Play a quick football game on your DS (FIFA 09 (DS))

Member Name: julwhite

Product:	FIFA 09 (DS)
Date:	01/05/09 (72 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Range of playing options, very playable

Disadvantages: Some minor problems, too easy to get sent off

Fifa 09 is a football game for the Nintendo DS. The DS might not seem the best console to play football on, but I was surprised how easy it was to pick up, and how many options were available, even though of course it can never rival the Fifa games for the larger consoles.

In terms of the game play, there are certainly lots of different options. There are 140 attacking and 40 defending options, apparently totalling 50,000 combinations, allowing you to try nearly every possible set of tactics that you could think of.

There are numerous different leagues to play in, including the top four UK divisions, as well as leagues from Germany, Spain and Italy. A good number of players' names have also been included, although there is a limit to these, so some players are missing.

You can choose whether to enter a tournament, just play a friendly game against another side, or you can play as a certain player across a number of seasons. This latter option, the Be a Pro selection, I found to be the best way of playing the game as I only had to concentrate on playing in the role of one player. Others might prefer to play as the whole team, which does require a better ability in the game, something not suited to me, but it was a positive thing to have the various different options available.

There are also a number of different difficulty levels to suit your experience in the game and to help get you into the game. I'm not one of the those players who is naturally good at any game, so I found the difficulty levels to be pitched just right, but that probably means that many players found it just a bit too easy to play.

With the graphics, they're clearly not going to be as good as the game for the PS games console, but I found them to be more than adequate to play the game, given the limitations of the DS.

Playing the game isn't too bad, controlling a single player takes a lot of experience to get right, but isn't too difficult to pick up. I found it a game that you could get into straight away however, without feeling it was just too difficult to play. I did struggle with getting the set pieces right however, to me they were much less intuitive.

One issue that I did find however is that there is a problem that players can get sent off too easily, which sounds becomes frustrating. It's especially frustrating that the computer's players rarely seem to get booked or sent off, but this is overall a relatively minor flaw in the game.

The game is currently available from Amazon for just over thirteen pounds, against its original recommended retail price of twenty pounds. The game is rated for 3+, so is suitable for both younger and older children.

In conclusion, I found the game very enjoyable to play and one of those games that you pick up for a short while and enjoy playing. This game will fail if compared to similar games for the PS3 for example, but such comparisons wouldn't be fair given the technology. Overall, a reasonable game, so four stars out of five, just needs some polishing to make better. There will no doubt be a Fifa '10 so we can see if those improvements have been made!

Summary: I found this to be a good effort given the limitations of the DS