When EA Sports announced its intention to release FIFA Soccer for the PSP, we naturally assumed it would be a scaled-down version of last year's FIFA Soccer 2005. Well, the PSP game has arrived (a little later than planned), and we're pleased to report that it was well worth the wait. FIFA Soccer is a great soccer game in almost every respect, and it has a lot more in common with its excellent console and PC counterparts than we could have guessed.

The uniforms, and many of the players wearing them, are instantly recognizable.

For starters, FIFA Soccer features more than 350 fully licensed club and international teams from all over the world. The uniforms are detailed enough to include player names, team badges, and sponsor logos, and the better-known players are easily recognizable. Lesser-known players tend to be quite generic looking by comparison, but since you'll spend the majority of your time viewing them from a gameplay camera positioned high above the pitch, this is hardly a cause for concern. FIFA Soccer also boasts a decent create-a-player option similar to that in FIFA Soccer 2005, and while it won't let you edit the features of existing players, there's no reason why you can't use it to create a second David Beckham the next time he gets a headline-making haircut.

FIFA Soccer also features a transfer market option, which lets you easily move players between teams, though it has practically nothing in common with real transfer markets. The most obvious use for the transfer market option is to keep your game's team rosters up to date, but you could also use it to create a dream team of all your favorite players.

Given that the PSP version of FIFA Soccer doesn't feature anything resembling a real-world transfer market, it might come as no surprise that the game also doesn't include a career mode. You'll be able to play through an entire season in any of 26 club divisions, though, or use the new midseason scenario mode to play through just the second half of a season where the real-life results for the first half are already in place. The midseason scenarios are available for 18 different divisions, all of them European. Alternatively, the custom season mode lets you create your own league comprising three to 20 teams. More than 20 real cup tournaments are also available, as well as a custom tournament option.

Other gameplay modes in FIFA Soccer include exhibition matches, a challenge mode, and wireless head-to-head play. The challenge mode comprises no fewer than 40 real-life scenarios for you to play through, most of which are based on memorable matches played in 2004. In real life, these scenarios were all quite different, but in FIFA Soccer they basically boil down to your having to score a certain number of goals in a certain amount of time, thus replicating the spectacular comeback or rout that happened in actuality.

The challenge mode scenarios get really tough as you progress.

When you successfully complete a scenario, you'll unlock the next, more difficult one, and you'll also earn a number of FIFA Soccer points for yourself. In fact, you'll earn FIFA Soccer points the first time you do just about anything in the game, whether it be accessing a new mode, keeping a clean sheet, or scoring a hat trick. You can spend the points at the FIFA Soccer store, which has 38 alternate uniforms, six official balls, nighttime options for 30 stadiums, two extra songs, and the famous referee Pierluigi Collina up for grabs. None of the unlockables are particularly exciting, but it never hurts to have goals--pun intended.

So how does FIFA Soccer on the PSP play on the pitch? The short answer is that it's a lot like the PC and console versions of FIFA Soccer 2005. The slightly longer answer is that it does just about everything that those games do and suffers only because the PSP's control configuration is ill-equipped to handle the controls. The most unfortunate example of this is that since the PSP has no equivalent to a right analog stick, you'll be expected to perform all of your tricks and first-touch moves using the directional pad. Moving your thumb between the pad and analog stick is tricky, to say the least, and as a result you'll likely make far less use of FIFA Soccer's otherwise excellent first-touch system than you'd like to. With that said, it's difficult to see how EA could have better implemented all of the controls from FIFA Soccer 2005 on the PSP.