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It's only six months after EA launched FIFA 10, but with the world's greatest sports tournament around the corner, a game focused on the World Cup was a given. While it doesn't take any major leaps forward from what FIFA 10 already offered, it does make some useful gameplay tweaks and brings scenarios that are really fun to play.   Where FIFA 10 focuses much more on the litany of club teams from different leagues around the world, with only 41 national squads, FIFA 10 World Cup naturally does away with club teams and provides access to a whopping 199 national teams, basically all who took part in qualifying for this year's tournament. The great thing about this is that just about the entire world is at your fingertips. In other words, you can take any squad that may not have a chance in real life and give them a berth in the World Cup. Even if you can't advance past the group stage, there's a feeling of accomplishment in just getting there with Cinderella teams like that.    I'll touch on the gameplay side of things first, since those are the changes you will deal with the most. FIFA 10 did a great job in adding a new physical dimension to the way players interact with each other, and it's great to see that this game adds to that. Even the referee can get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time when a pass ends up hitting him and possibly changing the scope of a play. This happened to me once where a fortuitous bounce off the ref led to me scoring a key tying goal. But the physics are more noticeable in the way players jostle for the ball, how you can't run through a player lying on the ground and sometimes players running too fast with an opposing player may end up whistled for a foul.   The point is that the game is believable. And because the AI is better at all aspects of the field, any given match has an air of realism to it that's very satisfying. Sure, you might get frustrated when things don't go your way, but that's the nature of sports competition anyway, right? You technical gamers out there will love that you can alter tactics on the fly with the D-pad, while making certain moves by holding one button and pressing another. Newbies and less seasoned gamers will appreciate that EA offers a way to play the game with just two buttons. There's no Franchise mode, of course, but Captain Your Country is pretty much designed along the lines of FIFA 10's Be A Pro. You can take on the guise of a star player, create your own or even import the Be A Pro you created in FIFA 10, which is a cool feature. Once you get started, you have to play on the B-team to earn your spot on the national squad, to then lead them through qualifying and into a spot in the tournament. Naturally, you have to play your position the way it's meant to be played. You earn points for being in position and making plays. You lose them for making ill-timed tackles or straying from where you're supposed to be. It's fun and frustrating at the same time, and you can expect to play a lot of games from start to finish.   The downside, depending on how you look at it, is that you can't take all this online. In fact, just about the only thing you can do online is play basic exhibition games or play through a World Cup tournament with other gamers. But at least there will be downloadable content in the form of the Coke Zero Story scenario-based challenges. This is my favourite part of the game because you can alter the course of history in “what if” moments. Though you would play these offline, there are some really great ones to go through in the 50+ that are initially offered. Many of them are based on the 2006 World Cup, though you will need to earn points playing through others just to unlock them.   There are also quite a few to go through in the qualification period leading up to this year's tournament, the most interesting of which is the notorious hand ball by Thierry Henry that ultimately led to Ireland's elimination. The scenario takes place right after the goal, giving you 16 minutes in accelerated time to win the game for the Irish and move on. There's even one scenario involving Canada in a game against Mexico in Edmonton. With a 2-1 lead, you have to keep the Mexicans at bay and win the game, which is much easier said than done when they start throwing everything at you. Another classic is the famous one-game playoff between Egypt and Algeria that took place in Sudan for the final African spot in the World Cup. Great games, great scenarios. The icing on the cake is that EA will actually provide new scenarios as the tournament is ongoing. So, for instance, imagine that you get to play through a scenario where Portugal has to beat Brazil in order to make it through the next round, mere days after the actual game took place. How the commentating will reflect the events remains to be seen though. On the presentation side, all 10 of the official stadiums for the tourney are there and they all look great. Fans are more lively, and you even see close-ups of diehards with facepaint and costumes. Players have more celebrations, partly because of a partnership with Coca-Cola. Get codes from Coca-Cola products and the company's website widgets and you can unlock any of eight unique celebrations that you can initiate after scoring. This isn't a deeper experience than FIFA 10, but you will appreciate FIFA World Cup 2010 for what it is. It's worth picking up if even if you have FIFA 10 already.   FIFA 2010 World Cup South Africa Format: PlayStation 3 Publisher: Electronic Arts Developer: EA Canada ESRB Rating: Everyone Official Site: http://fifa-world-cup.easports.com/home.action Rating: 9 / 10

 

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