FIFA Soccer 2002

"Soccer at its best"

Introduction

The most popular sport in the world has a new game and it’s better than ever. Incredible ball control, great cinematics, qualify to the World Cup, great players and precision passing.

Gameplay 9/10

This game has 4 gameplay modes.
*Friendly, an Exhibition match between any 2 national or league teams.
*Season, a full season with the team of your choice playing in their respective league.
*Tournament, choose from any official FIFA tournament. At first you have only 2 tournaments but as you Qualify to World Cup (see below) you will unlock more.
*Qualify to World Cup, take any International team to the biggest sporting event.

The last 3 gameplays demand lots of hours of play, giving this game lots of durability.

Once you have chosen your gameplay mode, you start your game. There is a major change in the passing, before you just pointed who you wanted to pass to, pressed the pass button and the ball will go to the chosen player, but now you aim towards the player or area you want to pass, press the button but instead of just passing the ball, a meter appears so you can select to power your pass, this can be a little hard at the beginning but in time it will be a major advantage allowing you do exploit major gaps in the defense.

The game has 3 difficulties, but there is a major change in the difficulty level, for example, you play in the easiest level and keep on winning by a lot of goals, so you think: “why don’t I try the next level”, big mistake, the team you just beat by 4 goals is now beating you by 3 and not letting you get shots on goal, it takes a while to get used to the new difficulty, but it’s nothing
impossible.

The controls are very responsive, they have to be to allow a good passing game.

Story

If there is something that has a resemblance to a story in this game it’s the season, where you play in the league, but in certain leagues you play in other tournaments. You can also hire the best players to make your team even better. In this mode you will spend a lot of time either beating the English Premier League with Manchester United or the best league in the world, “La Liga” in Spain with Real Madrid.

Graphics/Sound

The graphics are great. The players are very detailed. When you score a goal, get booked or there is a spot kick you see a cinematic reaction of the players, happiness of the players that score and anger of the others, their faces are so detailed they smile, the get pissed off and you can see it with great detail. The sound is good, you can hear the crowd sing or scream U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A. The crowd holds flags that look very nice and most if not all countries have their flag. The crowd sometimes get zoomed in and you can see the faces of joy.

Play Time/Re-playability

Like I stated earlier the Season, Tournament and Qualify to World Cup demand lots of gameplay time. The gap between difficulty settings will make you want to beat the computer, at first they’ll beat you by a land slide but this will make you a lot more eager to want to master and beat it. If you get tired of the computer you can invite a friend and test your skills.

Final Recommendation

If you really like the FIFA series this is a buy, if you rather play ISSS games, rent first, then choose.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 01/13/03, Updated 01/13/03