porto side!
Then on to Van der Meyde, another World Class international player who is well known in Europe but again can't be found in the Inter side and the game doesn't even feature the Holland national side!!

Looking around the Premiership there are a few regular players missing from some other sides, I wont list them as there are quite a few. The only way round this is to create them in the create player screen.

I'm sure there are more things that people dont like but they are the major ones I have found.
Maybe a glich too I noticed Birmingham dont have names on the back of their kits! weird.

On the up side though there are quite a lot of new things.
The gameplay is smoother in a strange sort of way and feels a lot different from previous incarnations.
It's harder to tackle players now and often the slide tackle can end in a straight red. Frustrating at first but realistic.
Shooting is also harder.
Unlike the other FIFA games where it was possible to score from 30 or 40 yards out it is now harder to find space to get a decent shot off and often the keeper has is covered anyway. As it's harder to find space it's harder to score the same goal more than once.

The corner and freekick system has also changed, the target arrow is back from earlier versions. The freekick no longer has a target or the ball in the lower corner for spin. Now you have to position the player using both analogue sticks to aim and although it's fairly easy to get the shot on taget you only score about 1 in 15 rather than 1 in 5 as in FIFA '05.

The more in depth manager experience is ace, and it's recommended to start in a lower league, rather than as Celtic for the first season then a Premier Team in the second!!

The game also has better stadiums, there are empty seats when playing a poor side! More skills which are easy to carry out, ability to edit current player's stats as well as a decent soundtrack.

Anyway, it's a pretty decent game even with the annoying faults. I can see a lot of people disliking it as it may take a little more practice to master than before and some may not like the new system of play.
I feel this is a step forward for the FIFA series and through it's errors they can only learn.

I recomend trying before buying it as it may not appeal to every fan of other FIFA games, but it's worth the £30 as it'll deffo keep you occupied until the next gen consoles are released.