FIFA 09 review (PS3)

Finally taking the crown from PES for best football game released last year (I’ve been a PES fan and a FIFA hater for years, so you’re in denial if you think otherwise) much was expected of FIFA 09. Not only was there an incredibly solid base to build on, but the promise of an expanded ‘Be A Pro’ mode along with the usual yearly updates to the product meant that FIFA 09 had the chance to be the best football game ever released.

Kick off

It certainly got off to a promising start. One hour in and my notes for the review were embarrassingly gushing and a ‘ten’ felt inevitable. I hadn’t been this euphoric about a game for years, and I had only one negative in my notes. I can’t remember that ever happening before. The AI seemed to be improved, the responsiveness was certainly better and the pace was much more lifelike than the PS3 demo (which was far too quick). I took it online against a couple of friends and it was a joy to play. Through balls worked well, goals were harder to score and creating chances wasn’t a god-given right, it was something you had to earn.

I dabbled in the Be A Pro mode and, even though it’s not really for me (I don’t like playing as one player personally) I could see people putting hours into it and how much more rewarding it was with a career structure.

A couple of hours later and I was still having as much fun. I’d updated the player stats using the excellent Adidas Live feature (although only updating one league for free is a little cheeky in my opinion – it’s a nice feature but hardly something worth paying for) and rejoiced at ‘Theo-Theo’s’ sudden increase in stats and laughed at Emmanuel ‘Give him a rise and he’ll still want more’ Adebayor’s plummeting stats. I also had a giggle at Spurs’ expense as all their players suddenly became rubbish, only to then realise that we’d just drawn at Sunderland and would no doubt be suffering the same consequence next week. I’d played a couple more online games and, despite suffering my first sulky person quitting out after going 2-0 down, I was having a great time. A few more negatives had made their way on to my notepad, but it was a comfortable ‘nine’ and one of the most realistic football games I’d ever played.

Then, some five-to-six hours in, I had a sudden volte-face.

A game of two halves

FIFA 09 feels like a real game of football and at times it even looks like a real game of football. That is until you’re through on goal latching on to a superbly placed through ball only for your striker to turn around and impersonate Michael Jackson by moonwalking the last few steps to the ball (presumably with his attention diverted to the monkey mascot on the sidelines). Then there’s the time you’re calling your goalkeeper out, only for the command to double-up as a request to play a through ball, resulting in your defender swinging and missing at the last minute, giving the advantage to the attacker as your goalkeeper suddenly stops running out.

AI on the whole can be depressingly erratic. Opposing goalkeepers choosing to hug their lines when a ball dribbles into the area, allowing for your attacker (still a good 10 yards away) to run on to it and score. Skills are pointless against AI defenders, as they know what you’re going to do before you do it (run on to a ball and knock the right analogue stick in a direction before you get there and watch the defender adjust his position accordingly, waiting for your move to play out before you even get to the ball).

Then there’s your own goalkeeper who gets utterly confused should you have the ball anywhere near him. Try knocking a pass back to him and observe him watching it drift needlessly out for a corner. Or take one of your defenders and run across your own area with the ball, and watch his movement as he has no idea what to do and sometimes runs directly into you. How about pressing L1 to change a player only for the game to point-blankly refuse to take notice (happens mostly when a corner is cleared) and won’t let you change until the ball touches another player. Or how about having your opposition make a substitution as soon as the ball goes out after the 55th minute…every…single…game. It’s these little things that after a few hours soon become noticeable, and turn an amazing game into a flawed masterpiece.

Obviously these flaws are less noticeable when playing against human opponents, (or if not ‘less noticeable’ at least a little more bearable as they effect both of you) but annoyingly the ‘moonwalking’ bug remains and can make the difference between a victory and a draw sometimes.

Poor Manager Mode

In addition to the AI issues, there are a few more areas that disappoint in FIFA 09. The Manager Mode is a disaster. Deciding to guide Arsenal to the title (someone’s gotta show them how it’s done), after 12 games I sat atop the Premier League, with Blackburn in 2nd and WBA in 3rd. Man Utd were 14th, Chelsea were 16th and Liverpool were 18th. Scores of the games played by the AI seem to be determined by nothing more complex than a throw of a dice and it totally destroys any realism that having the licensed teams should have provided. There’s still no day/night cycle (although games can be played at night now, league games and all cup games are all played during the day, seemingly with the same ‘sunny’ conditions as I’ve yet to experience otherwise) and before every game the entire opposition does a little dance while the other team wait to kick off.

The transfer system is still clumsy and totally unrealistic in terms of pricing. Walcott for £1.7m anyone? How about Gerrard for £12m? Or how about signing the whole of your squad to new contracts on salaries at exactly half of what they are currently earning? Not that you’ll need to buy anyone after a few games. Stat improvements are far too easily earned and you can soon turn average players into superstars. Worse still you can change stats that just aren’t realistic. Fabregas, no matter what training he has or how many games he plays, will never be as fast as Walcott. Except in FIFA 09 you can do that. Players should have a base that they can’t go above; seemingly that doesn’t happen. Even more annoyingly, opposing players don’t seem to benefit from stat increases, which could make the Manager Mode ridiculously easy after a couple of seasons.

In addition they still haven’t sorted out a fairer online system, as childish players still quit when losing (at least 30% of my victories have come about by people quitting out) and there’s still an absence of a training mode, which makes getting used to the new corner and freekick systems more difficult than it should be. And why do EA insist on making me save replays to an online profile, rather than being able to save them locally? Not only does uploading them take a very long time, but I tried to upload four replays whilst reviewing the game, and only successfully managed to upload one, with the others coming back with an error that the servers were down.

Even more worryingly, there have been a number of instances where I’ve played games against friends that have lost the connection, yet neither of us have lost connection to the PSN network. EA’s servers currently look like they’re having problem coping with the demand (they were down for approx 80 mins tonight, Monday) and they really need to sort that out ASAP.

Final Score

Undeniably, in some ways, FIFA 09 has regressed, which isn’t what sequels should do. The improvements just about outweigh the negatives and I’m confident a lot of the issues will be sorted out with a patch in the near future (much like last years iteration). That can’t be taken into consideration with the score though, especially as the majority of these bugs should have been picked up during play testing.

10 vs 10 games are superb (if a little chaotic), online against friends is exceptionally good fun and the ability to create online leagues is a nice touch. However if you’re just after a game to play on your own against the AI and have a moderate to low tolerance level for AI bugs, FIFA 09 might not be for you. Annoyingly there was no reason for that to be the case. They got so close to producing an absolute classic but then let themselves down with bugs that should have been spotted and resolved earlier.

So better than last years but only just (at least in its current pre-patched state). Whether that’s good enough for you to part with your cash (which I did, and, despite the issues, still don’t regret) really depends on whether you need the latest squad updates and whether you’re mainly going to be playing it online (where it excels) or offline (where the AI bugs might be too much for some). When the AI is behaving, for me it is undoubtedly the best football game I’ve ever played. When it’s not, it’s very frustrating. FIFA 09 is very much like Arsenal actually; great to look at, at times an absolute joy to play and has a fantastic future if they can build on what they have, but it’s just made too many silly and needless mistakes to stop it from being great this year.