FIFA 99

"One Of The Best On Playstation"

When it comes to football games for Playstation my opinion is that they are usually slow,hard to control and have rubbish graphics, most of those describe all the FIFA games on Playstation, every one of them apart from FIFA 99 that is, for FIFA 99 leaves the phase where play was jerky and unsteady and is before EA decided to make it more complicated, its just right and any football fan who owns a Playstation should have it.Heres why

Graphics:
Pretty good, better than the FIFA games before but the graphics could still be improved thats not to say that it doesnt equal the graphics of this game on the N64 which is a fairly good achievement. The stadiums look good the pitch looks real and whilst the players are pretty square looking atleast they have faces (Olympic Soccer) so overall this is one of the games plus sides.

Gameplay:
This is where it really improves from those FIFA games before it, whilst they were slow and jerky this is fast paced and smooth making it easy to pass,shoot and run past players. Thats not saying the game is hard though crank up the difficulty level and try playing the computer then. Overall on the gameplay front this is a massive improvement on some dire attempts beforehand on the Playstation.

Length:
Well it has tons of options seriously you can do just about anything on this game, it has the national sides and a huge range of clubs, the difficulty always makes it longer and they have thrown in various tournaments and leagues and to make it all far more enjoyable you can create your own team on the game and edit the players,this is probably the first football game to include the feature of making kits and individual club names, come think of it its one of the only ones.

Sound:
Well it keeps up the one good thing about previous FIFA games and that is the sound. The realistic commentary is improved once more in this game and unlike the ISS games you wont hear the same phrase twice in 30 seconds. Jon Motson shows no signs of getting bored of doing the FIFA games so thats good and in the menu screens we are treated to some great music (at the time) and there is always the realistic in game sound effects

Overall:
Well apart from some of the ISS games it is the best on Playstation and certainly the best FIFA game and a huge improvement from some pretty plain ones beforehand, everything has improved in this game and if you are a football fan you cant do without it in your Playstation collection.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/07/03