FIFA Football 09 has a beautiful surface, but not as much depth as there could have been.
Last years FIFA marked its debut on Playstation 3 and was a huge hit, the year FIFA really overtook Pro Evolution Soccer in the award for best football game. This rivalry between Konami's PES and EA's FIFA has been great from a fans point of view, edging each game to be made to the max. However with EA's new revamped game engining, FIFA has really began to leave the rest for dead and FIFA 09 marked the game EA really had a chance to polish it up.
A few thing EA have made a song about with this version is the new custom tactics, the new edge on gameplay, the all new Adidas Live Season and the Be A Pro season mode. The question is how are these new features? Well the custom tactics will at first be confusing and later on probly still be confusing, its all about altering sliders to do with the speed, flair, attack, counter attack, almost every aspect of the football game you can think of and to be honest after altering it to the way I liked it, I really didnt feel like it had made a difference. Yes, its nice to have the option, but the tactics you could change in FIFA 08 were very simple and effective as it was. The new edge on the gameplay is the first thing you'll notice when playing the game. Its got a very nice feel to it, smooth passing, nice player animations and great detail in the overall look. Little things will grab you like a player calling for a pass or the linesmans flag going up (yes the addition of a ref and linesman has finally been added.) Other things too like the way Ronaldo stands to take his free kicks, the deep breath he takes before hand. Countless things that make it look very beautiful.
Lastly the Adidas Live Season and the Be A Pro season mode, The live season requires you too enter the code on the back of your FIFA booklet which will enable you too have a free weekly update your choosen league for an entire season, giving you other leagues too at a small fee. This is a great idea and can make football simulation just alittle bit more real. Only time will tell if it works or not. Then theres the Be A Pro season mode, which carrys on from last years debut' Be A Pro. This features is rather compelling, it starts you off in the reserves with a created player which is a fantastic addition to football simulation too. You will in time master your postion and check off the goals it askes you to do. This works well even tho sometimes it feels hard to score and alittle bit bland, if you're into it, it works well.
The big difference in this game being a top class football game that it is as apose to a perfect football game is the underlining of the general gameplay. Sure the flow feels nice, its beautiful and easy on the eye and you can do alot of cool tricks and flicks but sometimes the stupid little things let it down. For example sometimes passes don't go where you aim them, defendings mess up alittle tracking back, defendings don't cover there postions very well or mark there men for that matter. They even took the ability to asign squad numbers to your new signings out of the game which is a big let down in manager mode, As well as not including trophies, which they had plenty of time to do so. Sometimes its these things that can get you really frustrated. Never the less, this is the best football game on the market and a big step forward for the EA series.