Fifa Vita Review

User Rating: 8 | FIFA World Class Soccer VITA
What can you really say about a football game after all these years?
you'll hear the usual, "best one yet!" but it's hard to review.

I don't follow football (soccer) or any sports really, but before attempting this review I did finish a full play through of a season with no skipped matches.

The game menus are well planned out but are a little laggy / slow so you'll find yourself pressing the same thing 2 times when you really don't need to, it is just loading.

For online play there is no Ultimate Team which we all know makes a killing in sales for EA, so feel lucky they haven't slammed this on you portably too :) but there is competitive online play with Virtual Pro much like the consoles.

The in game mechanics however are as smooth as you could ever ask for, nothing different from the console in my non sporty eyes.
There are enough camera angles to keep any player happy and the commentary is fantastic, the sheer variety of sentences shows the effort put into the game.

I found the difficulty very easy on Semi-Pro but much harder on Professional and so on, the gaps between skill levels is quite large but it all comes down to tough love, it makes you really try hard to become better rather than ease you on bit by bit which is a fair strategy id'e say.

Graphically is well made and I can't really complain about detail, it's all you need from a football game, although the close-ups of the crowd is a big let down. No one moves, just still images slapped onto the screen, I feel great scoring for a bunch of noisy cardboard cut outs.

Touch screen play is great fun and a nice fresh feeling to the series, the front panel used for passing is very accurate and can get some great matches when perfected, but the rear panel is frustrating!
When you hold a £230/£280 machine is you hands, the last thing you want to do is hold it close to the edges, so when you try to rest the machine, what happens? Your player shoots for the goal :/
Real panel play is spot on accuracy and inventive, wherever you touch on the panel is where the player will shoot, top idea. But the amount of times I rested the machine on my hands just to have my player shoot for nothing just led me to turn the Rear touch OFF.

As football games go, Yes, it is one of the best yet, but not by miles, by about 5 inches, pardon the vita based cheesyness.
Worth £45? No... £30 or less seems right for this game and I have had great fun playing it to death.