FIFA 07 review

Anthr yer, anoter FIFA. That might be a familiar introduction for regular Gamestyle readers, as it was the way a previous FIFA '07 review opened, except with odd little bits missing here and there. It neatly sums up the PSP version of FIFA '07 - missing a few bits but the game is still pretty much the same (and as good) as the home versions.Most impressively, this PSP version manages to keep the vast amount of football teams and players of the home versions - 27 whole leagues of them - which really should be enough for anyone. Importantly, the gameplay that impressed this year has been kept in place (ignoring a few little niggles that we'll get to later), and that was the main reason the other versions scored well. It might not quite be perfect, but there isn't enough get really annoyed about. It flows well, goals can easily be scored in a variety of ways with no real certainties, and with practice you get used to a few quirks (like stopping fast dribbling players). Generally it might not be the best football game, but it is a long, long way from being the worst.So what of this version? Some things have been changed due to technical limitations, certainly. It doesn't look as good as the PS2 version, although it does clearly use all the same artwork but with a few polygons removed here and there. It does still look good on the PSP and it's totally smooth, thankfully. Gamestyle presumes that a disc space limitation has been applied to the commentary which seems to repeat itself a lot more than on other versions (so turn it off). The EA TRAX have managed to make it through mostly, although sound quite tinny (so turn them off too). One other odd problem is that player rosters were compiled five days before the end of the English transfer window, which means Gallas and Cole aren't where they should be, amongst others. With the other versions not suffering from that, it certainly is strange.None of this affects the gameplay, but sadly a couple of other things do. Firstly, the PSP controls spoil a game, again, this time by lacking a second analogue stick which has relocated the tricks onto the directional pad, making them almost impossible to perform during play. It's not a massive loss but it does worsen the game. Sadly, it's impossible to see how they could have implemented it better, so there isn't much that can be said.The second problem is that the AI seems to have been affected by the transition to PSP which makes single player games less fun. It feels like it 'cheats' more regularly than the home version - suddenly coming back from several goals down, breaking away, seemingly impossible to stop. It also makes odd mistakes every now and again. It doesn't quite ruin the game, but it certainly doesn't help its case. It won't affect every match, but if you are sitting through the career mode, you'll notice it affecting a few results.The online multiplayer is simply a matter of setting up an EA account (postcode, date of birth, usernames and password twice), then being informed your username is taken and enjoying the suggestions of "RuleOf" and "tuff" instead, then doing the same for a "persona", then agreeing to let soccernet.com advertise to you so you can play without paying (gee, thanks), then downloading the online rosters and then you're at the lobby. Okay, so it wasn't simple. Thankfully it gets you into games almost instantly (even without that many people online) and once there it works well enough... sometimes. Of the few matches tried, only one or two were free of latency and the others either started laggy or got worse as it went on. It'll often mean the game stalls for a good few seconds and generally isn't very good. If you want to buy this for online multiplayer, the advice would have to be not to bother. Local multiplayer is better, but annoyingly isn't lag free either, although it is consistent. The problem where two people need to own the game persists here, but is probably lessened when it comes to a popular title like FIFA.It's fair to say that this is probably the best handheld football game available and certainly in the top two or three in anyone's book. However, compared with the home versions, this feels poor, like they knew the PSP version couldn't be as good so they didn't bother trying. It could easily have been brilliant, especially with clever features like sharing career modes between PS2 and PSP. It's unfair to say it doesn't feel finished; it feels like they just didn't aim that high. It's a shame, but it still just about ends up being a recommendation.