[AfxTwn]

Just thought I'd start a thread for this game seeing as no one else has. I've been playing this for the past few weeks with my friend and have to say I'm absolutely loving it.

I know it has been getting some bad reviews (rather unjustly IMO) but I prefer this far more to the old Fifa games. This latest effort has been criticised for being an arcade game but I think because of this, it's finally made the game a lot more fun.

Gone are the ridiculously long-winded menu systems, appallingly cheesy soundtrack and (rats I can't think of a third!).

Instead you have a stripped-down appearance and basic options of a tournament mode, a career mode or just a quick friendly game. This suits me down to the ground as I hated having to wade through a million menus in order to set up again, it was like the nightmare of playing Kerplunk in my childhood all over again (5 days to set up and 10 seconds to drop all the marbles).

As I said, I've been playing this in co-op mode with a friend every weekend and we've just finished getting out of League 1 and just started the Coca Cola Championship (we managed to win the coveted Johnstone's Pain Trophy!). So we've played quite a few games and have got a good idea of how Fifa 10 plays in general.

The graphics are a little cartoony but that's fine as I really don't care if I can see an ultra-realistic Wayne Rooney (sorry I know he's an easy target). The commentary can be funny but also annoying at times, but this can be said about most footy games. You do tend to get sick of Andy Gray's constant pessimism and general slagging off of how you're playing.

The game is a little too easy sometimes but you can ramp up the difficulty and as you progress through a season, the team's do improve so you may get a big one at the beginning of the season but by the end when you play the same team again it can be a different story.

You can use the classic controller but I much prefer the nunchuck/remote combo. The thumbstick controls movement, Z makes you sprint, C controls lob shots. On the remote A changes player when off the ball or passes when on the ball, B does crosses or tackles and a simple shake of the remote is all that is needed to shoot or slide tackle. Oh the D-pad is used for tricks like running rings around an opposing player etc.

When you do shoot you get a slow-mo, cartoony shot complete with WHOOSH noise just so you can savour your fantastic goal. A replay immediately follows which is where the game is a little annoying as while you can skip this and other cutscenes, it doesn't skip anywhere near fast enough.

You can make substitutions mid game or at half-time but this is another section where Fifa 10 is let down as there doesn't seem to be any reason to do that. You are told back at mission control after a game that players can get tired etc but you have no way of knowing which players so you don't know who to rest or who is injured. Your players never seem to get tired so aside from changing players who have got a red card, you don't really need to change your starting 11 too much.

The transfer parts of the game is quite good if you can't be bothered reading a million stats for each player (although you can get more in-depth analysis if you want). It comes up with a list of players for sale and sorts them with tabs into what position they play and by how much they cost (which is an indication of how good they are). You get stars to spend on players but each time you buy or sell a player you use a point. At the start of each transfer time you get alotted a certain number of points so you know how many players you can buy/sell.

Sorry that was rather long-winded (second use of the term so far, woohoo!). Before you start each game you are given a set of 3 goals to choose from, if you successfully complete the goal then you are awarded some booster points and these are totted up over x number of games in order to get Boosters which help you in matches.

The goals may be something like "Score 3 goals" or "Keep a clean sheet". Once you get to the boosters screen for some bizarre reason they have decided to make this totally random, so you can't choose what you want. Instead you are faced with ITV's Catchphrase tiled wall and are allowed to select 3 different tiles. But instead of revealing a rather lewd Mr Chips cracking one off (apologies for that image), you are shown what boosters you managed to get.

They can be things that improve your tackling or shooting etc or even points for the transfer market. You can save these up and combine some of them to make a super booster (not the official name) which gives you fantastic skills which could be used for your more tougher games or say for the FA Cup final etc.

I think the randomness of the boosters is really annoying as you can go 20 games trying to collect the right boosters for a super combo only to wind up constantly getting a health boost.

Getting boosters also gives your team's overall skill points a much needed boost so you could have a score of 67 with a +6 boost. Of course if you don't complete the goals set out before a game then you get minus points. So you experience the high of winning a match followed by the crushing low of for the 6th time running failing to complete your goal and not getting boosters and getting minus skill points. This was usually down to me constantly sliding tackling everyone when we had picked the "get no more than 1 foul" goal.

The games go by quickly but are huge, huge fun (co-op career mode is a must - of course if you're playing with someone who's had a sense of humour bypass then you may want to rethink this). I absolutely love Fifa 10 and would give it 9/10. It doesn't take itself too seriously which I think a lot of sports games are very guilty of doing.

[lostboybinns]

I think its the best Fifa to date. I wanted to hate it but its pure genius

[a27]

When you manage your team, is it possible to do more than make substitutions and chang formations?

I'm trying to change tactics and my free kick taker.

[AfxTwn]

I don't think you can go as in-depth as that a27. You can just do basic team management like you've mentioned but you can't assign specific players to do specific roles like free kicks etc. I think you can on the other console versions of the game but the Wii version is an arcade games rather than a football sim.