FIFA 10 by EA Sports has become the third major soccer game to hit the app store, behind Real Soccer and X2 Football. Offering greater control options than its competition, as well as fully licensed player, team, and tournament names, FIFA 10 attempts to breakaway from the pack and become the premier soccer game on the iDevice.
FIFA 10 puts its licensing power to good use, offering 20 tournament and cup competitions, 30 leagues, 570 teams, and 12,260 players. Your favorites are bound to be in there somewhere. You’ll likely find them in either Kick Off (the quick play option), Manager Mode, or Tournament mode. Kick Off allows you to choose teams and get onto the pitch with little effort. Manager Mode puts you in the position of the team manager, making the crucial decisions and hopefully leading your team through the soccer season. Tournament mode is where you enter a tournament or cup and attempt to win it all in playoff format. In addition to these, there is a Training Mode to practice your skills and Penalty Shootout, an exciting 1-on-1 against the goalie where the winner takes all. You can play as either player in this mode. EA Sports also adds an interesting new mode called Be A Pro. This allows you to use a current player or create a custom player whom you will follow throughout the entire game, even when he doesn’t have the ball. It is a fairly realistic individual experience that mirrors how any individual player would truly experience the game.
Controls can be a bit complicated, as FIFA offers a lot of different options using very few buttons. There is an 8-direction fixed thumbpad in the lower left corner of the screen to control direction and movement. The only other buttons are a small A and B on the right side of the screen. Tapping the A button applies pressure on defense and passes on offense. Tapping the B button switches players on defense and shoots on offense. Holding buttons increases power. Sliding from one button to another can invoke slide tackles, through balls, lob passes, 1-2 passes, crosses, and other special moves. Double-tapping or slide-holds can bring about other special moves. It can be a lot to get used to upfront, but with some practice, it can become second nature. That’s why you’ll likely want to start in Training mode to get a good feel for the game. Hitting the ? button engages a detailed explanation of all of the different maneuvers which you can then practice on the field. The pause button allows you to bring up special circumstances, such as corner kicks, free kicks, and penalty kicks to practice, as well. Once you have a good understanding of these moves, it’s time to put them to use against an opponent.
Before playing a match, you can choose teams, kits, sides, and options such as half length, CPU skill (4 difficulty levels), injuries, offsides, extra time, camera angle, auto replay, sensitivity, button orientation, HUD visibility, weather, time, stadium, and more. You can also set your lineup, formations, and player roles. It’s a very deep experience for a mobile game. After the game, you can view highlights and get all sorts of stats, including some nice visual stats, like the percentage of time the ball spent in the three thirds of the field, and the path of all shots on goal. Very cool stuff!
In Be A Pro mode, there is a little soccer ball indicator that travels around the screen, giving you an idea where the ball is, as the camera is trained on only your player. The colored outline of the ball indicates which team has possession. Depending on the type of player you choose, this mode can be pretty exciting or kind of boring, but it’s certainly a different experience and one worth checking out. Tournament Mode allows you to simulate any matches you don’t want to play. You can also access tournament options and team management information, as well as a bunch of game options to really customize your experience.
The 3D graphics are very nice, despite the lack of distinguishable body types or faces. Gameplay is smooth, with little to no noticeable lag. It is hard to decide which of the big three games has greater graphics and controls. We do like the control scheme of FIFA 10 and feel it might give us the more intuitive and deeper experience once you get a good grasp on all of the player’s abilities. Sounds are good, with decent commentary that seems to make accurate calls without being too repetitive. There is an option to use the accelerometer to control the players, and though it actually worked better than we expected, we never felt as comfortable with this option as we did with the joypad. In tilt mode, the joypad is replaced by a C button, which causes you to sprint. Given that there is still a button there that gets used often, we’re not really sure what the benefit of this control option is.
There is local wifi-multiplayer, so you can play against friends. However, it is not across the globe, which would be a great accomplishment since Real Soccer is currently doing this, albeit a bit laggy. FIFA 10 auto-saves your progress for greater pick-up-and-play ability. Replay value is very good, as with most sports games. The depth of play and plethora of options should satisfy soccer fans for a long time. It feels like each of the big soccer games has something special to offer, but none is head and shoulders above the rest. We really enjoyed FIFA’s controls, the Be A Pro mode, and the licensed names. At $9.99, FIFA 10 is the most expensive of the bunch, but this solid 4-Dimple shootout is worth checking out for soccer fans.
FIFA 10 gets our AppSmile 4-Dimple rating:
