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Preview

FIFA World Cup 2010

Format Xbox 360

Developer EA Games

Publisher EA Games

Genre Sports

28-Mar-2010 Just about the only way England can win it

Sometimes EA is just astonishing - managing to find a reason to stick two football games on the shelves within six months of each other. Still, the world's most famous festival of football is as good an excuse as any to rinse fans of a bit of extra cash.

Fortunately, you don't just get an augmented selection of international teams to paper over the blind spots in FIFA 10. EA promises tweaks and improvements across the board.

The most obvious upgrades come from the visuals. The team has made enormous strides with lighting on the players and the facial models have been reworked for quality that is more comparable to PES 2010's beautifully realistic player noggins. The biggest winner isn't us, though; it's Peter Crouch, who now no longer looks like a refugee from the Tharg dimension.

The stadia have had an overhaul as well. The pitch is now a more richly textured surface, and looks so grassy that we reckon come summer we'll be suffering Pavlovian hayfever symptoms.

Atmosphere has been ramped up, too, as there are now 3D crowd models for close-ups of each team's fans, and spectators will hold up cards in their team colours. EA even gave us a sneaky peek at the sequence that plays if you win the World Cup as England, and it was suitably spectacular.

On the pitch the game feels noticeably different from FIFA 10, backing up claims that there really is six months' worth of improvement here. Our hands-on revealed that passing is more precise, and you can post balls through narrower gaps between defenders. While we had few complaints with the system in FIFA 10, the physical play has been improved as well, and jostling using the right trigger feels like a genuine tussle now.

There are even some nerdy physics tweaks in play. The altitude of the stadium will, apparently, have an effect - in thinner air the ball will move more swiftly and players will tire more easily.

The tournament itself can be played both off and online, and EA has included the full 199 teams that were eligible to qualify. So if you want to right the wrong suffered by Ireland, you'll be able to repeatedly hammer goals past the French for cathartic release.

As a full-priced release so soon after FIFA 10, it's going to be tough to justify shelling out again. EA is doing its best to sway you, though, with a game that genuinely refines the concept.

Mike Channell