If a rather burly man was to decide that instead of punching you in the face repeatedly over a series of days, he’d rather try his hand at that thousand-piece jigsaw he’d been getting round to, we’re sure the sense of relief would be enough to make you dance a jig around your gouged, bloodstained teeth. It’s an unusual opening, we know, but we’ll stick with it. Now imagine that gorilla was EA, churning out endless sluggish and frustrating football titles licensed after this and that, suddenly deciding that the best method of putting a decent sports title together is to give the AI an IQ test and make players truly earn their chances. You know, the basics. Suddenly, EA Sports is crowned king of the gaming world in only slightly less confusing circumstances than when Louis Saha was declared king of Old Trafford. For, while the difficulty level has been upped, robbing proceedings of cheese from which they formerly suffered, anyone who concludes this is overhaul rather than animation rejig needs to wake up and smell the isotonic sports drink. In the words of quizzical genius Roy Walker this is good, but it’s not right.

One feeling FIFA 08 certainly brings about is exhaustion – for every inch of turf your players cover, countless calories are burned trying to wrestle your men into pass-receiving positions. Far from irritating, though, this is perhaps the new-look FIFA’s greatest success, bringing the pace of each match down to an acceptable level and forcing players to think about where their frames might best be positioned to guard the ball and slowly build up swift attacking movements. While your first handful of matches will be about as exciting as a rain-soaked night watching Bolton play Everton, eventually you’ll learn to recognise your split-second windows of opportunity, before goals will become a whole lot more plentiful. Also of note is one of EA’s staple trumpeted additions – Be A Pro mode, which tasks players with control of just one man for (sadly) single exhibition matches. And even though the concept has been tried before in titles such as Libero Grande, and to a certain extent Pro Evolution Soccer, we’re struggling to think of a time that it’s been executed with more aplomb. An atmospheric Gears Of War-style chase camera accompanies any run, alongside suitably frenzied rushing wind noises and the like, thrusting you to the centre of the action. It may all be a bit limited, based upon a final score you’ll get for playing whatever position you choose well (and taking it online for five-on-five action, which will probably slow to a stutter every two seconds), but there’s nothing quite like beating everyone to score that solo stunner for your home-town club. Just ask Bobby Zamora.

Turning to the undeniable negatives, one sits glaringly above all: first-time finishes. Wing play is rendered almost irrelevant by the fact your players will unreliably insist on bringing the ball down when a simple redirection with the bonce would suffice. At other times, balls essentially brought down will be danced around like the proverbial hot potato until it’s too late to get an accurate shot in, while you tap-shoot close on ten times, wishing someone would step in and end such madness. Similar situations appear between the sticks too, as some unseen force dictates whether or not shots go in, without reference to how ridiculous it’ll look if they do. In this vein, FIFA looks set to inherit some of the complaints that commonly follow every Pro Evo release, regarding exactly how much input players have. Shots dribbling slowly across the turf will trickle into the back of the net and looping headers will only have attempts made to push them away at the point they nestle in the old onion bag. Generally speaking, you’ll come across a fair smattering of situation where you can almost see the game think: ’oh dear, I don’t have a pre-set animation for this situation – best let it in and use ‘flailing dive 1’.‘

Like the Skate/Tony Hawk’s divide, EA seems to be using realism to combat a powerful and dominant enemy. And like its fresh-faced cousin, this attempt largely succeeds. While the series still handles with its almost trademark delay, the extra effort required pulls you in and represents the first significant advancement for the series in quite some time. Further similarities with its recent release can be found through the fact that we could see ourselves quite happily playing both titles this season, enjoying the differing strengths that each has to offer. If that isn’t evidence enough of the polishing job that has been done here, we don’t know what is. Just don’t expect Rom(a) to be built in a day, that’s all…

Dave Shaw