The FIFA Series has dominated the football gaming genre for years now, with its only major rival being the PES Series. I remember playing FIFA 99, and you could only pass 8 directions, and shoot about 6, and everybody seemed to look exactly the same, with only their name making them different from everyone else

Well, times have changed since '99, 10 years later, with FIFA 09. With all the 'standard' expectations from a FIFA game included: Great graphics, great gameplay, great realism; a few new features are included in your game menu. You have the all new Adidas Live Season (requires online capability). Player statistics are updated, using an assessment of their real life performance over the past week. For example, Wayne Rooney has a terrible week at Manchester United, missing sitters, and getting sent off. Download the latest Adidas Live Season update, and in game you'll see him lobbing it over the bar, and see his aggression go up. Of course, no good thing comes for free. You have to pay for this feature, either buying seperate leagues, or buying a bundle pack for all of them. On a good note, every copy of FIFA 09 comes with a code to unlock 1 league, so you can still see Rooney missing that sitter.

Down to the graphics. These have to be the most realistic football graphics of late. As the most recent version of the FIFA series, that's all you can expect, but it truly exceeds these expectations. The movement is swift, you can't see frames, just fluid running, shooting, jumping, jostling, and particularly saving. Alot of time has been spent making the goalkeeper seem more realistic. No longer will you have a shot saved, and be able to easily slot the rebound in while the keeper is still getting up. Of course this depends on the awareness of the keeper, and other various skill factors.

The atmosphere of the stadiums is most delightful. Every little possible detail of each football stadium has been picked out, and of course you have the atmostphere of the beloved crowd, singing in different styles, depending on where the home team are from. You also of course have the traditional singing of the national anthem for national teams.

So, so far, I've covered the new features, graphics and atmosphere. Now down to the bad side. As i've found with countless FIFA games, there are always bugs lying all over the game, alot of which i've managed to find. Let me give you a few examples.

If you are easily lost with football talk, skip this next paragraph.

There seems to be a problem with the offside rule on this game. For those of you who are virgin to football, the offside rule is supposed to stop any player 'goal hanging' (standing by the opposition goal waiting for someone to pass to you). The way that works, well, we'll put an invisible line on the second to last defender of the opposing team. If somebody runs past that line, or is already past that line (when the ball to them is played), then that is offside. In other words, the player who is passing the ball is behind that line, and the attacker running and calling for the ball, is infront of the line (closer to the opposition end). If the player passing the ball, is infront of the 2nd to last defender (the line as referred to before), then he is free to pass the ball forward. On this game though, that also counts as offside, even though your players are already past the defenders.

Those easiy lost with football talk, carry on here.

There are some general bugs in the game, such as feet slightly sinking into the ground too much, but with the amount going on, it's hardly noticable unless you go on the instant replay (which, by the way, is great for making football movies).

My biggest concern with this game, similarly to previous FIFA games, is the commentary. Before I had my Xbox 360, I played FIFA games from 03-08 (excluding 06) on the PS2. The first couple of years were enjoyable, considering the gaming technology at the time. Once FIFA got to FIFA 05, there seemed to be a general repeating pattern, and the games produced got sloppy and similar as the new generation of gaming was released, herego, less time was spent on the old generation.
One of these sloppy errors was the commentary.

Firstly, I will praise FIFA for their recent release to FIFA 09, which was new commentary packs, allowing you different commentators speaking in different languages, notably French, German and Spanish. That's where the commentary praise stops. I've still experienced the sloppy old generation gaming bugs, in the new generation version, with the commentators calling for corners when it's a blatent goal kick, talking on aimlessly about the build up to a match, when they should be talking about the great volley that's just been scored, and delayed reactions from taking set pieces, calling a good corner a "good corner" 5 minutes after the set play.

So things you can look forward to in this game. You've got the great graphics, the fast, fluid gameplay, accurate clubs and players, and great atmostphere.

The downside, you'll be joined by two commentators with delayed reactions.

Overall Rating 8/10