FIFA 10 by EA SPORTS review

Getting ready for next year’s 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa? EA Sports have come sprinting into the App Store with their FIFA 10 soccer game for the iPhone and iPod touch. Featuring realistic football action including 30 leagues from around the world, and 570 teams and 12,620 players. As always the FIFA games by EA Sports are all fully licensed and feature 20 tournaments and cup competitions, and FIFA 10 on the iPhone now adds the “Be A Pro” mode.

When the game starts each time it asks if you want sounds enabled. We really like the sound effects, and the pinpoint accurate live commentary as it enhances the excitement, but you can turn it off if you like to save some battery. FIFA 10 on the iPhone is a monster game, coming in at 45MB with a world of characters and features packed to the rafters. Pick your favorite team for home and away games. The main menu consists of Kick Off, Game Modes, Wi-Fi Connection, My FIFA 10, and Game Settings. When you start to play a regular kick off game, you can manage your team, select kits, select sides, and change game settings. Team management is the place to pick your players, assign roles to the players, and pick formations. Selecting Kits is where you choose what color uniforms your team wears.

Game settings in the FIFA 10 for iPhone are also quite extensive. Set the half length, turn on certain rules, like off-sides, extra time, injuries, and CPU strength. Display options let you choose what score you want to see, player names, CPU Average, Auto replay, classic camera, and Player Names. Kick Off lets you play in classic mode, or “Be A Pro”. The game modes you can choose are Manager Mode, Tournament, Be a Pro, Training and Penalty Shootout.

Start out with either training or penalty shootout to get a sense for the virtual joystick on the iPhone. We’ve played many games that try to emulate the joystick on the iPhone and we have to say, that FIFA 10 has done a damn good job at making the digital joystick feel real, and responsive. Drag it around a circle to move players in any direction. You can either drag your thumb over the control pad or use the accelerometer to control your player. When your thumb is at the edge of the pad, the player starts to sprint, and if you are using the accelerometer tap C to sprint. Tap B to switch players, and hold B to call in a second player for help. Tap A to pass and the controls are touch sensitive, so the longer you hold them, a power meter displayes how the shot strength goes up. Double tap A for long pass. Slide from A>B>A to perform a 1-2 pass. When you’ve got the ball try sliding your finger off B to do a skill move. Tap B to shoot, again the longer you hold the stronger (and less accurate) the shot becomes. Double tap B for a controlled shot. Taking free kicks is fun as you can drag your finger towards your target, and you have to do it pretty fast, so you can get a powerful shot off. Penalty kicks are sort of similar, as you drag your ball to the place in the goal you want to hit, the faster the better. If you’re the goalie, drag the hands to dive for the ball in any direction, assuming you guess correctly. When in training mode, you can pause to try penalty kicks, free kicks, left and right corners, or go back to free training mode.

Tournament mode lets you play previously saved matches, and manage every last detail of your team. If you wanna try your hand at being a manager, try Manager mode and build up your prestige as you achieve objectives for each season, such as “Finish in top 3, or Win at least 19 league games” etc. All teams and clubs have authentic uniforms and actual players with names shown on the screen when any players has possession. From Barcelona to Brazil, manage the world’s best, and play for prestige and glory. Load in seconds and get ready for action! There is even a feature in FIFA 10 where you track a player in multiple seasons and get him to build up his skills to become a superstar.

Tap Wi-Fi connection to join a match, host a match, host a penalty shootout, or host Be a Pro match. FIFA 10 then looks for players to join. During our tests, we were never able to get any players, so we can’t comment on the online gaming of FIFA 10 on the iPhone. If you have tried it and have feedback, be sure to post your experiences here.

The only complaint we have is how fast it drains our iPhone battery. Overall, FIFA 10, for iPhone from EA Sports, is a 10 dollar iPhone game worth every penny for the amount of action packed it packs in. Two thumbs way up!

Here is a video demo of the FIFA 10 by EA SPORTS app on the iPhone

AppSafari review of FIFA 10 by EA SPORTS was written by Joe Seifi on October 3rd, 2009 and categorized under App Store, Featured, Fun, Games, Sports. Page viewed 7901 times, 2 so far today. Need help on using these apps? Please read the Help Page.