FIFA '09

Yet another addition to the ever growing series of EA Sports’ FIFA games, FIFA 09 looks to be one of the best. The FIFA series became recognized as the first football game to get an official license from FIFA itself, so it stood out from the other football games. The main series has been complemented by additional instalments based on single major soccer tournaments, such as the FIFA World Cup, UEFA European Championship, and UEFA Champions League, as well as a series of football management titles.

There are heaps of improvements this game according to David Rutter, the line producer of the game (250 to be exact). The response time has improved, allowing the players to kick with more accuracy, and not pass to the opposing team. Another improvement is the Weather and time. The characters change uniform if it’s raining or not (gloves and high socks if it is). Now with special platform differences between the Wii, DS, PSP and PS3, everyone will get their chance to have a great time.

The DS and PSP versions include the Be-a-Pro mode for the first time, while the PS3’s version will be one of the new games that support the rumble feature with the dual shock 3, and will have a built-in FIFA world cup, so you can track your progress easier, rather than being website reliant. The graphics in the PS3 and 360 versions look great, but the Wii, as always, are slightly lacking. You can really tell who you are playing as, the camera appears to be at the perfect angle, and the commentary seems like it isn’t repetitive at all. Even if the weather is great and sunny, the players’ skins seem to shine like they were wet. The team roster is at about 500 teams and 40 national teams, with about 30 leagues to play in.

The Wii version is called ‘FIFA 09 All-Play’, which is the first in the line of all-play sport games EA Sports is releasing exclusively for the platform. The Wii version will have the regular 11 v 11 matches like the other consoles, but in addition, it gets a new feature called ‘Footii Match’.



This is an 8 v 8 match between the Mii versions of all your favourite (and many not-so fave) world famous football players like Ronaldinho and Wayne Rooney. Also, you will be able to put your own Miis into play against the likes of Wayne and co. Footii’s objective is to allow people to beat other teams from around the world and unlock their ‘superstar team captains’. You can play with the wiimote, nunchuck, the classic remote, or the Gamecube remote.

FIFA 09 arrives in Australia and New Zealand on the 3rd of October, 11 days before American release. For those interested in music, 42 songs have been selected from 21 different countries, including a remix of Tom Jones – feels like music.

This article was written and published by Zach Thompson, our Work Experience student from Wellington College.