FIFA Soccer 2005

There’s an all new interface, which is a real saving grace, because FIFA 2004’s interface… well, the less said the better.

Also, for the first time since FIFA 2002, 2005 comes with a Creation Centre built in, so your days of downloading them are gone. It’s detailed to the core.

Another nifty feature is the EA Store. By fulfilling certain objectives, you earn points that allow you to unlock certain items. So you have alternate kits, different balls, songs and stadia to be unlocked-even celeb referee Pierluigi Colina! All this is just the tip of the iceberg. What really makes the game so darn good is the First Touch model and ultra-realistic gameplay.

They Call It The Real Deal
EA has introduced, for the very first time, a First Touch model that realistically simulates your player’s first touch of the ball. The first touch depends on how the player is positioned and the angle at which the ball is played to him, giving you the most realistic gameplay ever in any
FIFA game.

Now you can plan your movements before you receive the ball, ensuring that the opposition’s defence can’t get anywhere near you. The game’s a lot less monotonous, because it allows you to bring variation into your play and lets you try out some of those cool moves you saw on TV.

Everything about the gameplay has been improved. Take the AI. I could swear they read your mind sometimes, because the way they cut your most disguised ‘through’ ball is just unbelievable.

Another very welcome improvement is the player’s ball control at the touchline. If the ball has just deflected off your defender and rolled to a standstill just on the touchline, you and an opponent will now race towards it. In 2004, you’d kick the ball out if you ran at it because of your momentum. In 2005, however, you have complete control of the ball in such situations. Players will even slide and try to keep the ball in play if it’s rolling out. The game oozes realism, while still being fun to play.

Sweet Is The Fruit Of Patience
EA has also put in a whole new Career mode into 2005. This time around, your career lasts fifteen seasons, instead of just five. There are five different regions where you can begin your career, each with its own major leagues.

So England comes under one region, Spain under another, and so on. You start off at the teams in the lowest leagues and have to build a reputation to get a job at a top-level club. You have to keep winning trophies and your Job Security meter up.

Whoa, She’s Beautiful!
EA has had the best football title for a long time when it comes to graphics, and this time it’s no different. The graphics are jaw-dropping. 3D grass, accurate shadows, and the players look better than ever. However, audio is the one disappointing thing about the game.

One feature in FIFA 2005 that’s both realistic and annoying is player retirements. From age 32 onwards, players start to retire and are replaced by randomly-generated characters having their names, skills and looks similar to those they’re replacing. While this does make the game more realistic, it also makes it very annoying, because by the time you have enough managerial prestige to get into a top club, the best players are gone! Another irritating feature is the ‘Load Replay’ menu. You can save all the replays you want, but the menu only lets you see 13 of them.

Need for Speed Underground (NFSU) was a revolutionary game where you could mod almost every part of your ride. The game was a little monotonous because you just won a race, unlocked stuff, and went to the Customise menu over and over; NFSU2 throws in a whole city with five distinct parts that you have to unlock while following the storyline. You have the freedom to choose your race and sponsors, you’ve got three new modes, and many more cool features.

This is the first NFS game driven by a story. The story picks up from where NFSU ended, depicting you as a top-dog racer, when suddenly an idiot in his 4×4 smashes into your ride one night. Once you’ve recovered from the crash, Samantha (the girl in NFSU) directs you to Bayview, where you need to rise up back to the #1 position. Every few races, a cutscene is played, which leads to the next stage of the plot. The end objective is to find the person who totalled your car and give
him hell.

NFSU2 looks splendid, and the night-time races add to the effect. The game uses a tweaked NFSU engine. Motion blurs and light trails have been fine-tuned to perfection. The effects when you hit the nitrous give you a sense of speed hard to find in any other game. The cars are exact replicas of their real-world counterparts.

As for those oh-so-lame crash effects, the introduction of a ‘different’ camera angle still can’t make them look any better. Due to the lack of damage modelling, the only enjoyment you can get is out of the nice sounds that shearing metal makes. Overall, the game isn’t more graphically advanced than NFSU.

Car In The Big City
The races in NFSU2 can be completed in any order. The city is split into five parts that are unlocked in stages. Also, instead of a one-stop modding menu, you need to visit shops scattered across the city. You need to unlock these shops by finding them, upon which they’ll be added to your GPS map. Points where races will take place are also displayed on the map, but some races you’ll have to uncover.

The tweaking in itself is pretty exciting. Almost every car part can be tweaked. Every fancy addition earns you respect, increasing the points you get as well the nitrous boost you have. Your tricked-out car will also get featured in magazines, earning you cash in the process.

Basically, the game revolves around you striking deals with sponsors and fulfilling your contract. Race modes consist of the legendary Drag, Circuit, Sprint and Drift races, with a notable addition being Street X, a combination of the Circuit and Drift modes. Then there’s the Time Attack, where you have to complete certain objectives in the given time.

More Sound Than You Want To Handle
Snoop Dogg’s remix of Riders on the Storm is the best opening sequence we’ve ever heard. The other tracks aren’t that good, though. Effects such as engine sounds, crashes, nitrous boosts, and various other ambient sounds have been done extremely well.

Multiplayer in NFSU2 is as simple as it gets-all single-player modes are available in multiplayer. The servers are good-you can play online even with a slow Internet connection (we used a 33.6 Kbps modem).