Lets [review] FIFA 09. (FIFA 09 (Xbox 360))

Member Name: he6rt6gr6m

Product:	FIFA 09 (Xbox 360)
Date:	19/10/09 (15 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: 'Be A Pro' Mode, skills, celebrations, graphics.

Disadvantages: AI is poor, particularly the Goalkeepers, still very buggy.

FIFA games have become the corner-stone of Football (or Soccer) games in the World, right now. With only this and Pro Evolution Soccer on the market as current Generation games, there is an element of competition between the two, as they battle for supremacy in the market. And officially, FIFA wins year in, year out with sales figures constantly improving year on year.

In 2006, with the launch of the new Generation of Consoles, EA Sports Canada decided it was time to change everything to take advantage of the High Definition graphics and further advanced CPU power offered up. And with the engines birth came problems. And even though it was an arguable change that made some players look even less realistic than the previous, football fans knew that there would be advancements year upon year. And FIFA 09 was the first of the franchises new engine that showed people that you could have a decently replicated game.

The graphics are excellent. The controls are nice and easy. The settings are quite in-depth which helps you to have complete control over the game, and the way it plays. Particularly, the game speed. Original settings have it as Normal, which doesnt replicate the beautiful game well for me. So putting that option to fast is definitely how football is, in my opinion.

The game itself, when I played it, was very, very buggy. Particularly in the debuting 'Be A Pro' Mode (in which you take over one player for games, rather than the whole team) there were major problems after a few seasons, as players retired and squad numbers were dished out. Other bugs were seen and reported on the FIFA Forum, but EA seemed against fixing them. Patches were produced for major issues, but with the Goalkeepers in particular, they refused to fix their blatant inability to produce some of the most basic saves expected.

All in all, the game itself has innovation with 'Be A Pro' which will continue throughout the franchises future presentations, as well as the continuation of the EURO 2008 invention of Celebrations that you control after scoring goals. But the AI can be frustrating.

Summary: Worth a go, particularly at the price it is now, but EAs after support was terrible.