If I had any amount of stamina, I'd totally want to play soccer.

Something about football games don’t exactly appeal to me. Maybe it’s the fact that year after year they tend not to focus so much on progressing the series in favor of just updating the roster. Little did I know that such is not the case with real football, by which I mean soccer, the world’s favorite sport. Turns out FIFA Soccer ’10 is awesome, assuming you like soccer that is. Want to know more? Let’s talk about it some more.

The FIFA brand is still similar to the Madden brand in so much as there are new FIFA games roughly once a year. Beyond that, FIFA sits apart as a franchise that goes way out of its way to do everything possible to increase the overall experience of the game. This year gets the addition of new controls that allow you to juggle the ball more in depth than before. You’re able to make your character dance around with the ball with such control that you become amazing, though this isn’t without some drawbacks. The main one is, it’s bloody difficult to juggle the ball correctly. I don’t know much about soccer, so controls like this just make for more homework for me.

The same goes for the maneuvers you can program into your team to execute whenever you see fit. I don’t know the finer points of soccer well enough to make these features work for me. But this game wasn’t built for me; it was built for the hardcore soccer fan, and if you happen to be one of those, FIFA Soccer ’10 has made sure to be as intuitive to your needs as it ever has been.

Lots To Enjoy For Soccer Fans

Even more for the fans is the staggering amount of teams to choose from. There are hundreds of teams to pick and play as or against in dozens of venues. You’ll have your work cut out for you if you intend to master the nuances of every team, but at least you’ll have something to do for a while.

If you hadn't noticed, the game also looks pretty darn good overall.

So what could make this better? Excellent online support, that’s what. Beyond just simply being able to upload your face onto a player, the online feature allows for great matchmaking against all sorts of players all over the world. You’d just better know what you’re doing as there is a sharp difference between players that have put in the time and effort to rawk this game and those that just rented it this weekend. You’ll want to have spent some serious time training your players before you attack the other powerhouses on the online circuit. At least you’ll always have something to do.

And that’s about it. FIFA Soccer ’10 is perfect for soccer fans, but anyone unimpressed with the sport probably won’t enjoy this one for obvious reasons. If you’ve never tried a soccer game and find yourself curious, FIFA Soccer ’10 is a good place to start. You might just find yourself hopelessly addicted like the rest of the world.