Better than I expected, but still not like PES.
The graphics look both good and bad, I'll explain why. The pitch and the players and the stadium all look good, as does the movement of the players. It's all incredibly lifelike, I had a friend sitting next to me the other day who didn't care for games whatsoever, and he said it was like looking at a real game of football. Nice detail to me are when two players fight for the ball shoulder to shoulder. You can clearly see the struggle between them to claim the ball. From what I've seen from the crowd, no complaints. This is always a point for debate, I say it's fine, but that may be because I don't care about how realistic the crowd looks. What I don't like about the graphics is that the players themselves don't come close to what they look in real life. Maybe this is because I don't play with the big teams like Real Madrid, Manchester United or AC Milan, but when I look at Huntelaar (who, you say? He's the striker for Ajax) it doesn't even come close to what he really looks. There are more than enough player from Holland who are regarded as some of the best players in the world, but since the KNVB didn't allow the real names to be used in the national team for Holland, I can't really judge them either.
I think the sound in FIFA 09 is great, the songs I hear are way better than what I always heard in PES, which is nice for a change. I also like the fact that you get the commentary from your own country, I chose Holland and got Evert ten Napel and Youri Mulder as commentators. This however got boring after two matches, and now it's so annoying that I play music when playing FIFA, but that's just me, it's great that there's an option like this. It also shows me that FIFA still has that eye for detail in these kind of things. The way the crowd is, could have been better, I don't feel the same atmosphere when playing an away game, especially with your archrival or direct competition, they could have done more with that. I would have liked it that when my has a free kick in a dangerous position, in an away game, you hear the crowd booing and stuff like that. Or when you score a goal, you hear the crowd falling silent, that would be a nice little detail that would add that extra bit.
When you're used to always playing PES like me, it's hard to play a different football game and getting it under control. Sure, it's easy enough to learn how everything works, but to use it in your games and play well enough to beat your opponents online is a different story. What I had trouble with was the fact that the classic controls in FIFA are pretty much the same as they are in PES, except for that fact that the button for a shot and for a cross were the opposite. So X was now used for a cross and B for a shot. Luckily you can change the controls to alternate so that it matches the controls in PES, which would be good to know for all PES players out there who might be thinking of switching to FIFA as well. What I notice in FIFA is that it's a lot harder to get past your opponent one on one, but then again it is easier to maintain ball possession. For an easy way to keep possession, I noticed that playing the ball around quickly is very effective, this could also just be because I haven't played anyone serious yet online, but at the least it's got to be very annoying for your opponent. As to getting past your opponent one on one, it probably takes some getting used to, but for now, unless I'm confident, I'll take a detour.
I haven't played FIFA 08 so I don't know if this was there as well or not, but in FIFA 09 you can crawl in the skin of your favorite player or create your own and start your career in Be a Pro. In Be a Pro you get to play as one player of the team. You have four seasons ahead of you in which you can become the greatest player in your team and a legend for your country. You do this by controlling just one player, the player you chose to create or a player that is already in your team. Before each games you get three objectives, these differ according to what position you choose to play. I'm currently playing as Huntelaar and I get objectives that have to do with attacking. By completing these objectives you can earn experience points, and after you have saved up enough points, you can spend these on your talent, this will raise the stats of your player. You can eventually choose to leave your club and play for the big teams in countries such as England, Spain or Italy. This game mode takes four seasons, in this period your goal is to reach legendary status for your club and country.
If you don't want to play Be a Pro, which I could understand, since to me it is incredibly boring and at times frustrating as hell, you can always choose to be a manager or just play a competition without any hassle. You have an incredibly wide range of competitions to choose from, the big countries all have at least two leagues, with England having four. And there are a bunch of, with no offense, insignificant leagues such as the Czech, Polish or Swedish leagues. If offline gaming isn't for you, then there's always Xbox Live, which is packed with numerous possibilities. You can create your own competition for a maximum of 32 players, or you can assemble 20 people in a game room to have everybody fulfill a position on the pitch. I recommend the last one only to people who are serious about it, if not, you'll just have 20 people on the pitch running mindlessly after the ball, which will get you nowhere and is not fun at all. Ofcourse there's also the standard 1vs1 ranked and unranked matches. I'm not entirely sure if it's possible to play 2v2 games, I believe it is possible, but you can't control it, you'd have to be lucky enough. Your games might also end up in 5vs5. I haven't tried this yet, but a friend of mine is getting this game as well, when he does we'll be testing if it's possible or not.
Fun extras in FIFA 09 are the results you can see of games played in all domestic leagues, Champions League and UEFA Cup. Just the other day I got treated to seeing that SC Heerenveen crushed Ajax with 5-2, while these are moments that don't highlight the option for me in a positive matter, it's still great to see that they thought about this, just another small thing that adds something extra to the game, at least for me.
To me, FIFA 09 turned out better than I expected. This is because after all these years playing PES, FIFA was just the game that was played by people that wanted to score impossible goals and always end with the game with scores such as 9-5 or something like that. It's only been two or three years since FIFA got better and better. And now all that you hear is arguments why FIFA or PES is better. When PES 2009 comes out I'll be getting that games as well. Not right away though, I want to hear and read about it more before I buy it. I hope this review has helped you in your decision in whether or not you want to buy this game.