FIFA World Cup 2006 Preview

I'm not a big soccer fan (of football, depending on where you are), but I felt compelled to preview EA Sports' latest entry into the genre. Aside from some minor technical issues, it was a fairly pleasant experience.

First off - when I attempted to install the demo, I was repeatedly told that I needed to install the latest DirectX 9.0c drivers, despite already having them. I tried installing the ones that came with the demo, as well as going to Microsoft's website for the latest update, but the installer would not comply. I eventually had to extract all of the program files myself to be able to try the demo.

The controls with my Nyko AirFlo EX pad were excellent. Seeing as how the pad isn't officially supported by the game, this shows great adaptability to the controls. This is a good thing since I couldn't find any way to customize them myself. On the test system (1.6 Ghz AMD Athlon XP, Radeon X1600 Pro, 512 MB RAM), the game was glassy smooth on the default settings. The graphics were pleasent to look at and moved quite realistically.

And now on to the gameplay. As I said, I'm not a big soccer fan, but I do have a basic understanding of the rules and manner of play. In my view the play was akin to a pro match in that there was allot of passing, playmaking and tackling, and not a whole lot of shooting. However, I  definitely understand the physics involved, and those were on and off in this demo. The ball handling physics were quite good (although a little tough around the sidelines), but when 'tackling,' the players just seemed to go through each other a show up on the other side with the ball. This made it feel more like an SNES game from 1993 then a modern title from 2006.

All in all I enjoyed my time with the game. The technical performance of the game, combined with some good gameplay, makes this a title to look forward to for soccer fans. For everyone else though, 2006 FIFA World Cup's play is a little slow. You know which side of that equation you're on, so I'll leave you to it. Alphasim out.

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