FIFA 10 (PS2)

Intro

Most of us have advanced on to consoles such as the PS3, Xbox 360, or Nintendo Wii, but for those of us who have not yet reached such stages, there still exists games being made for some of the lesser-used consoles, in this case, FIFA10 for the Playstation2.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the FIFA games, they allow users to control football players and play games against other teams in various different modes. Ever since their first one, they've progressed year by year, and can now boast a superb game with a gigantic database of players - featuring teams and nations from all over the world.

The PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of FIFA10 were superb, showing us once more why EA Sports leads the way for football games, and for pretty much all sports games in general. The graphics were the best yet, the gameplay excellent, and the online play exciting. But how does the PS2 version compare?

Game modes

There are several different game modes on FIFA10 to keep you occupied while you play:

Manager Mode - In Manager Mode, you are the manager for a team of your choice, and it's your job to take your team to the highest level possible. Incorporating some of the more basic elements from football managerial games like the Football Manager series, Manager Mode allows the user a more realistic experience where you can sign players, control finances, and deal with media. However, you can still play the game, which makes for a great experience as you take your team through season after season.

Be A Pro - In the Be A Pro mode, you create a player (through a very good player creation system, one of their best yet) and assign him to a team. From there, you control just that one player in games, and through your performance, see how far you can progress with him.

Cup/Season modes - There are various different modes for setting up your own cups, leagues and seasons. These are quite good in that you can customize them pretty freely, but are only short-term as they don't take you too long to finish.

Lounge mode - This is the perfect mode for when you've got friends or family round, and you want a bit of a laugh. Each player picks a team, and all the teams are entered into a small league where they're awarded points for performance. One aspect of this mode which might be of interest is the 'cheap shots', which allow a player to do things to other players teams, depending on which cheap shot they get. For example, they can make it so the other team starts with 10 men, and so on. This mode never gets old when you've got friends or family over.

Gameplay

For anyone who's ever played FIFA before, you'll know that the gameplay is good, but there are certain things that ruin the illusion of a real game, through their sheer ridiculousness. For example, when a goalkeeper comes to receive a back pass from a defender, but then somehow forgets to kick the ball resulting in an annoying own goal. Fans will be pleased to know that most of these mistakes are now ironed out, but an odd one does still slip through.

The matchplay itself has also improved over the last year, with more realistic tackling, shooting and passing. It's also worth it now to cross the ball, whereas crossing on FIFA09 was effectively pointless. However, advancements all round mean that although you can no longer dribble the ball round everyone on the pitch, the games are more like they are in real life, and once you master the passing game you'll be able to enjoy a more realistic experience.

However, the new '360 dribbling' feature - the main new advancement from last year, has for some reason only been included on the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game, which is annoying. Could it have been that hard to adapt the feature for the PS2? I doubt it, it seems like a ploy to get more people spending on the PS3 and Xbox 360 games.

Graphics

As always with FIFA, the graphics are at the highest possible standard, and the more illustrious players of our generation will be easily recognizable from their computer animated faces. They of course couldn't do the job on every single player on their database, but on the whole, it's a pretty good effort facially.

The gameplay element of graphics has also been improved, leading to increased fluidity in matches and a more realistic feel to the games. Players now have more graphics for aspects of the game like running, jumping, and sliding which once more makes it FIFA's most realistic game yet.

Of course, there's the same downside here that seems to crop up again and again - the graphics on the PS2 version don't come close to that of the PS3/Xbox 360 version. However, seeing as that is one of the things you're paying extra money for on the consoles, you can't really expect it to match the same standard in graphics.

Sound

The playlist for most FIFA games is superb, and FIFA10 is no exception. Featuring a full list of great tunes to keep you occupied while you're on the menus, sometimes you won't want to go to the games! I won't put a full list of every track, but one I particularly recommend you take a listen to is Metric's 'Gold Guns Girls', which is a great track.

The other aspect of the sound is the in-game commentary during games, provided by recordings from Martin Tyler and Andy Gray. It's fairly good, but you only remember the mistakes, and to be honest there's a fair few of them. However, they're usually quite funny when they happen, for example when you're playing it about your defense and the commentator suddenly shouts "And a chance!" referring to an incident a few minutes ago. On the whole though, they've still done a fairly in-depth commentary which helps make the game more interesting.

Longevity

The manager mode, which is probably the mode you'd want to spend most time on, has fairly good longevity, with a season being about 40 half-hour games, plus time spent on negotiating for players, managing your team etc. After this you can also go on and do more seasons, but after 2 or 3 you'd probably be bored with the same team, and want to start a new one.

The Be A Pro mode is slightly less interesting in my opinion. As you can only be one player the matches are less interesting, especially if you choose to be a defender. However, it is still interesting to see how far you can get your player to progress, and the goal of international football is always a good target to aim for, meaning you can play for a while without getting too bored.

After these modes there are several others, but none that will captivate your interest for any great period of time. However, whilst the 'online multiplayer' of the PS2 is a lot worse than that of the PS3 and Xbox 360, multiplayer games with friends or family are always fun, which means that you can always play the odd game here and there for a good laugh even when you've become bored with other modes.

Difficulty

There are four different difficulties - Amateur, Semi-pro, Professional, and World Class. First time users of the game will at first find even amateur difficult, but you'll quickly pick it up, and after a while you should progress to semi-pro or professional, with the better players even going on to world class. However, for the experienced gamer world class won't be a huge challenge, and they could perhaps benefit in making these settings slightly more difficult.

Conclusion

The good points

--> Great gameplay, advanced from last year's offering
--> Huge database of players, teams, kits and stadiums
--> Nice graphics, best yet for PS2 FIFA games
--> Never gets old when playing with friends/family
--> More realistic matches
--> Better than it's closest rival, Pro Evolution Soccer

The bad points

--> Miles behind it's PS3/Xbox 360 equivalent
--> Most new features only for PS3/Xbox 360
--> Could be a little harder
--> Some mistakes need ironing out

Product information

Price - £24.99
Released - 2nd October 2009